Chapter 16: Storm of Sabers(1)

Anakin crept along the alleyway, hood drawn up and around his face, obscuring his features. It was frigid, almost cold enough to snow, which meant that it was the most miserable temperature possible for the weather he was in. Frigid, oily drops patterned against his slick robe in an inconsistent drizzle. Well, perhaps weather was the wrong term, after all, it was hardly rain that he was being coated in.

Looking up, tens, maybe hundreds of massive, grated platforms faced skyward, and an equal number lingered below him, visible through the holes in the grated platform he himself stood on. Buildings had been fitted onto these grates, each one rising to a variable height, all the way up to the next grate, with some connecting to the buildings above or below them. Each grate contained a small city in its own right, and people moved, worked, and lived on each segment as naturally as anyone might on the lower levels of Coruscant.

Crowds of dirty void dwellers roamed down the broad avenues, walking on foot or conveyed on some vehicle. Priests in red robes, their bodies disfigured with rough, pervasive augmentations, wore large, floating harnesses and rings, levitating above the crowds, performing various tasks of maintenance on the varied systems of the ship. The entire area smelled like stale air and human bodies, the unwashed kind, and Anakin did not want to hazard a guess as to just what was composing the inconsistent but ever-present drizzle which coated him more and more with each passing moment.

The Jedi looked around, checking to make sure the coast was relatively clear before waving his men forward. It was just him, Wrecker, Crosshair, Tech, Hunter, and R2. Moving with such a small team had allowed them to evade the security forces sent to their boarding craft, and with a little effort, they had moved deep enough into the ship to reach this populated area. The clones and droid rushed across the smaller street which separated them, coming into Anakin's alley and hefting weapons, each cloaked as well.

"This is a warship?" Hunter asked as he came up beside Anakin.

The Jedi nodded. "Yeah, one of their smaller ones," he added, peeking around the corner into the main street.

"No kidding?" Hunter asked, kneeling down and tapping the grated floor. "From what I can tell, there are at least twenty... no, thirty thousand people live here. Maybe more," he said with a sniff.

"They drag all these people to war? What happens if the ship gets attacked or blown up?" asked Wrecker. No one answered verbally, but Crosshair hefted his sniper rifle and drew his finger across his own throat, pairing the act with a choking sound. Wrecker's eyes widened.

"Oh, wow, that's pretty hardcore!" Wrecker said.

"Wrecker, reign it in, stay focused," said Hunter. The huge clone smirked and nodded.

"We need to pick up the pace, Hunter. Ahsoka and Rex are fighting next door, and I'm sure they are drawing most of the attention. We need to break into the bridge and make sure they have no way to access the bomb on Anaxes, with Trench's ship or not," Anakin said.

Hunter stood, shaking his head. "I know, sir, but this place is vast and not built very intuitively. Halls are blocked, lifts are broken... I was hoping that by heading towards a larger, empty space, navigation would become clearer, but that's not the case..." He trailed off, seeming to hear something, before snapping around and aiming his blaster at the far end of the alley.

Standing there was a hunched man... or was he a machine? Both, and fully a monster besides. He was mauled by metallic augmentations all over his body, head, neck, everywhere. His flesh was a tortured, red mass of metal and unwilling skin and muscle, both eyes gone, replaced with large red lenses that had been shoved into the eye sockets, which still wept dirty pink tears dripping from its chin. All weapons snapped up to face it, and R2 whirred and moved behind Anakin.

"All... praise... be... his..." the man-machine said as it staggered into the alley.

It had a large, hunched back, and its arms were both replaced, the right with a large claw, and the left with a club-like protuberance of stained metal. Flies buzzed about its stinking, nearly rotting form, covered only by filthy rags and sheets of long, thin paper hanging from red wax seals, each thickly coated in the scrolled religious texts of the Dea. It moved forward steadily but slowly, appearing to have no other speed.

"Should we—" Crosshair asked, looking towards Hunter, but it was Anakin who answered.

"No, wait. Don't shoot it. I don't sense anything. No hostility," he whispered. "No awareness at all," he added a moment later.

All the while, the thing continued to lurch forward, moving towards them, metal feet thumping down, one after the other, as it neared them. Closer and closer it came.

"Be... pure... in... his... sight..." it said.

"Uh, it's getting kinda close," Wrecker said, still aiming at the thing.

"You shoot that thing, and it will give us away. Just move, nice and slow," Anakin said back.

It got closer and closer, moving directly towards Crosshair, the closest one. But Crosshair did not move; he only raised and sighted his rifle, mechanical leg squeaking slightly as he adjusted his stance.

"Filth... must... be... expunged..." it droned, now almost in Crosshair's face.

"Crosshair, move," Hunter ordered, his voice low and strained.

It stepped almost into the raised barrel of Crosshair's rifle, raising one augmented arm, the claw there opening sluggishly. Crosshair smoothly but slowly moved to the left of the thing as it reached forward, his barrel hovering inches from its face and head. Its claw reached into a fitted slot in the wall behind Crosshair, and out slid a stinking refuse container. Its other arm reached in, the club-like head of its limb revealed to be a powerful suction device, which it used to slurp up the partial sewage. Its hunchback inflated, getting larger and larger, until it stopped, a flame flicking to life at the end of the same arm that had been used for the draining. It billowed out a flame into the container, sterilizing it before sliding it back into the wall.

"All... tasks... in... his... name... are... worthy..." it moaned, as it turned away from the wall and began to walk to the next alley and the next container. They all watched after it, even remaining silent and vigilant as it opened the wall canister in the next alley over from theirs, doing the same, its hump swelling and stinking even more grotesquely.

"Was... was that supposed to be a person?" Tech asked.

Anakin, paler now than he had been before, shook his head. "That... that used to be a person. I have no idea what it is now," he said.

R2-D2 beeped and whirred, and Anakin nodded. "What'd he say?" asked Wrecker.

"A droid," said the Jedi.

"Huh?" asked the clone.

"R2 says that it, whatever it was before, it's now a droid. Maybe less," Anakin clarified.

"This place is a horror show," Crosshair said, not sounding nearly as displeased as his words would imply.

"Then let's bring the curtains down," said Hunter. "General, we can't rely on my spatial awareness alone if we are going to navigate up to the bridge in time to aid Captain Rex. We need a guide, willing or not."

Anakin nodded, rubbing his chin before suddenly smiling. "OK, I've got an idea!"

———————————————————

"Fekking kill 'em! Shoot it, shoot it!" screeched the augmented warrior. Half his face was cast in rigid metal, iron teeth exposed, a red lens filling the metal socket of the skull-like side of his head. But the other half was all too human, scowling and paling in a volatile combination of uncompromising fury and existential fear.

Before him, two men of lesser rank aimed their massive slug throwers, their multiple barrels whining as they began to spin, like primitive imitations of proper rotary blasters. Obi-Wan's speed increased, leaving them only a second or two left before their weapons actually started firing. The Jedi Master narrowed his eyes as he saw the shots coming—fast, very fast, and not blockable. He answered them by running to the left, narrowly avoiding the twin streams of fire as he sped towards them up the cylindrical hall.

The two gunners were nothing if not persistent, gritting their teeth as they moved their weapons to chase, lines of fire dragging after Obi-Wan, forcing him further and further left, sandwiching him between the wall and the closing hail of bullet-borne death that was pursuing. In response, the Jedi merely ran up the wall, prompting shouts of rage from the men as their guns swept up after him but simply could not track the master unaided.

They had less than a second to finish their exclamations of dismay, the heads of the two gunners flying clean off as Obi-Wan sped by them, his stride unbroken. Their superior hefted a scattergun and fired it, grinning madly, fully willing to be bisected by Obi-Wan's saber if it meant slaying him in the process. The Jedi did not feel the same and leapt over the man, avoiding the shredding sheet of fire and the officer entirely as he continued to run.

The Imperial roared with rage and spun on his heel to discharge his weapon into Obi-Wan's back. He was cut short quite literally as the forty-seven Jedi following in the master's wake swept by, dicing the man into pieces before he could squeeze the trigger. They had met the organized defenders of the ship soon after boarding. The Imperials were determined, well-trained, vicious, and ready. But none of that saved them, or even slowed the Jedi down.

The Order was unleashed, and just as Obi-Wan was doing now, so too were the many other groups of Jedi loose in the ship, doing damage wherever they could, seeking to disable or destroy the vessel. The speed and power of their assault was utterly overwhelming, and the defenders could not stop them.

In his mind, Obi-Wan could hear them—the other Jedi—all communicating to each other telepathically, reporting, updating, informing... calling for help?

"Someone's in trouble," Obi-Wan said aloud, though it was his mental voice, which aped his spoken word, that was heard by the others in his group.

"Who?" asked Master Uvell.

"I sense it as well," said Master Malicos, his robed form skipping along the corridor just two steps behind Obi-Wan, so close the elder master could almost physically hear him.

"It's Master Unduli!" he said after a moment.

"Why can I not hear her?" asked Jedi Knight Olgant.

"Something is blocking her from us. But I sense that she is calling, that she is in distress," said Master Malicos.

"Then let us go. We are the nearest," said Obi-Wan Kenobi, veering left at the next intersection of claustrophobic halls that came into view.

"NOW!" roared another one of the Imperial officers.

They had been waiting for them, lined up, this time four men in front and one officer behind. The four men were holding large, glowing weapons, each one massive in their arms as they hefted, aimed, and fired. The globular bolts of plasma filled every space in the hallway, melting the corridor just by their passage. They moved blindingly fast, but the Jedi had begun acting even before the shots themselves had been fired. They halted, landing wherever they could, lightsabers held, hands extended out. The masters and their knights focused, reaching out with their wills in a wave of Force that collided with the superheated plasma.

The powerful weaponized bolts smashed into the invisible wall, splattering before rolling backward in a wave of cooling but still superheated plasma, melting the already-glowing corridor a second time. The men screamed, some turning to run, forced to carry their heavy guns, the power packs on their backs connecting to the weapons, leaving them little choice.

The officer screamed in fury, unloading his scattergun into the rolling wave twice before being destroyed by it. None of them survived the counterattack, and soon the Jedi were jumping from the edges of their charred bones, booted and saddled feet only touching the smoking remains and molten metal of the hallway for less than milliseconds as they rushed through.

And so it was that things continued, with ambushes and choke points being quickly overcome by the precognitive assault of the Jedi Order and its lethal divisions. Where bullets were used, the Jedi dodged and danced around them, the master leading the way. Where plasma was used, the Force was deployed, creating walls that could not be burnt or expended by superheated energy. Where las-fire was used, the Jedi would rip the plates and panels away from the ship around them, sending them forward in lethal storms of spinning metal that would both shield the advancing knights and force their opponents into cover until the very instant they were upon them.

Mace Windu and his combat force had gone to a place called "The Choir" to neutralize their communications, and Obi-Wan and the others had lost direct contact with him, though they trusted Master Windu to handle himself in any situation. Luminara, however, seemed to be broadcasting distress, like a scream being issued from a mouth submerged by water. The closer they drew, the louder it became.

Finally, they found themselves near the top of the massive vessel, a long line of carnage stretched out behind them. They had not lost a single knight, not one, on their way here. They had all been warned that holding back against this foe would mean certain failure, and a surprisingly large amount of the Order had taken this to heart. The horrors occurring on Axum had also been shared and had become a potent source of dispassionate rage within the knights and masters of the Jedi—a rage they now vented in faux serenity, faces placid as they slaughtered their way through the armsmen of the ship.

Even now they found themselves in some sort of bizarre collection of orreries, a confusing hive of domes of various sizes connected by a maze of corridors. She was within one of these chambers, but it was unclear which one. But the sound of her distress had become truly alarming.

They entered another orrery, the dome above them made of transparent material and framed in stained glass that depicted different equations and constellations across the breadth of the ceiling. The stars and a portion of Axum's sphere shone in from there, illuminating the hundreds of soldiers present before them—soldiers the Jedi had already sensed long before entering the room. The knights activated their sabers and got to work, moving like wraiths, each swing lopping away limbs and heads. The cries of the wounded only lasted so long before silence returned to the starlit room.

"This was overkill," said Master Drallig, deactivating his lightsaber as he spoke, his voice filled with bitter sentiments. "Deploying the full might of the Order like this is cruel," he said, voicing the words as he would a hard fact to a stubborn student.

Obi-Wan looked at Cin Drallig, and then they both looked toward Jedi Knight Cere Junda, who was hacking at the twitching body of an officer. "And irresponsible," Drallig added, his bitterness edging into resentment as he clipped his saber to his belt and strode toward the knight, gently but insistently pulling her away from the corpse and bringing her gradually back to center.

Obi Wan agreed with the sentiment, though he was not sure he could agree with the idea that this should not have been done. This was only going so smoothly because they were not facing the same forces they had encountered during the invasion of Axum, when they had faced armies of the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines. The tens of Jedi present had died so quickly the retreat had not even been sounded, with few commanders being decisive enough to survive, and none unscathed.

Had they been here, waiting for them, this would have been a different battle entirely. Obi Wan sighed heavily, shaking his head as he looked at the sentinel forms of the Jedi around him and the mounds of corpses at their feet. How could it be that even in victory, he could feel defeat closing around them still? He shook his head and cleared his thoughts. His mission now was to effect a rescue of Master Unduli, and he cast his eyes and senses about, trying to see if they were any closer to her. Her presence seemed the same as it had been before, but his eyes did find something lying on the ground—a familiar shape, but one that did not belong there. A lightsaber.

He went to it and collected it from the ground. He did not recognize it, but he knew it belonged to no one within his combat force. He hooked it to his belt and turned to the others.

"Master Luminara is close. Let's not lose our momentum," Master Kenobi said to them. Grim nods, grimaces, and troublesome grins greeted his call, and soon they were moving again, back into the halls. Obi Wan let his hand trace along the new lightsaber, feeling a pull within it and following. Soon, they were at a new door that led into yet another domed place, similar to the others and lit by the stars, but much larger than any orrery they had seen thus far. And now they could all hear it—not with the Force, but with their own ears. Master Luminara was screaming, her voice torn and wet, her agony slamming into all of them, as if passing into the room had been the same as passing beyond a buffer that had, until that point, smothered the truth of her cry.

It was not a distress call; it was a shriek, continuous and horrid, pried from her lips by what could only be described as psychic torture. They honed in on her right away, in the very center of the cavernous domed room, writhing on the ground beneath the gaze of a massive, single figure.

"Spread out," ordered Master Malicos. "Surround him!" The knights swiftly obeyed, fanning out and wrapping around as they came in from all sides. The figure was large, seven feet tall easily, and even taller if one accounted for the rise of his metallic hood. He held a staff in one hand, a glowing, maligned thing that keened in his grip, the sound reverberating within the Force like the long-stretched echoes of screams long past. The Dark Side reeked from him.

As they drew closer, they could also make out more about Luminara. Though at first it had seemed that she had merely collapsed at his feet, afflicted by unseen agony, it soon became all too clear that her arms and legs had been mercilessly crushed at each joint, leaving her physically helpless. The sight flushed Obi Wan with rage—rage he was forced to control and hold down. The man could smash Luminara under his foot at any moment, ending any chance to save her.

No, he was no man, Obi Wan quickly realized. He was a Space Marine, an Astartes, and whatever Anakin thought of them, it was clear as daylight to the Jedi present that this individual did have access to the Force.

"Step away from Master Unduli!" ordered Cere Junda.

"Slowly, carefully, or you'll get a look at all these lightsabers very close up," added Master Uvell.

Obi Wan had not been able to tell that the marine's eyes had been closed until he opened them, the metal hood surrounding his head obscuring the warrior's face in shadow. But once his eyes opened, there was no mistaking it. A blue fire burned there, so brightly that the Jedi had at first mistaken it for another form of augmentation. But what smoldered around the rings of his eyes was not a manifestation of technology, but an omen of true power.

"Ahh, finally," the Space Marine rumbled.

Luminara suddenly went almost still, her chest rising and falling with ragged breaths, but no longer seized by agony, and the Jedi around them could sense the ability he had been maintaining fall away from her.

"You need not fear for her safety," the warrior assured them. "She will be screaming still, long after you are all naught but corpses. In fact, I swear to you all this: she will not die, will not pass into oblivion, until every last Jedi on this ship has prepared the way for her first."

"Brave words for a man who is surrounded and outnumbered. Master Luminara is a prized warrior of our Order, but defeating her does not mean you can defeat the lot of us," said Master Malicos. "Surrender, and you shall be treated fairly. Fight, and you will be captured, and I cannot promise that you will be whole when we do it," he added, activating his second lightsaber, a humming green blade to pair with his main-handed blue blade.

The Marine said nothing for a time, and the silence seemed loud in the interim—heavy on the ear, even past the humming of so many drawn sabers. It was, Obi Wan thought, as though the Marine was the silence, and even in this, his desire to drown them out was almost deafening—a bloodlust that ran off the Astartes like water from a spring. And like water, it was filling the room, subsuming the knights in an aura of menace that made the glow of their sabers seem dirtied and dull.

"Do you really," the Marine asked out loud, clearly to no one in particular, "think that I found your 'Master' alone?"

Obi Wan felt a cold, creeping dread slither into his guts and spine, feeling the extra saber at his waist grow unexpectedly heavy. He knew it was not Luminara's lightsaber, either. It had belonged to one of the knights in her combat force—knights who were not present… or so he had thought.

As if in cruel response to the Master's thoughts, the blue-clad warrior began to glow. Power billowed into the room through his form, like a closed door into a tranquil home being suddenly thrown open by hurricane winds. An aura of liquid gold suffused the air around him, a halo of burning, writhing energy crowning the warrior in false sunlight, like a saint of some solar religion—or perhaps its god. Indeed, the warrior seemed to swell in size as well, armor and all, becoming not only golden and shining, but even more enormous than before. Steaming rays of light, which pained the eye and burned the skin, erupted from the Space Marine, and the room was lit more brightly than any other part of the Gothic vessel.

The Jedi hesitated, flinched back, and recoiled, but no attack came—the Marine simply standing where he was.

"Your fates are written into the stars, foolish witches," said the man, aiming his staff up toward the clear dome above them, further illuminating his grisly handiwork. Most did not see it at first, too distracted, too engaged with the warrior before them. But Obi Wan saw right away. Plastered with great force and extreme heat into the clear ceiling above them were the smoldering, skeletal remains of the Jedi who had accompanied Master Luminara. They stared, framed between constellations, empty or dead eyes gazing down upon them all, mouths agape in silent screams of warning—desperate but dead shouts to flee, to run, to escape with their lives.

"Now, witness the glory of the Emperor," said the golden, god-like warrior.

"Take him!" yelled Malicos, throwing himself forward, his order at his side, Obi Wan following as well.

"Through me!" the Space Marine finished, raising his staff into the air and creating yet another blinding flash, just as the first sabers reached him.

With the breaking of thunder and the scream of lightning, battle was joined.

———————————————————

"They are coming," said Jedi Master Kota.

He pulled the electrobinoculars away from his eyes and handed them back to Master Vos. The Jedi took the device and aimed it down the massive main road that cut between the main spires of Azure City. Through them, he could see the encroaching Imperial cultists, marching en masse toward the Temple. Quinlan felt a cold lump drop into his stomach and expressed the sudden anxiety with a whistle.

"They are really, really bringing the big guns, aren't they?" he asked, eyes glued to the absolutely massive columns of large vehicles and tanks.

From their position at the top of Kelemen Spire, Vos had a nearly unimpaired view of the thousands of tanks and tens of thousands of soldiers marching and rolling briskly toward Aayla's battlefront. Rahm Kota crossed his arms, one leg up on the lip of the short railing, eyes narrowed and focused.

"Yes, and everyone in the gun depot as well, from the looks of it. I think Master Windu underestimated how badly they would want to preserve that temple, or whatever it is they have inside of it. Might even be that it was their actual HQ all along," he said as Vos watched on.

"Think the plan will still work?" asked Vos.

Kota grinned. Rahm Kota had joined the Jedi Order at a staggering 18 years of age, at the behest of Jedi Master Mace Windu. He had grown up on a desolate, war-torn world, fighting for his life from the time he could walk, until the moment Master Windu came to his world and ended the conflict. He refused to command clones, never ordered frontal charges except in the most closed situations, and he, more than even Quinlan Vos himself, was an absolute master of conventional urban warfare. There was no other Jedi within the Order more prepared for this kind of war, at least in the mind of Quinlan Vos.

"Nothing has changed. Is the evacuation complete?" asked Master Kota.

Vos closed his eyes and soon had answers to relay. "Almost. Second sweep is nearly done," he said.

Kota nodded. "And the broadcast, is everything ready for it?" he asked.

Vos smiled. "Everything is ready to go, as soon as you give the word."

Kota nodded again, sharper this time, the movement a signal of determination. "Then it will work. They could march their own damned Emperor down this road, and the plan will still work."

Vos gave Kota a hard pat on the back. What neither of them mentioned—but what they were fully aware of—was just how many of Axum's own population would die from this. It was unavoidable, and the collateral damage was bound to be enormous, no matter how they conducted this battle. And yet still, both Masters silently wondered if they were on the verge of stepping over a vital line, and if there would be any returning from that if they did.

"It will be worth it," Kota said, more to himself than to his contemporary. "I'll deliver Axum back into the hands of the Republic, the whole world, with just this," he added, looking down into his hand, at the holo-disk clutched there, and the tremendous responsibility using it would place on him.

On all of them.