Above Boz Pity Airspace
Mara Jade Skywalker was completely relaxed as she sat in the LAAT (the Larty, the troops nicknamed it) and felt the moment that they hit atmosphere, a whistling sound accompanied by a slight rumble as they descended.
‘Good. We didn’t get blown up in space,’ she mused. ‘That’s as good a way to start the operation as any.’
She looked around the dimly lit cabin and held the gaze of the eight slightly glowing visors that looked back at her. These were the clone commandos attached to the 501st Legion. Two squads of four men split into Decision and Verity Squads. Each had decorated their armor in different ways with unique colors and patterns, rather unlike their uniformly blue-patterned brothers.
She took a moment to flip through the channels on her com-bead, finding all of them free of chatter. “So,” she said as the rumbling of atmospheric entry began to subside, “what are your names? I’m not going to just shout numbers or colors at you.”
The men looked at each other for a moment, Mara feeling the somewhat quizzical feelings that they had towards the question. Finally, though, one of them, his armor painted in purple waves, nodded. “I’m Shout,” he said. “In the GAR’s infinite wisdom, they decided I should lead Verity Squad. My mates are Bouncer with the yellow circles, Sparkle with the black starburst outlines, and Spike with the brown triangles on his arms and helmet.”
She looked at each of the men as Shout introduced them, each returning her gaze in their own way. Bouncer offered a quick salute. Sparkle waved. Spike simply nodded.
“Good to meet you all,” she said, looking over at the commandos who hadn’t spoken up yet. “And who is Decsion Squad?”
Decision Squad looked amongst themselves for a moment before one of their number, painted with red claw marks, nodded. “RC-3672, ma’am,” the commander began. “Though you can call me Rake. I’m the captain of Decision. My squadmates are Dent, Slider, and Ink. Dent’s in the blue jagged circles, Slider’s the one with gray lines, and Ink’s the black scribbles.”
The troopers greeted her in turn, and Mara smiled slightly. “Alright. Any chance the other squads will be backing us up if we come across any snarls taking and turning this facility?”
“With this many squads, there’s always a chance ma’am,” Sparkle said rather glibly. “Whether or not it happens… well, that’s another thing entirely.”
“Just try not to tip off any perimeter guards this time, Sparkle,” Bouncer said in a slightly teasing tone. “As fun as our little ‘unplanned distraction’ was and how well it worked for the others, I’d rather not get that close to biting a blaster bolt.”
“Aw, come on,” Sparkle said, his voice radiating hurt, “at least the explosions were worth the risk, right?”
“Right,” Bouncer drawled somewhat darkly.
The LAAT touched down, and the door slid open to reveal their target sitting at the top of a valley about two kilometers away and looming large over them, a great humpbacked beast of metal and transparisteel, two rows of two massive spines stretching out towards orbit like the skeletal hand of a dead titan or the hunkered corpse of an insect.
Mara and the other commandos stepped out of the transport, Mara focusing as she felt out the immediate area, verdant and dotted with foliage and trees, for any danger. After long moments of feeling nothing, Mara looked back up at the orbital defense facility. “Well,” she said quietly, “no sense in wasting time. Let’s get moving.”
Mara and the commandos found a copse of trees nearby, making their way quickly into concealment. At the edge of the treeline, close to the cliff that made up the other half of the valley that separated them, Mara looked at the complex with a compact pair of macrobinoculars.
“Right next to the wall of the valley,” she said with a slight twist of her mouth. “Lovely.”
“No caves, either,” Dent said, studying the rockface from next to her. “That might be a garbage chute there. We could always try ascending the cliffside anyway. I doubt that the clankers would expect that way of getting in.”
“Maybe so,” Shout said as he joined them, Rake by his side. “But I want to know all our options before committing to one way in.”
“We'll keep an eye on the cliffside wall, see if there are any openings we can take,” Rake said. “Your team can have the freedom to scout around.”
“Fine by me,” Shout replied. “It's going to take a day or two to get across the canyon, but we'll keep in touch.”
Shout wasted no time as he rose from where he was, waving his men over to him. “Good luck,” Rake said simply.
After a moment, Rake glanced over at Mara. “You going with them, ma'am? We can take care of ourselves.”
“It's as good an idea as any,” Mara said. “I'm sure you know not to stay here, though. They'll probably be searching the area our LAAT touched down in.”
“We'll find somewhere to go,” Rake said almost assuringly. “Keep an eye on Verity. They seem to have a habit of getting themselves singed by their explosions, but they get the job done more often than not. I'd hate to see them bite it without a Jedi to help them out.”
Mara smiled slightly. “I'll see what I can do.”
. . .
Mara followed easily after Verity as they made their way to a path down the canyon wall, old training on fieldwork coming to her as easily as when it had first been drilled into her so long ago. ‘I doubt the Emperor would have had me flaunting myself this openly. As opposed to the rest of the ranks I was pulled from.’
Her presence was acknowledged only briefly as they continued down into the canyon, a river surrounded by trees at the bottom that grew stark against the sunset.
They crossed the river after waiting out the hum and roar of what were most likely droid gunships passing overhead, all of them going hand over hand across an ascension cable that had been secured to a particularly stout tree.
As day slipped into night, the five of them settled into a quiet camp, the soldiers breaking out instant meals and some spare camping equipment. They ate in silence before sleeping in watches.
It left Mara with a lot of time to think as she let her perception of the area and the immediate future expand in the Force, sitting on a knarled tree branch that reminded her of another time, past for her and potential future for the clones that now slept as best they could with their armor and weapons.
Through the gaps in the branches, she glanced up at the night sky every once in a while. Beyond the reach of the trees, the sky was clear, the stars littering in a largely untouched night. It almost reminded her of…
‘Myrkr,’ Mara thought with a quiet, slight grin. Another time and place where the whole galaxy seemed to be a tinderbox waiting for an errant spark.
‘That always seems to be the case, doesn’t it?’ she mused grimly. After this war was a civil war, then bushfires on the peripheries of the galaxy. On and on and on.
‘But not anymore.’ Mara thought grimly, thinking about their all-too-narrow escape. Then, as she continued her silent pondering a thought struck her.
‘What happens if we succeed here? Will this version of me ever meet Luke Skywalker?’
The entire impetus for their meeting was the fact that the Empire, whose Emperor had plucked one of Vader’s Inquisitors to be his Hand, had fallen apart, its leader after sending her to kill the man who’d slain him. With no Inquisitors, no Hands, No Empire…
‘The Living Force would find a way,’ she reminded herself. ‘That’s what Luke would say. And on matters of the Force… he has a funny way of being right.’
“Ma’am?”
Mara blinked, looking back to see Sparkle standing behind her. She simply nodded, standing from her position and stretching as she walked past the man who now took up his watch.
Sitting in the little circle, she took a deep breath and slipped into a meditative resting trance. This way, at least, the rest of the squad wouldn’t be left with just one set of eyes, however enhanced they might have been.
. . .
Bariss Offee never liked these sorts of missions. Were she any other person, she’d probably say that she hated them.
But she never really said anything about it to her master. Never mentioned it to anyone, really. She was a Jedi Padawan. She was supposed to be able to deal with those sorts of feelings using the teachings of her order and her master. There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no emotion, there is peace.
Peace never really stopped the nightmares, though. Nothing seemed to.
She was in one of the medical tents that they were usually in when they were on any other campaign with the 41st. There were… so many bodies, draped in sheets of white dappled with the red of human blood where wounds, stitched up as they were, had wept into the fabric. The stench of antiseptic mixed with blasterfire threatened to double her over and make her retch.
She walked towards the exit, parting the curtain to step into… the back of the tent again.
But it was different now. One of the sheets… was sitting up.
Slowly, Bariss stepped forward. As she came to a stop in front of the gurney, the head beneath the sheet turned, and it fell from a head that looked intently at her, one shared by every other clone… except for the massive burn that gripped and pulled at the left side of his face, scalp, and neck.
“Commander…” the clone rasped, reaching out to her with a shuddering hand. “Help me…”
“Asicc…” Bariss said, her eyes wide with horror as she tried, and failed, to step back. “You’re dead. I’m sorry.”
“Not in here,” Asicc said as he clutched the side of his head, his fingers squeezing into a fist and taking burnt, crackling flesh with it. “Why won’t you let us die?”
“It’s my duty to try and heal you,” Bariss said, looking around as more and more clones began to sit up and have their veils fall away. Her throat was growing more and more tight as she remembered the clones by their wounds. Kogin, his arm blown off. Blynn, his jaw gone from a predator. Sarcee, his bowls spilling out from a commando droid’s blade. “I had to try.”
“We trusted you,” Sarcee called out, standing from his gurney with the others and walking toward her. “Let us go!”
“I’m trying to!” Bariss shouted as she finally seemed to find the strength to back away from Asicc… right into the waiting arms of Blynn. “I need to! Help me!”
“Let us go!” Kogin shouted at her. The others, joined by more and more clones she’d tried and failed to save, began to crowd into her, taking up the cry as it grew louder and louder, pounding into her skull as she felt fingers closing around her throat.
“Let us go! Let us go! Let us go!”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“LET US GO!”
“Ma’am? Ma’am.”
Bariss’ eyes snapped open and she took a deep, shuddering breath. Where…
She was on Boz Pity. The commando waking her up for early morning watch, painted in mottled orange was, well, Sunrise. She was here to assist in taking and subverting an anti-orbital cannon.
“You alright?” Sunrise asked. “Looked like you were having a pretty bad dream.”
Bariss felt the explanation welling up in her throat, threatening to spill out and feed her darker emotions. She paused, her mind traveling the well-worn path of the Jedi Code and letting it calm her down. At least, as much as it could.
“I’ll be fine,” she replied as she stood, taking a deep breath as she took in the two hills they found themselves situated in. “You get your rest. We have a busy day coming up, I think.”
“That we do,” Sunrise replied after a moment of silence. She could feel his slight suspicion at her deflection. Right now, that didn’t matter.
With that, he settled down, and Bariss felt the moment he drifted off into a guarded sleep.
She looked around the barren little camp again and saw her master meditating. There was little point in trying to talk to Master Unduli about these nightmares she had been having since she first saw action in the war. She would say the same things, give her the same mantras to repeat before and during rest. Any other time, they might have worked. But here, where death and violence were so prevalent… it didn’t seem to do much of anything anymore.
She went to the spot that Jelik had first taken up when they’d settled down for the night and took a seat, allowing her perception to expand in the Force as she focused on making sure there were no droids around to spot them and attack.
It gave her time to think. Something she’d found herself doing a lot of as the war dragged on.
Could she talk to someone else? Would that not break the bond between master and apprentice? Master Unduli was supposed to be her teacher, supposed to have the experience to guide her into becoming a Jedi anyone could look to for guidance and wisdom and not be found lacking. But Master Unduli was taught and worked largely in a time of peace. A time when the sort of things that Bariss saw that were once reserved for major disasters, once-in-a-lifetime events for people, had now become… every single day.
The Jedi Masters from the future, Starkiller and Jade… they felt rather different in the Force, from what little exploring she’d done during their briefing. It still felt strange to go beyond her master’s bounds like that, but consulting other Masters who might have more experience was part of her training in the temple. Padawan Tano had even taken some time away from her master’s side to learn from Master Unduli.
Perhaps she could talk to them. Jade was even on the planet with her. Perhaps she could talk to Padawan Tano. She saw more combat than most Padawans under Master Skywalker. Maybe she had something that would work. But, for now, as the sun began to rise, there were other things to worry about.
. . .
Mara studied the ground before them as they came up the valley wall that the cannon sat on, and pursed her lips. Clear-cut and level ground, with nowhere to go for cover within what looked like 2 kilometers surrounding the facility.
“Well,” she said softly. “I guess we could always knock on the front door.”
“There’s always the option of going up,” Sparkle said helpfully. “No one ever really seems to look up.”
“I don’t see any access points up the way at first glance,” Spike said. “There might be maintenance hatches we could get into though.”
Shout nodded. “It’s worth a try. With those windows though, there’s every chance we might be spotted while we’re ascending, or even on approach.”
“Sounds like we need a distraction, then,” Bouncer said, glancing back across the canyon to where they’d come from.
“Gonna have to be a hell of a distraction,” Mara said. “Rake said you guys were the explosion specialists.”
“I wouldn't underestimate Dent on that front,” Sparkle said. Mara could hear the grin in his voice. “He didn't get that name for nothing.”
“Well, give them a call then,” Mara said. “And let's see what it takes to pull a droids attention.”
Mara listened in silently as Sparkle keyed Decision’s coms. “Decision, this is Sparkle.”
“Go ahead,” she heard Rake say.
“How would you boys like to make something blow up?”
It was silent before Rake sighed quietly. “What needs an application of explosives?”
“Any point you like on the right side of this installation,” Shout replied. “We’ll be ascending the left searching for a maintenance hatch or other way in. We’ll even invite you in once we’ve started making things exciting.”
“Sounds like a decent enough start to me,” Rake replied. “Dent and Ink will get to work. Hold tight. You’ll know what our signal is.”
“Good copy,” Shout replied. “Decision out.”
Mara and Verity Squad hunkered down, watching across the valley as Decision worked on whatever they were going to try.
After minutes began to stretch into hours, Spike grunted. “I'll be damned. They're trying for a remote delivery of the explosives.”
Mara’s macrobinoculars rose to where Spike pointed, and she saw the rather kludged-together drone flying across the span of the canyon after a moment of searching. “I'm surprised you boys don't have the kit for something less… fragile-looking.”
“I'm surprised they're that desperate,” Shout said. “Don't know what it's like where you're from, but anything a little more sophisticated than that risks getting sliced by the Seps. Last thing you need is a fancy automated munition or scout droid deciding it sympathizes with the Confederacy.”
“Fair enough, I guess,” Mara said quietly as she continued to track the drone’s progress. After long minutes, it passed them by, disappearing behind the complex wall.
“Ascension guns,” Shout said, the commandos drawing the compact, liquid cable pistols, with Mara following suit. “Once we start climbing, avoid the windows and enter any hatch you can find. We’ll meet up inside. Try and be quick before some sort of air support arrives.”
Again, they settled into a tense readiness, waiting at the edge of the canyon wall and straining to listen for the explosion that would come… any second now…
A thudding boom echoed across the canyon, and alarms began to wail. Mara had to keep herself from going into a mad dash the instant the explosion sounded. ‘Give them a second to look the other way…’
“Go!” Shout said, and Mara allowed herself to sprint at last, her legs pumping as she picked out a spot that was a little ways away but seemed to have an access door only about 10 or so meters up.
She stepped a little ways away, aimed her ascension gun at a point above the door, and fired, the whir of the cable forming punctuated by the thunk of the magnetic head finding purchase.
Giving it a tug to ensure it was secured, Mara dashed to the wall, sparing a glance at the other soldiers as they began to climb. She planted her feet on the wall and withdrew the cable into the launcher, climbing as she did. It was quick business, slowed only by needing to skirt around a window just below the hatch.
Then, she was there in front of the circular hatch, reaching out with the Force and unlocking the door to swing it open. Swinging in, she deactivated the ascension cable, sliding into the rather tight space with smooth dexterity.
There wasn’t much space to maneuver in here, her arms largely confined to above her head, and she had to make do with crawling backward from the surface hatch she’d entered. It still wasn’t the tightest squeeze she’d been in.
She reached out with the Force, probing the area around her to try and find… there. A ceiling hatch about 5 meters away from her feet. Easy enough.
She began the slow process of crawling backward towards the hatch as she, with no small amount of effort, keyed the squad coms. “Everyone in?”
“We’ve made entry, ma’am,” Spike replied. “We’re meeting up now. Are you in need of assistance?”
“Not at all, Spike,” Mara replied as she saw the hatch beneath her. “Just taking the scenic route, is all.”
She looked around herself for some sort of switch or button, turning on her side and looking up above her to see the control panel, right above the door. “Of all the places to put it…” she muttered to herself as she shuffled back a little more and pressed the most prominent button she could find.
The door opened, and Mara slid out, flipping to land on the floor gracefully, her lightsaber in her hand in an instant as she looked around the somewhat familiar surroundings. Reaching out in the Force, she found the small cluster of commandos. It was so strange, feeling the presence of 10-year-olds, teenagers at most, and feeling confident that they were the soldiers she was looking for.
“No need to find me,” she said as she started walking. “I’ll make my way to you.”
“Copy that,” Shout said. “We’ll start trying to find a terminal to slice for a map.”
“Be seeing you,” Mara said, keeping her senses sharp as she focused on navigating the halls of the base. With men like this… if the Emperor had managed to work out the shortcomings of those Spaarti Creations cloning tubes he’d secreted away in Mount Tantiss, the galaxy would have looked very different from whence she’d come.
It didn’t take long to find the commando squad, Spike sharing the map as Shout led the way, the squad moving smoothly and swiftly. Mara contented herself with being the early warning system that spoiled the incoming droid patrols. Every action was done in seconds, the longer ones only taking a few minutes as she focused on taking down B2s and destroyer droids with the Force and her lightsaber, the B1s that accompanied them popping in seconds under the precise fire of Verity Squad.
So it went, battle ebbing and flowing until they got to the door of the control center.
“What’s the plan for the guns? Shut down or subvert?” Mara asked.
“It’d take too long for us to try and turn these things,” Shout said. “We’ll leave it for the techies to sort out once they’ve made it to the ground.”
“Fine by me,” Mara said, deflecting the incoming blaster bolts as the door opened.
The control room, unsurprisingly, was filled with droids. A few MagnaGuards, 3 in all, stood sentinel here as well. And unlike the training models she’d dueled in the Inquisitorius, their staffs would kill much more quickly.
She darted towards the closest one as the commandos took out the other droids in the command center, trading blows and pressing forward almost relentlessly as a mind honed by combating these droids over and over made the connection to the pattern of its attacks. This droid was using what the Empire called ‘Delta-35b’, falling back to a cautious defense while waiting for openings. Easy enough to surmount.
She pressed the attack, going for the arms and managing to catch one of them with her blade, taking advantage of the moment of imbalance to go for the armored processor in its chest, stabbing then slicing up. The droid fell lifeless before her.
The other two were easy by this point. One’s programming was Theta-18, relentless and aiming to send Mara to the floor by sweeping her legs. Jumping over it was its weakness. The last MagnaGuard used Kilo-89, trying to leverage its staff’s ability to resist lightsaber blades to maneuver her blade out of the way or back into her. That required disengaging for a moment, getting behind it, and striking quickly while its back was turned.
As the last MagaGuard fell, and Mara brought her attention back to the rest of the room, the fight was already over, Verity moving towards the consoles that weren’t smoking.
“We can’t have gone through the entire garrison of a facility this big,” Mara said as she glanced between the two doors and the window to the outside. “Is there a way to tell how well-staffed this place is?”
“Give us a second, and we’ll find out,” Sparkle said, beginning to access one of the consoles.
“Right,” Mara said, striding over to the far door on their right. “I’ll make sure no one can catch us in a pincer.”
As Verity worked, Mara paused in front of the door, raising her lightsaber and ever so gently touching the seam where door met frame. In an instant, the metal began to heat up, Mara guiding it like a welding torch around the door’s circumference.
After a few moments, she stepped back and admired her handiwork for a moment. “We should be all set here. Any updates?”
“Looks like this place is staffed by about 150 droids at any given time,” Bouncer replied. “Given that, by my count, we’ve deactivated about 25 or 30 of them… we’ve still got some work to do.”
“That shouldn’t be too difficult,” Mara replied. “Hell, we might even clear this place out before Decision arrives.”
“That’s an awfully tempting prospect, ma’am, I’ve gotta admit,” Sparkle chimed in. “The guns are offline, now. As long as we hold this point, we can keep it that way.”
“A Jedi shouldn't have too much trouble dealing with the rest of the base,” Mara said. “Now, I'd appreciate some company if I go. I'd hate to have something sweep behind and overwhelm me.”
“Sparkle, you want to go droid hunting with Master Jade?” Shout said. “We can hold down the fort.”
“Works for me,” Sparkle said, Mara able to hear the slight smile in the man's voice as he reloaded his rifle.
“Let's go, then,” Mara said as the pair strode towards the working door.
. . .
Up in orbit, Anakin and Obi-Wan stood on the bridge of the Resolute, looking at the CIC display intently as it displayed the surface of Boz Pity, the anti-orbital stations that the dozen commando squads, Master Unduli, Master Jade, and Master Skoll, were working on capturing in different shades.
Master Skoll and his teams were sitting on one of the liberated batteries, glowing green. Master Unduli, Daybreak, and Lock Squads, along with Master Jade and her squads, were still in the act of securing their anti-orbital batteries, highlighted in orange.
That triad of batteries was the only barrier keeping them from their initial landing zone. Once they established a forward base, they could open more zones.
The air on the bridge was thick with anticipation as Master Unduli’s battery flicked to green with the confirmation signal from Daybreak Squad. That was two.
Silence reigned, and it almost seemed hard to breathe for long moments.
Then, at last, a flicker to green, a simple change in hue, elicited cheers and applause.
Obi-Wan simply nodded. “Alright. Let's get to the transports. And let's hope we can resolve this quickly.”
Anakin nodded, and thought about the holocron somewhere on the surface. He thought for a moment about Obi-Wan about it.
‘I'm sure the others will show Obi-Wan the holocron,’ Anakin decided. ‘He'll see it at the same time as everyone else they trust.’
Something about this holocron drew him to it. If there was a way to make balancing his emotions and his duties, his passions with his training, work…
If he could make this all work… then it would be worth any risk.