The Weaving Force: Chapter 59 (Patreon)

Chapter 59:

CT-853191417:

He felt the tremors rising up through his feet.

That wasn’t good.

He cast a look to his brothers, and, even with the helmets on, he could tell they knew exactly what he knew.

The Jedi, Hebert, had opened up a hole in the bloody floor with her Saber, ordering them to hide in the expansive tunnels beneath the city of Corellia itself. How exactly she knew where to cut to get them into the tunnels, he wasn’t sure, but here they were.

And the ground was still shaking.

Not the ceiling above.

The ground.

That meant that the ordnance being used to bomb the city above was of a high yield.

Whatever the enemy was bombing, they wanted to level it.

Then again, if the Jedi, a thousand strong, felt that they had to send their young shinies down here for safety, that they couldn’t fight off what was coming…

Well…

It must be bad.

The little red Shiny, the Twilek named Karla, who was tightly hugging the strange little… thing that had tried to eat 775589472’s helmet (according to him) glanced up, trembling.

853191417 patted the girl on the head. “Don’t be scared, Shiny. We’ll get you all out of here in no time,” he promised.

The twilek shook her head. “Not scared. Miss Taylor’s watching. She’ll keep us safe.”

The Trandoshan, Iskt, nodded, a confidence in the statement that was… odd. It seemed more than mere bravado.

“So, what’s your name?” 853191417 heard the Nautolan girl ask one of his brothers ahead of them, her small hand grasped in Brother 448672980’s.

“Don’t got one, li’l commander” 448672980 answered.

“...Did your mom and dad forget to give you one?” the Nautolan asked after a second or two of thinking about it.

448672980 chuckled, about to answer when the Twilek boy (“Decimus,” if 853191417 recalled correctly) interrupted.

“No stupid, they’re clones! Clones don’t have moms or dads-Ow!” Decimus cut off with a yelp, his hand jerking sharply as a tiny bug crawled over the back of his knuckles.

The thing clearly stung him, but curiously the boy didn’t wipe it away, mumbling instead a contrite, ‘Sorry, Miss Taylor.’ into empty air.

…

And people were saying Clones were brainwashed…

His HUD pinged; brother 218556611 was calling for a private chat between the six of them.

Shutting off his helm’s speakers, he responded, “Yeah, 21?”

“Sir, been sweeping comms.”

“What’s the word?” 775589472 asked.

“It's goin crazy up there. Full ground invasion. Infantry, armor, fighters, bombers. The works.”

Shit… “Numbers?” 853191417 asked.

“Too damn many.” 218556611 answered grimly. “Millions at the least.”

“Our brothers are dying out there.” 665928441 snarled, his first words since they were sent down here.

“If the odds are that bad, the Jedi was right to try and get the kids out. It’s not glorious work, but it's good wo-

“Wait… do you hear that?” 448672980 asked.

853191417 initially didn’t hear whatever his brother had, but, after a second, he picked it up.

A rumbling. Different from what he’d been hearing from the bombardment above.

He and his brothers tensed, rifles at the ready.

The rumbling changed, the echoing, hollow tunnels altering it…

“Is that… Buzzing?” he asked.

Suddenly, bursting out of the darkness came a living, crawling mass of black chitin.

“Shit!” 448672980 screamed, scrambling back, pulling the yelping Zai behind him as he started firing into the mass.

853191417 and the rest weren’t far behind.

Blue bolts burst out of his rifle, full auto fire ripping into the impossible mass of bugs-

Then the Trandoshan boy slapped his rifle down.

“The hell are you-?”

“Stop!” the Trandoshan hissed, needle like teeth bared in a snarl.

It wasn’t just him either, all the Shinies were frantically trying to get his brothers’ attention, demanding they stop shooting.

Like an ocean of crawling mandibles and claws, the mass of insects suddenly parted, coiling around them as the bulk of the swarm kept going towards the temple at their backs.

Except a handful of them, their bodies forming an arrow at their feet, pointing the way.

“Miss Taylor’s really mad,” Zaisk whispered.

…

“Ok… I’m officially creeped the fuck out.” 448672980 shuddered.

853191417 couldn’t blame him.

What in the nine Force-damned Corellian hells was that?

(X)(X)(X)

Stass Allie

When the Valorum fell from the skies, she’d been horrified. When the droids began to drop bombs and set fires across the whole of the city, her mind had begun to race, wondering how and what could possibly have happened on the galactic stage to set this sort of deliberate, hateful violence into motion against the people of Corellia.

And then the droids began to march on the temple, and she realized with mounting horror as she watched from her balcony: they weren’t attacking Corellia.

They were targeting the Jedi, themselves.

She could feel them now, all around her, everywhere. Her fellow Jedi. Candle flames that burned so brightly were now flickering, sputtering. Doused in fear, uncertainty and pain… before being violently and suddenly snuffed out.

The Temple was a defensible structure. Corellia and the Republic had not always been peaceful. But they were surrounded on all sides. More and more droids rode the howling engines of dropships down as more and more bombs and ground-shaking turbo-laser fire rained down on the shields from orbit above.

She was no great master of the blade. That was not her talent; her cousin Adi was a far better fighter than she was but neither could she sit by and do nothing as her fellow Jedi fought and died around her.

She rushed to join the defense.

The droids were endless. A tide of cold metal and red blaster bolts. Unceasing, unfeeling. They literally trampled over the corpses of their fellow droids and Jedi alike, relentless and implacable.

They were Jedi, strong and powerful. Gifted with the Force and abilities most in the Galaxy thought were fanciful tales and legends.

But even if each one of them felled a hundred droids… there were still a hundred more to replace each and every one of them. And each Jedi felled, by contrast, was a lifetime of study, practice, and effort. A death immeasurable in its loss, delivered by a machine that would be replaced in minutes on some assembly line.

Allie cried out as a bolt seared into her leg, slipping past her guard. Her fellow Jedi cried out her name, desperate to reach her and pull her to safety.

Her blade rose, instinct and reflex allowing her to deflect two bolts before a third burned across the back of her hand, a lucky shot that sent her saber clattering to the floor.

She felt time slow, her hand rising to hold back the volley of blaster bolts that would have taken her life right then, feeling the strain on her mind as she tried to focus on the blaster bolts, block out the shroud of death suffocating her and crawl back to the relative safety of the juncture behind her.

She felt certain, she was going to die here.

Then-

The clones came.

Surging forward in a tide of armor and blue blaster bolts, a wall of white clad bodies interposed itself between her and the death that had been closing in on her. Some fell, crying out as blaster bolts pierced that white armor, littering the marble hallways around her, but still, they pressed forward.

“Give the Jedi time to regroup!” she heard one clone bark through the speakers in his helmet.

“Come on, you Clankers!” another cried.

She felt a hand, hard as durasteel, squeezing like a tight coil around her wrist.

“This is her!” the clone said. “Ma’am. You’re coming with us!”

Before she could protest, the clone had ducked down, draping her arm over his shoulder and damn near carry her out of the hall, two of his clone brothers joining the battle behind him.

She hissed, her injuries jostling uncomfortably as she hobbled as hurriedly as she could with her free hand reaching to press down on her wounded hip.

They brushed past scores of uncertain Knights and Padawans, and she soon recognized that they were headed for the inner Council rooms at the heart of the temple. The effigy of the Corellian star that loomed large as it hovered on anti grav lifts in the center of the antechamber was normally a welcome sight, but she was not happy to see it..

We cannot simply abandon them!

She heard the cry come from a voice she recognized, Master Trebor. She’d never heard the calm and soft spoken master raise his voice, but he was doing so now.

They stepped into the room, she could see Master Plo immediately, standing by the council table, its central holo lit up to display the temple grounds and the encroaching red signals that were the droids.

“We’re going to have a hard enough time saving ourselves! Let alone going after the green fools beyond the shields!” Knight Krell sneered. The towering Besalisk Jedi was one of the more formidable combatants, and so, despite his rank, it made some sense for him to be here.

“Commander!” cried the clone who was half dragging, half carrying her into the room. “We’ve got her; she was right where you said.”

She thought the clone was speaking to Plo-Koon, so was surprised when, instead, the white-armored trooper marched straight past the Council and towards… Knight Hebert?

The black-shrouded woman had her back to them, head cast down, seemingly staring at something on the computer keyboard infront of her.

“You sent them to get me?” she asked, wincing as she settled her weight on her right leg.

“Healers don’t fight on the front,” the woman muttered under her breath. “Now, hush. I need to concentrate.”

Concentrate?

Allie focused, then, and felt it in the Force. Millions, billions of gossamer-thin threads spread out from the woman, a living web of spun starlight whose complexity sent shards of pain through Allie’s brain as she beheld it, even as she acknowledged it as beautiful.

She pulled away, returning to her senses in time to hear the Masters behind her escalating into a shouting match.

“We need to break through to the Starport!”

“Under orbital bombardment? Never mind the million droids!”

“Staying here and being slaughtered slowly is a better option? Even if the shields last, we can't defend this place.”

“You are hardly-”

“ENOUGH!” Plo-Koon shouted, his voice booming out of his mask. She’d never heard the venerable Master raise his voice, and the shock of it cowed his fellows. “Clones are dying to buy time for us to decide on what to do. Not bicker like children.” He turned his head. “Taylor, I need information. What are the sectors in the most immediate danger of falling?”

The girl turned, and the yellow-eyed mask that covered her face startled Allie.

“The west side is under the least pressure. The bulk of them there are going after the Green Jedi to make sure they can’t retreat. It's our only real ‘safe’ area, but that won’t last. South, where the library is, is a little better, but it's the least defensible structure. I already had to tear down a chunk of the building to buy time on the way here. The clones to the north say they can set up a crossfire in the training grounds, they can hold for some time. East is the priority.”

“Master Tapal,” said Plo Koon authoritatively.

The large Jedi Master straightened.

“I entrust the East to you. Gather the best Knights you can. I will join you once we have finalized a plan here”

Tapal nodded, half bowing. “It will be done, Master Plo,” he promised before turning to march out the door.

“I still say we should make for the spaceport,” Krell grumbled.

“They’d bomb us before we even made it halfway there,” Hebert declared.

“They’re not bombing the greens,” Krell pointed out with a snort.

“Because they’re trying to use them as bait. They’re betting more than half the people here want to go out and rescue them.”

That made the room go still. The realization that such a cold, brutal tactic was not only on the table, but very very plausible, sent a very real chill down everyone’s spines.

Master Plo’s features were hidden, but his voice was grim. “If that is the case… then it's clear these forces have come here to wipe out the Jedi in particular. They will not negotiate nor leave any of us alive. Given that we cannot hope to overcome the numerical advantage, we need an escape-”

“We have one,” Hebert interjected. “I’ve already sent my kids through the tunnels, we can escape that way. There’s just one problem.”

“What?”

“If we don’t let them think they’ve won, who’s to say they won’t just bomb this side of the planet until it's glass?”

Master Trebor reeled. “That’s… monstrous. It would violate every law and military convention; there would be-”

“A lot of talk that won’t help us once we’re dead,” Krell barked. “The Republic isn’t exactly known for backing its wasted air with action.”

“Taylor,” Master Plo prodded his student gently, “I know you. What are you planning?”

“If they want us dead,” she said with a shrug, “then we need to give them what they want. Make them think we’re dead.”

“How?” Krell demanded.

Master Trebor, still reeling and horrified at the conversation taking place, shook his long head. “They would not do this!” he insisted.

Taylor shrugged, her shoulders rising then slumping as though suddenly exhausted. “I would’ve.”

Allie stared at the back of the girl's head, as if looking at her for the very first time.

She recalled, in this moment, a conversation she’d had nearly ten years ago now, with her cousin, Adi Gallia, regarding Hebert and Victoria. Back when their arrival had caused waves and ripples within the Jedi order, and that strange fathomless presence Allie had felt brush across her mind just once in the heart of the temple.

I fear a Monster has come to our temple, Allie. It sleeps, content and far away, for now. But…

(X)(X)(X)

Sev’rance Tann.

“Ma’am- we have a situation in sector Nine-E.”

Tann found herself raising an eyebrow at the call from her commlink. “Oh?”

Nine-E. That was around the Green Jedi battle zone.

“What seems to be the problem?” she asked, standing up as she crossed her arms.  “Have the Green Jedi found a muster point?”

“They’re beginning to, but that’s not the issue,” her Lieutenant answered. “I’m giving you visuals now!”

A holo screen lit up - blocking out the view of the planet from the main viewport - just in time for Tann to see a woman quite literally punch a droid Vulture fighter straight down into the asphalt far below.

The Chiss woman raised a slender eyebrow, watching the spectacle as the Human (or, at least, it looked like a Human) dodge and weave through the air as vulture droids tried to shoot her down. What she couldn’t dodge, she deflected with her lightsaber, what little she didn’t deflect seemed to bounce off harmlessly.

“Well,” she mused, observing for a few more moments. “It seems you were right, Komari,” she said to herself. “There is, in fact, a ‘Jedi freak’ among their ranks.” She downed the last of her wine. “Still, I doubt she’s quite as invincible as you claimed.” Setting down her glass, she tapped at her command controls, opening communications. “Second wave and specialist units, confirm operational status for deployment.”

“Super Battle droid battalions are prepared and fully operational.”

“Droideka Hunter-Killer squadrons are prepared”

“Just tell us where you need the Heavy Weapons”

She nodded. “Specialists?”

“We’re not your specialists aruetii! Use our gods' damned names.”

She fought back the urge to sigh.

“Vizsla.” She bit out. “Are you prepared to deal with this Jedi we spoke of earlier?”

“Your indestructible one?” the man snorted. “The one you handed us this… fucking toy for? Yeah. We’re ready. Just point us at her and let mandos win your war for you.”

“Good.” She nodded. “Please deploy the weapon appropriately. It was quite expensive.”

The fool snorted.

“Mandalorian,” she reminded him warn, “you are the first to face a Jedi in open warfare in a very long time. Botch this, and I’ll make certain your every clan mate and your precious Pre-Vizla will know exactly who dishonored them. Do. Not. Toy with me!”

“She’ll fucking die. Just let us loose!”

Tann felt the smile slip back onto her lips. “So glad we understand each other.”

With a final press of a button the second wave received its green light.

She cast her eyes down towards the planet below- “Tell the Droids to push into the temple.”

“Confirming,” a comms officer replied. “Orders being sent now.”

“Roger roger”

“Confirmed. Intensifying attack”

“Orders received. Advance!”

One by one, icons representing units of droids turned green, confirming millions upon millions more B-1’s had begun marching forward.

They wouldn’t win, of course. Or, at least, she doubted they would. Not unless the Jedi had truly become something so pitiable they were hardly worth killing any more. But it would exhaust them. Even if the droids lined up one by one to get hacked apart, the one hacking at them would be exhausted before long.

Meaning they’d be too tired to truly deal with the second, much harder hammer blow from their more elite units.

And, of course, the last slip of poison in the wound.

Tann opened her private comms, almost whispering on her own bridge.

“Komari, C’baoth. Are you prepared?”

She felt Komari’s rage even from here. A seething, coiled anger. A barbed wire wrapped around a limb, tightening every day, bleeding every day. Lord Sidious had truly found a remarkable specimen in the woman when he bound her. A rage like hers, a rage that desired to watch the whole Galaxy burn if only to share her pain… ‘twas a rare thing.

“In position,” came the simple answer, bloodlust tinging the words with almost the scent of metal. She wanted to kill Jedi, of that there was no doubt.

“C’baoth?”

Static crackled on the line.

“C’baoth?” she demanded.

Finally, the sound of a breath, movement through the opposing speaker.

The voice that answered carried the very air of decay in the thrums of sound. Thick and pungent.

A fresh corpse then.

“I do not answer to you.”

The line went dead with a screech of feedback that made Tann’s lip curl.

Arrogant fool.

A sudden shout came from her comms officer again. “Ma’am!”

“What, Corporal?” she barked at him, her irritation at C’baoth redirected at the nearest convenient target.

“We’ve got… some kind of problem!” the man said, hesitating over what exactly he was trying to tell her.

“What is-?” Her mouth closed, beholding what was in front of her on the viewscreen, all the viewscreens.

‘Are those… Insects?’

(X)(X)(X)

Taylor

Roger, Orders confirmed, advance on the Temple

We can’t hold this juncture! We’ve got to fall back!

The commander’s down! Move forward! Get him out of there!

AAT’s commencing ground based bombardment. Estimating time until shield collapse.

Energy Cell running low- Can’t believe I’m running out of karkin’ ammo! There’s too many of these goddamn droids!

Padawan, look out!

Battalion 9F advancing

GRENADE OUT!

“Focus fire on the Jedi!”

I felt them.

All around me, a million voices clamoring all at once. Desperate, afraid, enraged, in pain. I felt it all, through the bugs and through the Force. It was almost overwhelming. It had been years since I was in the center of something like this. Phantom memories of Behemoth and Leviathan scratched at the walls of my mind.

I felt the droids beginning to advance, and I realized what we’d been facing so far, comparatively, was a trickle. Just them sending in… skirmishers to keep us busy, keep us off-balance.

Now, the hammer blow was coming.

But I’d been preparing too.

As one, a living, breathing mass surged up from the tunnels and sewers below. I’d been careful to gather them beneath the temple, to make certain that they wouldn’t realize what was happening until just this moment.

Jedi panicked; to them, it was a million shards of ice slicing across their skin, the Masters and Knights had to calm and shield their Padawans and less experienced fellows. The clones were confused, alarmed, but when my insects smashed into the columns of droids like a wall of living chitin, they got the picture.

Fighters took the moment to fall back or surge forward, droids fired off into the mass of insects, individual bolts killing a few. Too few to make a difference.

But these were unfamiliar bugs, a swarm of chaff and distractions mostly. Even as I rapidly identified the few that could hope to do damage and set them to work chewing through the soft openings and digging into the guts and components of droids to shut them off, it was still too few. The droids adapted quickly, continuing their relentless march forward, determined to kill everyone in the temple.

Even so, I kept biting, clawing, hissing. The tanks were comparatively easier to breach. More openings. Vents for the heat, exhaust ports for the fuel.

My bugs crawled in there, clogging them, filling it with their bodies and choking them.

One tank fired and the heat - with nowhere to go - made the thing explode in a fireball. The B-1s kept marching forward through the swarm, firing almost blindly, dead-eyed and uncaring as one, or two, or ten, or even a hundred of them were compromised and torn up from the inside out.

Second Wave Deploying

I heard the words from a droid inside a command tank, not willing to destroy it lest they switch to one outside my range.

How many waves are there? Just two? Three? Ten?

“Roger Roger- all units bracing”

Bracing?

I felt the droids stop, folding in on themselves mid march as though making themselves portable in size-

My question as to what exactly was happening was cut off when a tremendous BOOM shook the very air inside my lungs, and immediately all the bugs outside of the shield bubble that had been running interference were flattened, the concussive wave of force crashing outward and destroying them through sheer sonic and air pressure.

The force was so great the buildings nearest to the temple buckled, folding in on themselves as their middles folded like a house of cards, their columns and walls snapping like matchsticks. The buildings further out were knocked clear off their foundations, and the tremors were felt even underground by the earthworms deep beneath the city surface.

The droids, those still functional at least, stood up again, unhampered by my bugs anymore.

I wasn’t a battlefield tactician, but when a Jedi shouted that the Shield couldn’t take too many more synchronized hits like that I realized what had happened.

The Orbital fleet had decided to nuke my swarm from orbit.

I’d be flattered if I wasn’t so pissed.

Now I was down most of this cobbled together swarm, left with just what was inside the shield, and that wasn’t going to last forever.

Master Plo rushed into the chambers. He wasn’t panting, but his shoulders rose and fell with each breath.

“The last of the Padawans is being moved to the tunnels,” he said.

“I know,” And I did, of course. My focus had just been elsewhere… on everyone and everything else dying around me “If we can just get some breathing room, then-”

“We can’t retreat yet.”

I blinked, boggling at my teacher. “What!? Why!?” The lines were crumbling as it was, the clones hanging on by a thread, the inexperienced knights falling in droves and the more experienced Masters were holding their own but each one of them was going to get picked off one by one at this rate.

Plo Koon stared at me. “Can’t you feel them?” He asked.

Feel?

… I spread my senses out. Beyond myself, beyond the range of my insects.

Caught here, in this cauldron of death, pain and fear, in this city of a million lives… I almost missed it completely.

That Master Plo had sensed it at all was amazing to me.

Twin augurs of… something. Dark and twisted and corrupted… coming closer. Coming here.

“The Sith,” I realized.

Plo Koon nodded. “If we flee, and they’re still here, so close... They’ll sense us. There’ll be no hiding that many Jedi on the run.”

Shit…

He was right.

I turned, looking to him;

I knew what he was thinking almost immediately.

I wondered if that spoke more about him as a teacher or me as the poor influence everyone said I was.

(X)(X)(X)

Sev’rance Tann

“Canons offline, ma’am.”

“Get the repair crews on it,” she demanded.

Overcharging and firing all cannons at once was not ideal. Most heavy capital ships used staggered and layered volley fire for a reason.Too much strain on the power cores.

But it did get rid of their insect problem. Short term, at least.

Still, not something she necessarily wished to repeat now that the Corellian fleet had slipped out of the system and were no doubt calling for help.

At their most generous estimates, one hour. More likely than not their remaining time here could be measured in just a few dozen minutes before every Defense Fleet of the Core Worlds arrived in-system to aid Corellia.

Tann crossed her arms, and began to pace before her command throne.

Would the Jedi be coming up with any extra tricks?

(X)(X)(X)

Tapal

The sheer force of the blast sent Tapal stumbling to his knees. Even through the Jedi Temple’s shield, he felt that impact. The protective bubble above shuddered and rippled, threatening to fail.

Insects buzzed around them, rising from the drains and pipes below and converging on the droids.

The metal army had seemingly shut down, giving the desperate clones and Jedi breathing room to retreat, or even simply gun down the unmoving husks, but the reprieve was short lived. No sooner had the trembling of the very air itself ceased than the droids stood back up again, climbing the hills of the eastern side of the temple with steady, implacable progress.

Clones, Jedi, and droids littered the hillside. Tapal felt his fury rise. An unbecoming emotion in a Jedi, but it was there all the same as he lit his saber Staff

“Barrek, Seirr!” he barked towards the Knights he’d brought with him. Good Knights, strong bladesmen with a head for tactics. He pointed to his north and south, urging them to go and take command there, and they nodded, already knowing what he was ordering even as they split off from him. A half dozen more knights followed each of them. He could trust them to do their duty. It wasn’t just the Clones that were meant to fight!

Tapal roared, a thunderous battlecry that seemed to make the world tremble in time with the pounding of his footsteps. Clones and desperate Jedi joined the charge at his back. Droids fired, blue and red bolts lancing across the air between them. He saw swarms of insects bring down those in the far rear of the droid line, those just entering the envelope of the shields.

A bolt sizzled past his brow and he was on the droids.

His blue blade rose and fell, rose and fell, each time a droid came apart in pieces under the touch of hot plasma.

He cut down dozens, hundreds, and a million more were still behind them.

Then he saw others.

The large, hulking metal newcomers were twice as tall as their smaller, cheaper B-1 battle droid counterparts, twin blasters mounted on their wrists. Where B-1s died to a single shot or two, these were heavier, shrugging off blaster bolts like rain drops. He saw one lumbering up the hill under a hail of fire from almost a full squad before it fell.

His senses flared, warning him of danger, his weapon rose. The Super Battle Droid now bearing down on him with its twin linked blaster. Tapal found himself deflecting another bolt, and another, then a third before the thing was close enough, he swung and its metal flesh wasn’t as impervious to Lightsaber blades, the thing fell into pieces. But like the B-1 before it, there were more to take its place.

One, then two, and another, soon he was backing away, being pushed back up the hill as his Saber staff pivoted and whirled in front of him, deflecting plasma bolts that sent the tremble of impact up his arms he rocked back, stumbling, arms on fire, his body sluggish with mounting exhaustion

Droidekas came next.

The wheeled monsters swallowed the distance like it wasn’t even there, slipping past the lithe B-1’s and lumbering B-2’s like nimble cats before they unfolded, shields blooming to life around them as they opened up with their heavy tri-linked heavy repeaters.

The line broke.

Clones and Jedi alike crumbled before the onslaught, only the insects seemed to still be trying to put up some form of interference even as they bounced and slid off of the repulsor shield around the droideka.

A warning, but too late, too slow, too tired.

Something slipped, pain burned across his stomach, a wound to his side, two more bolts before another slipped and caught his leg.

The swarm of insects came, shielding him, making the droids closest stumble back if not outright shut down  as the bugs crawled into their insides and tore them apart.

“Get him! Pull back to the Meditation chambers!”

Tapal grit his teeth as more clones surged forward, shielding him as they fired into the mass of droids. They couldn’t miss. There were so many. Too many. As the adrenaline ebbed he felt exhausted his muscles burned and ached. How long had he been fighting? How many droids had he destroyed? Too few. By far and away too few.

How many had died here? Just to buy time?!

The Clone medic placed him down on a chair, and he noted some of the Knights he’d brought with him, wounded as well; eyes covered in bandages, bloody stains on their robes. Barrek was still standing, but leaning heavily against the wall Seirr stood by the door blade at the ready even as the sounds of battle continued to rage outside, Clones and Jedi dying, the droids creeping ever closer.

(X)(X)(X)

Vizsla

The dropship shuddered and shook as it broke through the atmosphere.

He and the rest of the seirr could barely contain themselves. They were like foundlings. It had been an eternity since they’d even dreamed of seeing a real battle, gelded as the Mandalorians had become in recent decades. Fights. Raids. Those were for sport. They didn’t compare. Not to this.

As he opened the bay doors mid flight, he looked down, finding a city lit ablaze. Smoke and ash rose up with the updraft, the screams of the people. The sounds of blasterfire. If only he were riding on the back of a legendary Basilisk, rather than this cobbled together crap heap built by literally the lowest fucking bidder.

Still, a war was a war, a battle was a battle and a target was a target.

“Alright you rejects,” He laughed, the men and women jeering and laughing at his taunts. “I was told to get the best of the best for this, but I’m makin’ due with you instead.”

His boys threw things at him then, oil rags from their guns, bits of junk, they pinged off his beskar and made him join in on the laugh. “The fuckin Nemoidian’s are scared of some ‘invincible Jedi’ Even gave us this blasted thing-’ He kicked at the seven foot tall solid steel junk heapat his side. “To get the job done.”

“Pull the battery out.” Caruso laughed, Jenna joining him.

“Aye.” She said. “Do it. Let's teach these squid faced cowards how real men do their own fighting.”

“There'll be plenty of fights besides that one.” He shrugged. He didn’t like it either. “Job is to get this thing to the ‘invincible’ Jedi. That means going through all her friends.”

“Right-” Cassus snorted, spitting out the side of the dropship before he put his helmet on. “So which one we gunnin’ for?”

“I was told She’s unmistakeable. So we’ll know when we see her-”

His wrist monitor pinged. “Right, we’re at the coordinates.” He barked, “Drop!”

None of his men needed any more words than that.”

They each dove out the side of the dropship, three dozen Mandalorians falling on howling wings of fire as he booted up the blasted tin-can that was supposed to be their fucking cure all.

The droid hummed to life, all black steel around a red glowing cyclopean eye.

“Come on ya hunk of junk we got a target to kill.” He snarled, slamming on his own helmet before he joined his fellows in freefall, the droid right at his back.

He followed his sierra, streams of fire leaving him a clear trail, and as they slipped past cloud, smoke and ash; he saw the ring of lightsabers directly below.

The Jedi had formed a barricade of debris. Chunks of building, overturned cars, shattered steel and even the droids themselves were an impromptu barricade in the middle of the intersection.

There were a lot of them still, too many to count at a glance and the ring of dead droids around them and burning tanks spoke of the sheer tenacity with which they’d fought to hold on.

And now, he and his were going to be the ones to break them in half!

His rockets howled, and he pulled out of the dive into a screaming hover along with the others, blasters unloading down as the Jedi scrambled for yet more cover, their laser swords deflecting bolts as they tried to contend them, others tearing the sides of buildings clear off with thundering cracks to use the floating slabs as shields.

Vulture droids strafed down, joining the attack, bombers swooping in.

Torpedos were shunted aside, gravity bombs were caught and hurled into the advancing column of droids.

They had no hope, and still they held on.

Glorious. It was almost a pity to kill them really.

He signaled the others around him, jetpacks powering down, boots hitting dirt. They wouldn’t dive into the middle of a bunch of Jedi at close range, that was just fuckin stupid. But they would be taking down that barricade.

The custom droid smashed down behind him, standing ramrod straight and tall. Utterly oblivious to the battle around it.

Right. This fuckin thing.

“Looks like your invincible Jedi’s a no-sho-”

A tank flew over their heads.

And that wasn’t hyperbole, it quite literally soared over their heads, as though tossed by an old school rock lobber.

Seven of his men had to scramble out of the way, the hovertank smashing down and tearing up asphalt and duracrete, its turret bending like cheap flimsiplast, its armor buckling droids spilling from torn up insides as its armor was shorn off from the impact, the entire chassis buckling and groaning as it crumpled like a cheap can.

“What in the blue he-”

His question was cut off.

Another crash, this time behind him made him whirl around, blasters pointed and already firing before his twin bolts were deflected by a quick saber strike and a deft dodge, a blonde, blue eyed woman staring at him with all the rage she could muster on her pretty face.

She was scratched, hair disheveled and stained with smoke and soot, blood seeping from a half dozen minor scrapes and cuts.

She was breathing heavy, skin slick with sweat. A winded dog, exhausted and on its last legs.

Somehow, he doubted this was the ‘invincible Jedi’

And yet, the Droid at his side straightened, humming to life. “Target verified. Engaging!”

The thing rushed forward, howling jets screaming as it rushed down the street in a dead head charge.

The droid, even if it was stupid, must’ve weighed at least as much as a Bantha. With its speed, he half expected the Jedi to be a smear on its paint job by the time the thing was done ramming into her.

Or maybe she’d use that sword, or some fancy Jedi trick to shove it away.

All those things he expected.

What he didn’t expect was for the woman to cock back her fist and punch.

Imagine his surprise when the fist went through the droid’s chest, its red cyclopean eye, clutched and cracking in her grip.

…Well…

Shit.

Maybe she really was invincible.

Then. The droid kept moving.

Its arms rose up, mechanical and automatic, it clamped down on the woman’s arms, holding her in place as something in its core began to glow.

SHIT!

“TAKE COVER!” He screamed, running as fast as he could to get away from what was no doubt some kind of Thermal Detonator explosion.

His men scrambled, just like he was, running, flying, damn near doing somersaults. Even the smallest of thermal detonators would clear a room and ones that had a visible build up to their explosion spelt nothing good.

He didn’t get very far.

Even through over a dozen meters of starting distance, and layers of Beskar armor, when the blast went off he felt all the wind get knocked out of him his entire body being lifted and hurled through the air, the tank that had been thrown like a stone seconds earlier now served as his landing pad, his ribs and side cracking solidly against the remains of the main turret, his body flipping over the obstacle to send him smashing faceplate first into the hot asphalt.

He groaned. His body was singing in pain.

He didn’t know what, or even if anything was broken

He was fucking shooting that gods-damned dikutt schutta of a Chiss!

He picked himself up, his men doing the same, poking their heads out of hidey holes, descending from the skies above, staring at the flaming wreckage that was the remains.

“Holy hell.” Someone muttered. He wasn’t sure who.

“Fuck me.” Jenna said beside him, smacking him in the back hard enough that the tenuous hold he had on his breath came hacking out of his lungs.  “So much for the invincible Jedi eh?” She laughed.

The laughter died in her throat.

The smoke cleared, or, better to say it parted. Like a sea of tall grass making way for the Zakkeg as it stalked out of the brush.

The Jedi beauty bared her teeth, eyes alight with fury akin to that great beast, black smoke rose from her body, clinging to her.

The light of her blade, the fire from the city around her, he heard the roaring cheer of triumph from the Jedi at her back, charging out of their barricade to join her.

“You missed...” The woman snarled, her voice dripping with contempt.

(X)(X)(X)

Komari

Sidious was a monster. A monster who needed to die. Deserved to die. If not by her hand then someone, anyone else’s.

But Sidious had taught her well. She hid, shrouded in the veil of the darkside, men, her men, her most loyal, the last of her Bando’Gora captains, skulked after her. Watching. Waiting. Waiting for the moment. The opportunity.

They were sent here to kill Jedi.

And kill Jedi they would.

But they weren’t vulnerable. Not yet. Not with the fever pitch of battle.

So she waited.

Waited for wounds to take their toll, for injuries to mount, deaths to tally, desperate rescues and constant fallbacks to wear them down.

The Clones died for them. And the Jedi let them die. They were good at that part, of course.

When she saw the insects, she felt… cold. A spike of fear at the familiar chill in the force- the memory of that freak catching her blade ringing through her mind.

She watched the bugs. Felt them.

They were cold, flakes of snow in the wind, unnatural, like that freak had been.

She watched, she listened. The insects moved with purpose. Coordination. Eyes and ears telling someone where to go, who to defend, where to strike.

She was good. But she was not intangible.

Was the mission already a failure?”

Even so she watched for longer, waited, hoping.

And then… the cold slipped.

It wasn’t gone. Merely… moving away.

She did not discount her good fortune any further.

“Let's go.” She demanded.

Her men followed her without question.

Six.

Six of the finest assassins.

Six men that would die for her unquestioningly.

Six men that couldn’t save her any more than the Jedi could save themselves.

What a pitiful, wretched pathetic galaxy they all live in

Even so, she drew close, her cybernetics catching glimpses of faces as they fled, trying to escape, trying to get far enough away.

They didn’t notice her, not yet. Not while they were still so focused on the droids.

She ignored the weaklings. Her men did not. With knife and blaster, throats were slit, shots taken. Moments of opportunity as they weaved themselves through the tapestry of slaughter.

Padawans and Knights. Useless. To her at least.

She came here for one purpose.

The Masters.

That’s who Sidious wanted to make certain was dead.

She sought them out in the confusion, one by one, piece by piece. The weakest first. The injured, the old, the frail. The temple truly held so many places with shadow it was little wonder she could hide, all the while the icy pinpricks of the insects grew distant.

Good.

Her cybernetics pinged the Jedi Master Chubor as the first. Small, already wounded by blaster fire, being carried off the field by a clone.

The clone’s head hit the ground first, the Jedi Master followed after. Her men pounced on the Knights after that.

Ord Enisence, a Skrilling, was her next victim.

Tall and stout, the Master held her and her men at a door, allowing the clones and subordinates behind him to flee, not realizing he was the target.

He lasted longer than Chubor at least.

Bolla Ropal died  before ever lifting his blade.

Finally- at long last she was discovered. The Jedi sensing the deliberate elimination of their fellows rather than just the random happenstance of a battle.

Her cybernetics pinged as two Jedi Masters stormed into the room- Master Kcaj and Jedi Master Coleman Trebor.

“Ahh, a High Council member.” She laughed, bowing as her six men, still cloaked in holo fields fanned out, though she saw the Jedi’s eyes still tracking them regardless. “I’m honored.”

“You’ve killed enough today Sith.” The Ongree spat out in his language, rushing forward, blades at the ready.

His form was sloppy. Niman. Of course. Useless. Unworthy.

Her blades flicked on with the disdain she’d known Dooku to possess in life. With little effort she had the Jedi on the back foot, his large, bulbous eyes widening as he realized how outmatched he was.

Master Trebor rushed to help, but then her captains intervened. The six of them danced around the supposed Jedi Master and his worthless Niman form.

Kcaj tried to rally, pushing onto the offensive with a force push that should have given him breathing room-

If only she didn’t simply step around it.

Laughable really. Couldn’t even do what the Niman supposedly specialized in properly.

His hand, extended for his push, was lobbed off at the forearm.

The Ongree’s species scream was so very ugly.

One swing, and she was surprised by the hasty block that managed to save him.

A second- and he was dead regardless.

Master Trebor tried to retreat, but six high yield blasters fired into him.

He deflected two bolts.

The other four found their marks.

The Jedi fell over, near close enough to death so as to not matter if she left. But why not enjoy the kill herself?

She stepped forward, red blades alight. She raised one, the Master gasping, sputtering at her feet.

She swung.

Her hand stopped.

Mid-cleave, her limb shuddered and shook, and try as she might she couldn’t move it.

Sith yellow eyes blazed, forcing her body to obey to turn her head and see who was doing this-

Her cybernetics pinged.

Jedi Master Plo-Koon stood at the entryway.

“Enough.” The Kel-Dor’s voice was bandied steel and implacable power.

“Master Yoda and Windu entrusted me with the protection of the Jedi.” He reached down with his other hand, the saber sliding off his belt and into his grasp.

His bright blue blade came to life. Her men brandishing their own weapons around her.

“Let me show you why.”

(X)(X)(X)

C’baoth

The temple burned.

It was a lesser temple, something- unworthy of the name compared to the majesty of its Coruscanti counterpart.

Even so- it was a sad sight.

But, ultimately inevitable.

They’d decayed so much, fallen so far.

If they would not change- then let them be purged by fire and rebuilt from the ashes.

He watched, content to let the old order die without further interference.

Then… the shadow of C’baoth paused.

He felt… cold.

Icy pinpricks in the force danced around him and through muted eyes and ears he realized… insects.

“Hebert.” His puppet said.

He stretched out his senses in the force. Trying to find her through there where corpse eyes and decaying ears failed.

He couldn’t find her. Not in the swirling cold that whirled around him.

But he heard her voice.

All around him… inside of him.

“They taste corpse flesh… You’re not really here… C’baoth.”

She knew who he was then. He supposed it was only a matter of time before he was discovered.

“It’s good that you’re here.” He admitted, his puppet moving along the rooftop of the Corellian skyscraper, head turning this way and that way even as his vision became mottled and gray with the swirling mass of insects gathering around him in a cyclone. “I’ve been looking forward to killing you. They never should have let you become a Jedi.”

“At least one of us can claim to be. But I don’t have time to waste with you.”

In spite of himself, he bristled at her goading; her presumptuous tone. “You would presume to lecture me like your up jumped crechelings?”

“The people I care about need you dead. So no. I haven’t come to lecture you- Pretender.”

His senses flared, danger, and his blade lit up bright green blooming to life as he whirled around, blocking the blow that would have cut his head clean from his shoulders.

Yellow eyes crackled with the flare of her golden saber crackling against his, and even through his puppet he felt heat raw fury boiling under the surface, seething behind that ghoulish mask even as her voice remained perfectly level.

“I’ve just come to kill you.” She hissed.

(X)(X)(X)

I wrote this chapter in a *day*.

I say again *one day* after the previous one was posted and my Beta's almost jumped through the length and breadth of the internet to strangle me when they realized they suddenly had another 26 pages to edit xD

Still, this battle is a lot of fun and next we'll be seeing the whole family, Tay, Vicky and Big Daddy Plo in action in the next. >:3

I'm not gonna promise it'll be done quick it depends on my inspiration (I kinda hate writing fights) but we'll see how it goes. :D

Here is the link to the discord as usual for those who'd like to discuss things there :)

https://discord.gg/5E282Xta