The Force Wills - Chapter 88 (Patreon)

The primary headquarters of the 205th on Drongar was laid out in a standard circular fashion of modular base construction and ring roads to potentially house more than thirty thousand troops if it had to. The base was on one of the largest landmasses of the southern hemisphere, known only as Tanlassa.

Every planetary base had unique challenges in piecing together and laying down the modules on the surface, which also informed the layout and other adaptations where necessary. In this case, the 20 000 acres of jungle that would normally have been blasted clear to make room had been cleared the hard way by hand tools and the elbow grease of droid and clone.

Also important to prevent flooding in the base from the near constant overhead monsoon, was a drainage system that fed directly into the neighboring marshlands.

M8 was directly interfacing with the local Republic network and guided me through the streets and blocks of double stacked housing, industrial, storage and administrative modules. The majority of everyone walking around were clone troopers but there was the occasional utility droid and a few random non-clone naval and army officers. They were distinguished by the heavy rain coats hanging over their uniforms.

The other odd thing missing from the picture was the fact that there were no speeders of any kind on the streets - everyone was walking and jogging to get from A to B in the base.

That no one had retrofitted or built something as primitive as a four wheeled electric vehicle to help things along was again due to the hyper oxygen environment. Why go to the trouble to build that when it’d rust into uselessness within a month. The streets were also quite muddy, despite the drainage system and I could imagine that a wheeled vehicle would also bog down eventually.

The brisk walk to the central district of the base took nearly eighteen minutes from the landing pads on the outskirts.

I stopped in front of a tall modular building that clearly showed it was among the oldest; with all the moss and exterior rusting evident on it.

A tap on the controls caused the heavy exterior blast doors to part.

Inside was a decon airlock, which began spraying into the air a variety of chemical agents that M8 quickly analyzed as an unholy mixture of every anti-fungal that Republic science could manufacture. 

Afterwards, the air circulated again and her readings showed a significant drop in overall oxygen content. It was at least enough so I could remove my helmet indoors.

The last step of the cleaning process involved my feet, stepping into a recessed bath that cleaned off mud and other particulates.

“Scanning please wait…” announced the androgynous voice of a droid. “Scan complete. Sterilization with acceptable tolerances. Inner doors opening.”

I emerged into the typical wide octagonal hallway of these Republic bases, which was just a few degrees off from the industrial, brutal nature of future Imperial bases. The difference being there was still soft white, blues and reds used in the walls, whilst the floors were gray; lingering remnants of the original Kaminoan design for their clones.

“M8, disengage oxygen dampening,” I ordered. It would be rather embarrassing to pass out now.

The corridor branched off in three immediate directions, but my route took me straight to a ladder to climb onto the next floor.

A few left and right turns later, I stopped in front of the door labeled, ‘Laboratory 9’.

I tapped the entry chime.

Moments later the Force flexed somewhat from inside and the doors opened as the Jedi inside worked the controls from a distance.

Beyond was a rather large laboratory; wall mounted screens, desks aplenty with various instruments simple and complex mostly centered around chemistry and biological sciences. The lighting was rather muted inside, with the principal illumination actually coming from the screens of the various computers. It gave a rather eerie vibe to the place.

“One moment,” said a pleasant, rich baritone voice that felt like it was massaging my montrals.

It came from a figure in the corner of the lab, who had his face partially obscured in the viewing hood of a nanoscope, his body leaning over the device. 

Just from a passive reading, I could tell he was reasonably strong in the Force and his entire being was focused on puzzling out something. His right hand was tapping rapidly on a datapad next to the nanoscope, taking shorthand notes.

I kept my patience, waiting for the Jedi and idly examined the rest of the lab, noting an area to the right that was sealed off with a small airlock, beyond which were a number of bota plant cultivars in pots that had constant mist irrigation falling on them from above.

“Ah ha, there we go,” he said, making a last note before removing the hood and straightening himself.

I braced myself as much as possible, internally fortifying my mental defenses and bodily reactions. Despite all that, when Jedi Knight Zac Tedrad, properly walked into the minimal overhead lighting, it was still the equivalent of getting figuratively hit over the head with a bat.

If I had to properly describe it in words - imagine the most handsome male face you could possibly think of, with every feature you could ascribe to that; jawline, chin, nose, lips, then spin that into a unique combination. Flawless light pink skin on that face with dimples, soulful green eyes, then frame it with silver hair.

He was wearing the beige, brown and white of a Jedi, but that’s as far as it went. A nearly skintight bodysuit showed off a figure that had my hands twitching as I was struck with the impulse to want to run them over those glorious pecs and abs. I was somewhat thankful that he had not turned around yet, because I had no doubt his butt would be just as perfect.

His perfect face smirked ruefully and he covered his glorious body with a Jedi robe that was lying nearby on a chair.

It was enough to somewhat break his spell on me and I didn’t know whether to be grateful or angry that he had done so.

Bloody Zeltrons, I thought to myself.

Naturally, he had picked up on my stupefaction through the Force combined with his race’s inherent empathic abilities. There was still that lingering impulse to just jump him in the back of my hindbrain.

With regained mental composure, I bowed. “Greetings, Knight Tedrad. I’m Padawan Ahsoka Tano.”

“Pleasure and honor to meet you, padawan.”

His voice made my spine want to shudder with pleasure, knees turn to jelly, not to mention signals for lubrication to be released from between my legs, only my internal Control was dampening the effect of his pheromones.

“Honor?” I asked in confusion.

“Your exploits in the war with your master are rather well known,” he said gently with a smile that showed off his dimples.

“Of course, stupid question, never mind,” I coughed to clear my throat. Some of the pheromone effects were still sneaking through.

“How can I help you?”

I suppressed the first answer ‘You can take off that robe,’ and instead said, “It’s come to my attention that there is an illegal agreement between Admiral Bleyd and the local Separatist commander. Are you aware of it?”

Tedrad folded his arms, but my eyes were involuntarily drawn to his open robe and the effect this action had on his pectorals.

I was asking a question I already knew the answer to. None of Tedrad’s reports back to Coruscant mentioned anything of the sort and not one of the local Jedi could remain ignorant of Bleyd’s dealings. The admiral hadn’t exactly gone out of his way to keep his collaboration secret. Tedrad knew we were speaking ‘on the record’ at the moment and I was technically asking for his admission at the very least for failing to report this to the Jedi Council.

“Are you going to ask the other Jedi on this world the same question, padawan?” he countered with a pleasant smile.

“Yes, of course,” I said immediately. Looking for a single scapegoat was the last thing I wanted.

Tedrad nodded, “Then I can say, yes, Padawan Tano. I became aware of it in my third week here during a resupply run. At that point, I was well aware of the status quo on this nightmare world. A status quo that has effectively trapped both sides in it. The Separatist Commander is a muun, by the name of Rersh Plaith. From what I understand, it was he who first reached out to Bleyd.”

“Really?” I asked in astonishment.

“Yes, and one thing you can count on from a muun with his back to the wall, is to somehow talk and negotiate his way out of it. Plaith wanted to save his own skin and as you know, Dooku doesn’t tolerate failure. On the one hand, he had to get useful amounts of bota off the planet, but on the other, properly fighting for it risked destroying the very resource everyone was here to get. He couldn’t go back to Raxus Prime empty handed and survive. So he did what was unthinkable at the time and reached out a hand to his enemy.”

Tedrad pulled a chair forward and sat down on it with a weary huff. My hands twitched as I imagined caressing those wonderful abs.

“Bleyd was initially skeptical and at first rebuffed any attempt by Plaith to negotiate, but the reality of conditions on this world became quickly clear to the admiral. This is where I think Bleyd’s sakiyan nature took hold. Honor is incredibly important to them and he is also a cunning and ambitious individual. He considers this posting to be a backwater, totally unworthy of his talents and command. Failing here in his mission was unacceptable on a deeply personal level, so eventually he accepted Plaith’s increasingly desperate attempts at communication.”

“And now we have what is in effect a carefully managed ground war on this planet,” I said with a nod of understanding.

“Correct, Padawan Tano. I was the third of the four Jedi on this planet to arrive. The previous two agreed that maintaining this status quo was for the best, given the nature of life and consequently the Force itself on this world. I agreed and so did the one who came after me when we persuaded her. I’m curious, have you sensed it, padawan?”

I warred within myself on whether to admit it at all.

My senses spread out into the lab, then into the probability lines of prescience, one of which nearly broke my concentration with embarrassment.

“Yes,” I eventually answered, suppressing the blood flows that would’ve resulted. “There are no words in Basic to describe the nature of the Force here. Calling it merely ‘stronger’ is an understatement and merely scratches the surface. You could say it’s a Force Nexus, but again it’s like blind men touching various parts of a bantha and each saying it’s a different animal.”

Tedrad was surprised and showed his delight at my analogy with a brilliant smile that threatened to turn me into gooey mush, “Impressive padawan. I hope you let me borrow that saying. You’re correct, the Force here has what I like to call an undifferentiated potential. How well versed are you in biology?”

“I was a year short of gaining my full Healing credentials at the Temple, when the Force carried me on a different path,” I revealed.

“Excellent, come look at this.”

He walked over to one of the larger wall mounted screens and started tapping on the controls. I walked to the other side and suppressed the stupid impulse to rip his robes off with the Force to get a look at his butt. Stupid hormones, stupid pheromones, stupid zeltrons.

He brought up an image of microscopic cell clusters, then zoomed in further to the internal mechanisms of those cells, showing their inner workings and organelles.

I spotted immediately what he was trying to show me. “Multifunction internal organelles, which adapt on the fly to changing conditions.” He nodded with a smoldering smile, another push of a button, it zoomed in to show the genetic structure. My eyes widened as I took it in. “This mutagenic factor is off the charts. Forget millions of years for evolutionary adaptation, this timeframe is merely years.”

“Precisely. We have had to change our decontamination agents and protocols four times already in the last six months, because the spores literally evolve against whatever we devise. As much as the clones are out there fighting, I’m in here fighting against the very biology of this planet, even as I try to study and use it.”

“The bota plant strengthens a Jedi’s connection to the Force, have you determined how?”

He nodded, then switched the image on the screen. “These are bota plant cells. Watch carefully.”

I focused on the numerous cell clusters displayed, trying to see anything odd or out of place…

The cells were just sitting there, doing what all cells did; consume food, deliver energy, get rid of waste products, divide… clearly use the Force to move in a microscopic equivalent of Force Speed?!

I resisted the urge to gape stupidly at the screen.

If these cells used the Force instinctually to perform their functions, then when they were ingested by a Force sensitive…

“This is safe?” I asked faintly.

“No negative side effects observed in any test subject, nor in long term simulations.”

“How many subjects have there been?”

“Eight Jedi, the team of five explorers who first discovered it. They are under long term monitoring at an undisclosed facility. Then three of us who are currently on Drongar with me serving as a control subject.”

“No differences in various species reactions?” I asked next.

“None so far, chalactan and alderaanian were the human variants, iktotchi, mirialan and a nautolan were the others.”

“What degree of improvement has been seen?”

“It’s naturally difficult to quantify the Force, despite the tests that exist. But so far, objective improvements have been measured in the strength of their Alter Environment and Internal Control powers. Stronger telekinesis and greater ability to affect change in their own person. One of the subjects even reported that they developed an affinity for telepathic connection which hadn’t been there at all beforehand.”

I pulled my gaze away from the screen and looked at Tedrad’s face. He was silently asking me a question in the mild handsome gaze and soulful eyes.

“You wish for me to be the ninth test subject,” I said aloud.

“While I don’t expect there to be any difference because of your species, you would be the first subject with a homeworld from the northern sectors of the galaxy. It’s a gamble but there might be a unique reaction. The chance of that is vanishingly small admittedly, but I’d not be a scientist if I didn’t take advantage of having you here.”

I pushed my senses down more probability lines, rather annoyed at how the number of embarrassing ones involving Tedrad in some way was increasing. Seeing those were steadily building up my own general horniness for lack of a better word and I would definitely have to ‘take care’ of myself when I found my assigned quarters down here. Making it worse, was that he was definitely picking up on my steadily increasing state of arousal.

Yeah, agree and get out of here, Ahoska, I grumbled to myself. Yet the other part of me wanted to stay and… nope… 

Grief, the guy was roughly nine years my senior and probably had all manner of people eventually fawning over him. He didn’t mind, given that he was zeltron, but I wonder how he reconciled his people’s general hedonistic ways with being a Jedi.

“Very well,” I coughed and cleared my throat uncomfortably. “How will it be administered?

He walked over another table and handed me a long thin box with a dozen small sealed bottles inside, each holding no more than fifty milliliters of a clear liquid that had a slight sheen.

“Orally, this is essentially bota tea. Except we didn’t dry the leaves out.”

“You boiled the leaves in the water, and the cells survived?”

“Quite happily, high temperatures actually encourage its processes.”

I nodded in understanding, “Blood sample as a control?”

“Yes, please, padawan.”

I put down the box and pulled my helmet off. A bit awkwardly threading my lekku out of it after I fumbled it a bit.

Tedrad simply smiled wider at seeing my face, clearly pleased by what he was seeing.

I struggled to control my tells, even as I offered my neck.

He picked up a hypo gun from a nearby table and placed the end on my neck. I felt a slight hiss and a thump on the skin there.

“Thank you, Padawan Tano. Drink the tea before every meal you eat.”

“I will,” I said quickly, putting my helmet back on and fumbling the thing again in my haste.

More haste, less speed, Ahsoka, I grumbled inwardly.

His expression didn’t vary one bit, but I knew he was slightly disappointed that I had covered my face up. I also realized he was using his racial empathy at this point - projecting his feelings. He felt that it was a pity I adhered to my Mandalorian customs to cover my face as much as possible. He thought it was beautiful, exotic and pretty.

I felt honestly flattered even if I wasn’t vain enough to take that to heart.

“Thank you, Knight Tedrad. I m- m- must be going.”

“Force be with you, Padawan Tano. Keep a close eye on yourself and document all changes you notice.”

I nodded and walked as fast as possible for the lab exit without seeming like I was fleeing the room.

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There was no problem in finding me an officer sized billet on base, in a collection of troop housing modules that were mostly empty.

I showered and took care of all my current necessities. Then I drank my first dose of bota tea with lunch I had grabbed from the local mess hall.

It would’ve been nice to just relax in my undies behind the small desk of these quarters, but there was still work to do today. 

I had a Juggernaut Tank to catch.

The giant fifty meter long, ten wheeled war machine was the only vehicle that could traverse the jungles and marshlands of Drongar with any reasonable speed. It was also the only way I could reach one of the other Jedi on the planet, who was assigned RMSU 5.

My investigation had to be thorough and I couldn’t just rely on interviewing a single Jedi. Anyone objective looking at a report solely based on that interview, would rightly be worried that a zeltron Jedi had unduly influenced me.

With M8 scanning the local network, I found the resupply schedule that had been drawn up for supplies being shuttled down to the surface and further distributed by Juggernauts to the various troop companies and field hospitals.

Juggernaut A634, a cargo transport refit, was due to leave in the afternoon for RMSU 5, which was currently located three hundred and twenty kilometers northwest from the HQ. A given estimated travel time was four hours under current conditions, assuming nothing went wrong.

“Mistress, I’ve encountered an anomaly in the local Republic data network,” M8 announced suddenly.

“Show me.”

M8 manipulated my armor’s hand to project a holo onto the desk.

It showed her own map of the local IT infrastructure; every desk terminal, linked datapad with a real time location, droid and industrial machinery. It was an exhaustively thorough map as typical of M8. She even listed temporary connections from Juggernaut tanks and shuttles.

The map zoomed in and a datapad was flagged that only temporarily connected itself once every day for just five seconds. The time of connection was random, but the five second duration was exact and stayed the same, down to the millisecond.

“That looks like an automated program running.”

“Yes, mistress. Seemingly normal, but there is no location data for it.”

“Now that is suspicious. The network wouldn’t accept any terminal access request if no geodata came with the request, yet it’s still happening. What else?”

“I scanned the broader network to find out why this acceptance was going through. There was an exception placed in the main data hub a few months after it was brought online, rather cunningly hidden in a background program operating at a kernel level. I’ve gone over the exception instruction with all my abilities and can find nothing hidden or encrypted. It indicates that it was authorized by Admiral Bleyd.”

“Why would he do that? He should have full access to the network anyway on any terminal,” I asked to myself, thinking hard. “Unless, he needed to give someone else clandestine access that couldn’t be normally traced. After all, who would think that an exploratory droid as fantastic as you would show up.”

“Mistress, if I were capable of blushing, I would be doing it.”

I chuckled, “Can you determine the data that’s being pulled during the five second window?”

“Bota plant harvesting schedule, storage, quantities and security.”

“Of course it is,” I said wryly. “Now why would the good admiral do such a thing? The simple answer would be that he wants someone else to have it. Someone who isn’t in the chain of command or ordinarily has no rights to that information. Now the question is who and how to find out?”

I bounced the thought around a bit in my mind, coming to a number of possibilities, none of which I liked.

“M8, I want you to inject a little extra coding into that exception.”

“With what purpose, mistress?”

“To report the location data, but still make it appear as if it’s not requiring that. Can you do that?”

“Yes, mistress. It’ll require a few minutes of computing cycles, for which I apologize.”

“What have I told you, M8?” I asked sternly.

“No apologies for not being as good as dedicated droids to a specific task?”

“You wear many hats, my friend.”

“I don’t wear hats, mistress,” she retorted cheekily.

I rolled my eyes at her intentional misunderstanding and tapped my comlink. “Tano to Resolute, I’m going to need some extra help down here.”

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“Welcome to Drongar everyone,” I said with sarcastic cheer.

The rain had downgraded itself from monsoon to a mild shower at this point, but conditions were still miserable. The rapid thunder of an electrical storm passing by the base on the horizon gave an ominous air to the afternoon, making it sound very much like an artillery barrage thumping into our ears and montrals.

Chewie's feet sank a few inches into the mud with every step and Ursa Wren’s squad of Mando Blades bore the planet’s discomfort with grim stoicism, but I sensed each one was a cloud of disgruntled annoyance.

The colossal form of Juggernaut Tank A634 towered over us, the assigned clone crew packing the last boxes of supplies into the rear hold by hand.

“Manda’lor,” Ursa greeted with a Mando salute.

I eyed the long forms of the Drongar slugthrower rifles and ammo backpacks slung on their backs, vibroblades and sonic pistols sheathed on their hips. “Did you get much practice with those?”

“We are barely adequate, manda’lor,” she answered stoically, but clearly unhappy. Barely adequate to Blade standards would probably pass muster in any number of spec ops forces from old Earth. 

“Good enough considering the circumstances, get on board and your warriors settled in.” I approached Chewie and the wookiee was not looking pleased being ensconced in the fully sealed Aegis he had worn in the oceans of Dac. “Sorry Chewie, but the spores on this world are not something you want nestling in all your hair. The chemical brew that would be required to clean you would be fatal and the only other option would be to shave you completely.”

“Can we go to a nice world next time?” he complained.

“I don’t decide these things, Chewie,” I chuckled. “Now come on, there’s a hospital unit and troops that badly need these supplies.”

We climbed the very steep embarkation ramp and entered the Juggernaut’s hold.

The only difference between the combat version and the transport versions of these tanks was the interior seats being stripped out to make room for pallets and boxes. We squeezed through the rows of these and approached an interior bulkhead door, before climbing into the cramped confines of the tank proper.

Poor Chewie had to walk rather severely hunched to make it through the narrow main central corridor of the tank. It usually had a crew of twelve excluding the gunners, but since we couldn’t use any of the heavy weapons there was no need for them.

The tiny command center of the tank was buried within the main hull, just behind the forward nose section. That was a slight misnomer though because the Juggernaut’s fore and aft were technically interchangeable.

There were drivers for the forward wheels and rear, depending on which direction the tank was moving itself.

Each tank had to be commanded by a major, given that you could potentially fit four companies of clones into it. That would be under normal circumstances. This mission requirement didn’t need such a high ranking clone though, so we only had a senior lieutenant in command.

“Welcome aboard Commander Tano,” Lt. CT-9430 or Dozer as he was commonly known, awkwardly stood up from his commander seat to salute me. Like all the clones on Drongar, his armor had wear and tear, but considerably less than what you’d expect.  

“Thank you, Dozer,” I returned the salute. “Shall we be underway?”

“At once, commander. Do you wish to take a seat in the commanding officer’s observation dome?”

“It’s not necessary, Dozer. I don’t need my eyes to be aware of what’s out there. Chewie and I will just take the foldout seats next to the map screen.” I jerked a thumb to the large screen in question.

“Understood, ma’am.”

“Also the Mandalorian Blades will position themselves near the upper hatch. They will act as our first rapid response force in case of an attack.”

“I’ll make sure my men don’t get in the way, commander.”

“That is all I ask. This is still your tank, lieutenant. Just think of me as the admiral of your land ship.”

Dozer felt slightly confused at first but quickly got it. “Right ma’am. Sergeant, start her up, slow and steady out the base.”

“Roger Lt,” said the clone driver, flicking a number of switches around his chair before grabbing a hold of a yoke steering column and a throttle.

The tank rumbled to life, its onboard reactor whining sharply before settling into a steady cadence. The forward wall of the command center was dominated with a high fidelity holoscreen showing a view of the road leading out of the base; everything seemed so small from this viewpoint.

The sergeant did a final check of his screens and readouts before putting hand onto the throttle and pushing forward slightly.

Juggernaut tank A634 released its brakes and began a slow 20kph roll forward.

Given the sheer mass and momentum involved, even that speed would be enough to utterly wreck any structure in the base if the driver made a mistake. That was thankfully not the case and the routes the Juggernaut took were well marked. The tank also had a distinctive warning alarm blaring outward to warn everyone that it was coming.

Tanks of this size also had to exit the base from a specific point in the barrier fence that was only secured by a shield, as the sheer size required of a physical gate was totally impractical. 

The tank surged forward up to 50 kph to clear through the deactivated shield zone as quickly as possible. Then turned slightly left to take a well worn route through the jungle that had been practically bulldozed by the passage of many Juggernauts over the months.

This meant our speed could increase to 90 kph with little issue and the only thing slowing us down was the variable gradients in the terrain. That benefit of speed naturally came with the drawback that the roads created by the tanks were very obvious and known to the enemy. The passage of a Juggernaut was not exactly stealthy in terms of visibility and noise.

My eyes turned to the sensor station and the crewman working there. The jungle on either side of the road was mostly below the upper hull of the tank, but on some stretches began to tower over it. It almost looked like a huge blocky whale swimming through a sea of green from above.

The scanners had quite a lot of trouble penetrating into the dense jungle, with the exception of laser and magnetic based scans. This let the tank at least see as far as the terrain allowed, which was rather hilly as you left the base in a north-westerly direction.

“All this, just for a plant,” Chewie growled uncomfortably. His fold out seat could barely hold him and reminded me of an adult trying to sit in a kiddie chair. He ended up having to support himself by pushing a hand against the ceiling of the cramped command center and tucking in his legs. The rocking and shaking of the tank was so bad now that I had to strap myself in at this point, due to the bad terrain we were wading through.

I didn’t fault Chewie for his grumbling, although he well knew what potential bota had if its secret could be unlocked and replicated for the whole galaxy. 

Whether that would happen was something that was still up in the air. Prescience showed me futures where it didn’t happen and others where it did, but only in a limited fashion. The events on this world were in a curious state of flux and it had something to do with the odd nature of the Force on Drongar.

It was a tantalizing mystery and puzzle wrapped up in a way that I understood why a Jedi scientist like Tedrad was fascinated by it.

My eyes pulled back to the immediate present and future.

I settled my head against the backrest and fell into a light meditation.

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Our journey continued for just over three hours in a similar fashion, until we emerged from a break in the continent-spanning jungle into an area known as the Jasserak Highlands.

The sightlines opened all the way to the horizon, but here the vegetation changed to a forest of strange alien fungal trees that grew for kilometers in every direction. The colors were a bizarre mix of blues, orange, purples and greens that looked like someone had been practicing splatter art when they had designed them. I also saw what had to be a fruit of some kind growing from the branches, which were being eaten by packs of dog-like mammals known as Rontu.

The transition from hill terrain to higher flats was also the ideal spot for an ambush but none occurred.

On any other world or battlefield, supply line attacks, ambushes and deep strikes in enemy territory were fair game.

Drongar was different in that there was no regular airborne transportation possible. Every asset you had that was made out of durasteel had to be carefully utilized. The tank we were using was only a few months old, but it looked like it had years of service under its belt. I didn’t envy the CIS having to keep a droid army in working order on this world. In that respect, the GAR had a long term advantage with its flesh and blood army of clones.

The tank could open up its throttle nicely now and began pushing speeds of 120 kph.

We crossed the Jasserak Highlands in just over one and a half hours, before dipping down into the lowlands again. 

It was here that I saw the first example of bota fields in nature.

A plant that stood at hip height, with a silvery-white flower, shaped like a teardrop on thin green stalk.

The field we were driving beside stretched for kilometers to our east, draped like a precious carpet over the earth. It swayed slowly in the breeze and shuddered with each drop of rain that landed on the flower.

Small hovering droids, shaped like spheres with tiny manipulator arms, were carefully tending to the field and a company of clone troopers on patrol duty was watching over them.

Even as I watched, I saw a droid shudder and fall as its small repulsor field failed to keep it airborne, its useful life expiring. Another droid stopped what it was doing and picked up its fallen comrade to carry it away from the field.

It was handed off to a clone tech waiting at the edge, who would try to repair it from the huge kit he lugged around on his back.

The bota field was left behind and the flora changed to eerie fields of what was called croaker bush. Named as such for the sound they made when the waxy leaves rustled against each other in the breeze.

We left the lowlands behind and plunged into the jungle again.

Our destination was close, the probability lines shifted and narrowed into certainty.

I tapped my comlink, “Ursa, two companies of droids, B2s, rapidly approaching from starboard. Lt. Dozer, go to combat alert.”

“Taking off now, manda’lor.”

Dozer slammed a button on his chair, and the tank’s internal lighting dimmed to dark red. “All right boys, get your sluggers and sonics locked and loaded!”

I unlatched the harness from my seat, ducked out of the command center and walked a few meters to the open upper hatch.

A quick jump and I landed outside on the upper hull of the tank, immediately ducking to prevent the rushing 80 kph wind from blowing me off.

My boot jets flared and I took to the air following Ursa’s presence in the Force.

By the time I landed among the Blades they were already engaged with the enemy.

They had formed a skirmish line using the trees as cover and the rapid concussion of slugthrowers from both sides echoed underneath the jungle canopy.

Most trees were thick enough to at least soak a few shots from the B2s, firing their own slugthrowers retrofitted onto their right arms. The beskar’gam could stand up to these bullets in our own testing, but it was not an experience that could just be shrugged off. The velocity and mass of the bullets still meant it was like getting a punch from HK when he was in a friendly mood and wanted your meatbag self to continue to entertain him.

A pair of my warriors were already down and receiving first aid from the squad medic behind the cover of the thickest tree. Only a passing thought was given to helping there, but I had the survival of the whole squad to consider.

Among the B2s I could already count fifteen destroyed, all from mass Whistling Bird launches, the smart munitions targeting sensor clusters and the ammunition packs on the rear of the B2s. Modern slugthrowers didn’t use what I’d call black powder or even nitrocellulose smokeless powder, for that you’d have to go to the guns of the Tusken Raiders on Tatooine. Instead it used two binary highly reactive chemical formulations that were forced together to produce the gas to propel the projectile. It delivered more energy but at the cost of being more volatile. Not that the droids or the CIS cared.

The result for the B2s was devastating.

Their rear armor wasn’t as thick as the frontal faces. A typical cost cutting measure from the CIS, who thought that the droids would always be facing their enemies anyway in most circumstances.

I pushed forward in a burst of Speed, dodging left and right as I moved to avoid slugs.

Then came to a stop in the skirmish line behind a thick tree, placing my hands on the soft jungle floor, the decaying plant matter crinkling between my fingers.

The Force surged as my perceptions connected with the matter around me, my will plunging into the earth.

Large sections of cover burst upwards with eruptions of moist loamy sand in front of my troops.

Without needing prompt or order, they immediately dived behind it, their large rifles roaring at the enemy, the large spent cartridge casings tinkling to the ground.

A B2 was hit by multiple rounds, the HESH projectiles erupted with brief flares of shaped explosions. Barely moments later it toppled forward as its internal components were thoroughly shredded with supersonic shrapnel bouncing around inside.

Seven others suffered similar fates simultaneously through the coordinated fire of the Blades.

The volume of fire from my troops slacked as they reloaded and slapped new magazines into the top loading weapons.

I bought them time by shooting every heavy rock and stone larger than a football I could gather from the ground around the enemy in kinetic strikes. Targeting the ammo packs of the B2s, I manage to kill seven in one barrage and foul the balance and aim of the others. My will also pulled on the ground underneath the B2s, causing a large number of them to topple backward.

The Blades didn’t waste the opportunity, their volleys of fire cutting down the enemy with merciless efficiency.

A full company of B2s were now destroyed but the second company behind them stepped over the wreckage of their brethren.

I delayed them further by taking inspiration from the actions of the cute furry bipeds on a certain forest moon.

Two trees that towered all the way up to the jungle canopy with thick trunks ruptured at their base in just the right way. A bit of TK to guide it and then I let gravity do the rest.

Eight B2s were crushed and hammered into the forest floor instantly.

This also doubled as a handy obstacle that the droids couldn’t climb over.

The Blades took immediate advantage, rushing forward and towards the new cover of fallen trees I had built for them.

A number of them raised their left arms to point upward and unleashed a Whistling Bird volley.

Hundreds of smart projectiles shot upwards, then turned over and dove for the approaching enemy.

The lethal rain of projectiles fell.

Seventeen B2s died in the next moment as the round drilled into the small vulnerable sensor clusters before detonating.

The Blades poked their large slugthrowers over the fallen tree and began firing.

When their magazines ran dry again, I repeated the same trick, crushing more droids with trees.

They vaulted over their cover, advancing forward again.

I brought down more trees, this time behind and to the side of the enemy.

Completely boxed in, the Blades poured fire into the remaining droids.

When the enemy numbers were whittled down to a bare handful, they stopped firing and six Blades ignited their jetpacks.

Vibroblades were drawn and they descended on the droid remnant with fairly impressive Falling Avalanche attacks.

To aid in this I launched a volley of rocks that fouled the B2s gun arms, pushing them out of position.

Vibroblades cleaved through armor with discordant shrieks of tortured metal and sparks of shorting energy played over the B2’s forms.

The remaining Blades joined their comrades in the kill box I had built and drew their swords to finish off the enemy.

I rose from my kneeling position, normalizing my senses and hurried back to the medic.

One of the injured was out of the woods and leaning back against a tree, but the other Blade was clearly in a worse state.

“What’s the problem?” I asked, kneeling down next to the prone warrior.

The medic had already removed the beskar breastplate and had applied a number of bacta patches to the abdomen. 

“Three ribs are fractured badly, manda’lor. If he’s moved, it risks puncturing his left lung.”

I placed a hand on the shoulder pauldron of the warrior. M8 helpfully began showing me detailed scans of the man and his name. “We’ll get you out of here, Strist.”

“Y- y- yes, manda’lor,” he acknowledged through what was a considerable amount of pain.

My senses plunged into him and I immediately perceived what the medic had already scanned. Three displaced fractures directly where a bullet had struck and violently deformed the beskar plate. I immediately numbed that area, then with precision began carefully pushing the bones to realign into their proper places, carefully keeping the edges away from the lung underneath.

I grabbed calcium and other materials from his bloodstream, then began applying the Force itself to hyper accelerate a healing process that would normally take weeks. Even with that I only managed to create a patch job that would at least keep things together and remove the danger of the bones slicing his lung.

“He can move, but only carefully. You can reattach the plate. No deep breaths Strist and no flying, understood?”

“Yes, manda’lor. Thank you, manda’lor.”

I stood and tapped my comlink, “Ursa, you’re close enough to RMSU 5 for the squad to walk there. Strist and Shebba are in no condition to fly. Standard data salvage procedures from the droids. I’ll return to the tank.”

“Understood, manda’lor.”

I stood and took off at a running pace for the road.

When I had open sky above me again, my boot jets flared and I streaked into the air to follow in the wake of the Juggernaut.

Barely a few minutes of flight later, I brought my legs forward and flared my body to shed speed.

Tank A634 had already stopped at RMSU 5 and I used it as a convenient landing pad.

A fully deployed RMSU covered roughly the same amount of space as a football field, with the juggernaut tank chassis forming the central basis. Since they didn’t have to worry about aerial attack, they had bulldozed the jungle away to form an open clearing for the field hospital.

Clones and med personnel were already moving up and down the tank’s ramp to unload the new supplies, but it was also clear we had arrived in the aftermath of an attack on the nearby bota field and RMSU 5 itself.

Dozens of wounded clone troopers were being triaged in the open and to the north I could see the inert wreckage of B1 and B2 droids being policed and scanned by troopers.

“Ahsoka!”  

Chewie’s distinctive call came from the forward hatch of the tank as he climbed out onto the upper hull.

“Hey, Chewie, everything went relatively well here?”

“We arrived just as they came under attack, our reinforcement helped.”

“Good, any casualties among the tank crew?”

"One dead, three injured.”

That was the problem with firing slugthrowers from the Juggernaut. The only way was to shoot out of the forward and aft vision slits and open the armored transparisteel windows in them. Making everyone in those sections vulnerable.

“Master Jedi!”

My interlocutor waved up at me from the ground next to the tank.

I gave a nod to Chewie before jumping off the side and landing softly next to the armored figure carrying a helmet under his arm.

He was a middle-aged human and despite wearing a weather beaten set of Phase 1 clone armor, had patterns and insignia of a colonel on his collar, including the medical services insignia. 

He gave me a crisp salute after seeing my own naval rank. “Colonel D’Arc Vaetes.”

“Commander Ahsoka Tano,” I returned the salute.

“Pleasure to meet you, commander. I take it you’re leading the Mandalorian Blades that just saved our supplies and stopped us from being caught in a pincer.”

“That I am, colonel.” 

His prematurely graying mustache twitched with annoyance as the ever present rain became a monsoon again. The man had his head completely shaved and he held up the helmet to shield it briefly, before putting it on again.

“Thank you, commander. Now to what do I owe the visit of an elite unit to my lowly command?” he asked with a wry dash of self-deprecation.

“I need to speak to the Jedi you have stationed here.”

“She’s elbow deep in blood and guts in the theater wards, commander.”

“I’m in no particular hurry and can wait. The Blades have two wounded as well.”

“We’ll see to them here, commander.”

“Thank you. In the meantime, I offer my own healing services to your command.”

Vaetes titled his head, intrigued, “You’re as qualified as the Jedi healer we have?”

I nodded. Undoubtedly the healer would be more experienced than me, but my training in Mortis under Bendu’s tutelage had covered a lot of the gaps I had as a result of my own aborted time in the Halls of Healing.

“Then follow me.”

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I was put to work immediately in the triage ward.

It was a module attached to the main body of the RMSU, space was cramped and it almost felt like I was attending to a conveyor line of the wounded and dying. Most of the personnel were human nurses and doctors from core world regions, with a sprinkling of other races; pantoran, rodian, twi’lek and sullustan. They bustled to and fro from patient to patient, having to talk loudly and even shout over the roar of the rain outside. Med droids hovered in the air, carrying trays of medications, tools and in some cases even working alone on a patient.

Vaetes assigned me a nurse by the name of Kols Sonnu, a chalactan with light coffee colored skin and deep brown hair, worn in the traditional hooped braids of their people. Her medical grade skinsuit was stained with blood over her chest, but the antisepsis fields bathing everything in a soft yellow light made things much easier in that respect. She was my assistant and minder, but I also sensed the colonel had assigned her to me to make sure I could walk my talk.

My first patient was a clone who had just been brought in with a lower abdominal gut shot and he was screaming something fierce.

I placed my hand on his sweating forehead and I immediately deadened the pain.

“Easy trooper, easy,” I soothed, as he calmed down.

The bullet had been slowed down by his armor, but it now meant he had a fat lump of deformed lead sitting in his lower intestines and it had made an awful mess in there.

“Sonnu, you can go ahead.”

She nodded and immediately began pulling away the lower extremities of the trooper’s armor, dumping it on the floor next to the bed, where a cleaner droid immediately took it away.

“Slug’s coming out.”

The deformed piece of metal rose out of the wound like a bizarre reverse birth and floated out in the air. I had already pinched off bleeding with invisible TK fingers and was rearranging the intestines to a natural position and also gathering all the leaked digestive offal into a lump. Sonnu grabbed the bullet and dropped it to the floor, then waited with a silver tray and began scooping the offal I was pushing out. It was stained black with blood and not a pretty sight to look at but Sonnu didn’t blink. The organic body could clearly no longer disgust her.

Next step, I had to cut away some of the damaged intestine and reattach it, effectively shortening the trooper’s digestive tract by thirteen centimeters in the process.

A cut could be achieved by rubbing two small planes of kinetic force against each other, effectively creating an ethereal blade or scissor.

The damaged intestines also eventually emerged.

“Stitching please. Unroll it to a length of twenty-three centimeters.”

Sonnu did so and another TK blade cut it. It zoomed out of her hand and began inserting itself into the wound.

This delicate work took nearly nine minutes of intense concentration as I sewed the biological plumping together and any veins, stemming any possibility of internal bleeding. I laced an infusion of the Force into the cells that had to grow back together to encourage rapid localized healing.

I looked over the work, feeling satisfied that this was as good as it was going to get. He would be stable for now. Using the Force, I teased the sinew, diaphragm, muscle and skin around the gaping wound to close.

She gave a final scan with a handheld scanner to satisfy herself before bringing the bacta patch forward and placing it over the wound. It affixed itself painlessly onto the skin, going tight and beginning to release and circulate precious bacta over the wound.

“Next!”

The bed itself moved away from its position, hovering backward into a dedicated channel to move the patient to a recovery wing deeper in the RMSU.

It would be just the first of eighteen patients I would attend to. Some were easy, others were harder.

None died.

Though that was more because anyone who could reach the RMSU generally had survivable injuries. Deaths happened in the field on Drongar, not in the hospitals.

When the last patient hovered out of the triage ward over an hour later, I found a seat and wearily deposited myself in it. 

I had forgotten how mentally draining it could be to work in the healing business. Another reason why I didn’t persevere in it. It felt like you were doomed to be Sisyphus, constantly rolling his boulder up the hill only for it to roll back.

“Commander? You all right?” Sunna asked with concern.

“Yes, thank you-”

“Ahsoka?”

The familiar voice came from the door to the triage ward.

I looked up and smiled wearily, belatedly realizing my helmet wouldn’t allow her to see my expression. I disengaged the seals, pulled it off and rested it on my lap.

“Hello Barriss.”

I was now as technically as old as she was and I could tell from her expression that it clearly startled her. My Jedi peer had clearly ditched her Mirilian formality in the face of conditions on Drongar. She had a dark blue overall on, that looked more fitting for a starship mechanic and over that she was wearing a cut down Jedi robe.  

“Thank you, Sunna,” I smiled, meeting the nurse’s eyes pointedly.

She got the hint and bowed her head formally, before retreating out of the ward.

I stood and looked down on Barriss Offee as she calmly and serenely approached me. She waited until the nurse was gone before abruptly throwing herself forward, catching me in a hug. I sensed her sheer relief at seeing a familiar face again. Someone who wasn’t associated with this hellish world. I sensed that the trials she had endured here had left clear scars on her psyche.

My appearance was a lifeline and was clearly soothing her spirit.

For a very long twenty odd seconds we remained like that and I let her heal in a way that was more important than the body.

She found her composure again and stepped backward out of the hug, awkwardly wiping away a tear from her left eye, feeling ashamed, “Sorry. What you must think of me, losing control like this.”

"You have nothing to apologize for, Barriss.”

She nodded, but then I sensed her resolve something within herself. She grabbed my hand, pulling me away. “Come, let’s go to the cantina and you can tell me why and how you are practically my age.”

I chuckled and let it happen. “Well, I hope you don’t have somewhere urgent to be. It’s a long, convoluted tale.”

“That’s good, means we can buy more drinks.”

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A/N: Hope you enjoyed and have a great weekend. (It just started raining over my head as I typed this, completely out of season :-0 )