Clone Wars Gambit: Siege (35 page)

A
S HE FINISHED UNBLOCKING
yet another fuel line, Obi-Wan heard Devi screaming his name. He slammed the levers back into position and ran to the monitoring station.

“Chiba was here!” said Devi, sweat pouring down her face. “Anakin says the shield’s failing.”

He shoved his way outside. The noise of the bombardment was overwhelming, beating and battering and echoing in his skull. The sky was bloodred with plasma fire and the shield—well, it was holding, but he could see an ominous sparking across its surface and suspicious ripples in the plasma.

They had minutes, that was all.

Villagers were streaming toward the mine entrance, the oldest and the infirm being carried on stretchers or pushed on antigrav sleds. No groundcars; they’d all been driven into the streets and flipped onto their sides. Obstacles for the droids, hopefully, and maybe some shelter for the village commandos. Pitiful, to be sure, but it was better than nothing.

He ran back into the power plant. “All right, Devi. That’s it. Put the plant on auto-run and get yourself down the mine.”

She shook her head, weeping. “No, Obi-Wan, I’m staying. I can’t leave you to face them alone.”

“Devi!” he said, and grabbed hold of her shoulders. “No. You said when the time came, you’d go. You
promised.
”

“I know, but I can’t,” she sobbed. “How can I run away? What kind of a person does that make me?”

“A person who keeps her word,” he said, and hugged her. “
Please
, Devi. Rikkard will need you.”

Still weeping, she switched the plant’s machinery to autorun then turned back to him, ready to argue some more. Mindful of her broken-down antigrav harness, he summoned a smile and gave her a little push.

“Go on. I’ll be fine.”

Her plain face tear-streaked and tight with grief, she shook her head. “Liar,” she said, and left.

He took a moment, just a moment, to listen to the power plant. It was rough, but it was running. It was the most he could hope for. Leaving it to run or die, he went in search of Taria.

T
ARIA SLOTTED
the last four fuel containers into their feed lines and opened the spigots. When she was sure the fresh fuel was flowing unhindered, she took a moment to ease her aching back and stepped outside the stinking, fume-laden fuel house to snatch some fresh air before going in search of Obi-Wan.

As she took her first breath, the Force slapped her with a stunning sense of danger. She looked up and saw the shield overhead sparking and sputtering and oddly crawling, as though the plasma were alive and trying to shed its own skin.

Oh. I’ve got a bad feeling about this
.

And then she registered the stream of villagers heading for the mine. Someone had signaled the evacuation. Good. But there was nobody to rally the village commandos—they were milling in the street looking uncertain and confused.

She ran for them.

“All right, all right, settle down!” she shouted. “Into your teams, people. No talking. Come on!”

It was like herding Padawans before a tournament in the large dojo.
There you go, Ahsoka. I knew our little competition would come in handy
. When the villagers were split into their ten teams of three, silent and staring at her, she gave them her best no-nonsense Jedi stare.

“I know you’re frightened, but I also know you can do this,” she said, raising her voice above the droids’ constant bombardment. “This is your home you’re defending. It’s your friends and your mothers and your husbands and your children. So everyone take a deep breath, get focused, and we’ll run through the drills one more time.”

Trying so hard to control their fear, Torbel’s commandos stumbled through the range of offensive drills they’d been taught. When they were done, she smiled at them.

“Excellent work, people. You’ll do fine, I know you will. Just remember—keep your heads. Don’t get carried away and waste a bomb or a shot on a single droid. Not unless you absolutely have to. Aim for them in groups—you’ll take out more of them that way. Don’t use your vibro-weapons until you’re sure your target’s down and disarmed. And
do
remember to pick up their blasters if you can. Throw them out of reach if you’re not able to use them yourselves. And—”

“
Taria!
”

Holding up her hand, she turned. It was Obi-Wan, coming toward her at a shuffling run. One look at his face and she knew.
This is it
. Turning back to the men and women who’d volunteered to be the front line against Durd’s droid army, she nodded.

“It’s time. Gear up, people, then take your positions. And may the Force be with you.”

Solemnly silent, the villagers loaded themselves with their assorted weaponry and headed out. Blinking back tears, Taria watched them go. But when Obi-Wan reached her she spun around and showed him nothing but a smile.

“Master Kenobi! Guess what? I think we’re about to host a little war.” She skimmed a hand down her grimy black bodysuit. “Is this suitable for the occasion, or should I find myself a dress?”

Speechless, he looked at her. And then he began to laugh.

“Come on,” she said, taking his arm. “Let’s go kick some clanker butt.”

I
N THE END
it was Generator Four that brought the shield crashing down. Anakin felt the collapse before it happened, felt the spark and flame of its heart as it died. And because of the way he’d reconfigured the shield matrix, because he couldn’t do it any other way, it took every other generator down with it.

Incredibly, as the shield began to collapse, the droid army ceased firing. As if it couldn’t believe what was happening right in front of it. As if this were some devious Jedi trick.

I wish
.

The droids’ immobility gave him time to drag out his lightsaber and ignite it, time to reach painfully into the Force and feel for Obi-Wan and Taria. And there they were, not far from the ruined refinery. Then he felt them separate, taking up their positions.

He watched the shield fade, feeling strangely calm. The sky was empty. Mace Windu’s attempt to reach them in time had failed.

A single thought. One last regret.

I’m sorry, Padmé. Please forgive me
.

And then Durd’s army opened fire.

“H
OLD ON, LITTLE’UN!”
Rex bellowed, his voice tinny through his helmet’s vocoder. “Because we are coming in hotter than hot!”

Hotter than hot didn’t begin to describe it. Their gunship was screaming toward Anakin’s location so fast Ahsoka expected the air to ignite. She was still getting used to the idea she wasn’t dead. She couldn’t believe they’d finally broken Grievous’s blockade. But they had. Facing Dreadnaughts and battleships and armored freighters and starpounders and eleven squadrons of fighters
and
four of the best GAR cruisers, the cowardly barve had lost his nerve. He’d turned tail and run, the move so surprising he’d made it to hyperspace before they could stop him.

Admiral Yularen had turned the bridge’s air bright blue, swearing. And then he’d set his sights on Lanteeb.

Leaving Yularen and his enhanced battle group to take care of liberating the planet, she and Master Windu were taking the 501st and the 95th to Torbel, to save Anakin and Master Kenobi and Taria from the droids.

Please, please, don’t let us be too late
.

“Smoke!” shouted their pilot, pointing. “That’s Torbel up ahead.”

Smoke?
Precarious, Ahsoka leaned out of the open side of the larty, and saw Master Windu do the same thing on his gunship, flying beside them. The ground was whipping fast beneath them, the air cold and whistling.

Hurry, hurry. Go faster, Jinx. Come on
.

They flew up and over a range of low hills and there was the village, crawling with droids and engulfed in flames. She saw a scattered handful of people running, panicked, saw the droids mow them down and keep on marching. Desperate, she reached for Anakin in the Force but all she could feel was chaos and terror.

With a roaring of engines the hunting pack of thirty gunships screamed into Torbel. Some of the droids turned and started firing. The 501st and the 95th laughed and began firing back. And then the larties were dirtside, white-armored clones spilling onto hard ground, and the clanking tinnies never knew what hit them.

Ahsoka Force-leapt from her gunship, lightsaber sizzling. She sensed Rex and Sergeant Coric and Checkers, wading into the fight.
May the Force be with you, boys. Don’t you dare get killed
. Dimly she felt Master Windu engage the enemy, slicing and Force-pushing droids to scrap. He didn’t need her. She bolted into the fray.

Three fast strides and she was one with the Force. She breathed it, it breathed her, she danced in its storm. Droids fell before her, but she was untouched. The air was rank with smoke and blood. More people had died here.

Not Anakin. Please
.

And then she saw the bodies, but he wasn’t among them. She had to stay focused. She’d have felt it if he’d died. And she’d feel it if Master Kenobi died, surely. Some of the slaughtered were women, but none had blue-green hair. She could see that much as she leapt and somersaulted and slashed droids to pieces.

Anakin, I’m here. Anakin, where are you?

But she couldn’t sense him. She started to despair—and then heard his voice in her memory, deep and measured.
Don’t be afraid, Ahsoka. Fear just gets in the way
.

So instead of straining to find him, she gave herself to the moment and let the Force move her as it willed. Her lightsaber flashed and dazzled and swung, faster and faster, though she felt quite slow and calm—as though this were a dojo and she couldn’t actually die.

Every droid that challenged her fell to her blade.

She was aware of Master Windu, fighting. She could feel the clones of the 501st and the 95th as they hunted the length and breadth of the small, burning village. The droids she couldn’t feel, but through the stinking, gusting smoke she could see the clone troops cutting them to pieces. And she felt herself drift past abandoned groundcars and gutted buildings, down ferrocrete alleys and across open ground, leaping through heat and flames, slicing apart any tinnie stupid enough to get in her way. The droids were vastly outnumbered now. They were walking scrap metal.

She realized it had been a while since she’d come across a dead body.

Shouldn’t there be more villagers? Where did they go?

And then she forgot about the people, because there he was, beside a ruined shield generator.
Anakin
. Bloody, sweaty, and still alive. He was fighting back-to-back with Master Kenobi and Taria, and stamped in their faces was a grim, desperate determination and a shared extremity of pain. A ring of droids surrounded them, moving in for the kill.

Ahsoka felt her lips peel back in a snarl.

I don’t think so, you clanking barves. Not today. Not ever
.

Then came a rush in the Force and Master Windu was beside her. She glanced at him and he glanced at her and that was all they needed. They knew what to do.

The look on Anakin’s face, when he saw her, was the only reward she’d ever need.

J
UST OVER AN HOUR LATER
, A
HSOKA STOOD IN A SMALL PATCH
of silence on Torbel’s charred village square, as Master Windu coordinated the various mopping-up phases of the mission. Since Lantibba City’s Seps had surrendered almost immediately, the most complicated task was arranging for a total evacuation of Torbel’s surviving villagers, all three hundred and something of them, because the place had been reduced to a smoking ruin.

The sun was going down fast, so Rex had arranged the gunships to be positioned around the square. Their floodlights turned the dusk to noon. It was a typically efficient and thoughtful
Rex
action, and it made her love him more than ever.

Now he and the rest of the troops—and while some were wounded none had died—were methodically going through what remained of the village, collecting undamaged personal items and communal equipment and stacking it neatly in one of the streets bordering the square.

Sad to say, there wasn’t much.

Lined up in the road on the other side of the square were twenty-eight body bags. Sergeant Coric and Checkers had been in charge of that sad duty. The dead were being kept company by some of the weeping villagers who’d emerged from Torbel’s mine when the fighting was over. Their grief filled the Force.

Anakin, Master Kenobi and Taria sat together in the square’s designated triage area. They weren’t alone. About forty villagers had been separated from the others and were being given emergency medical treatment, too. The twilight air was full of smoke and the soft sounds of suffering.

One woman—Master Kenobi called her Sufi—insisted on shadowing the clone medics and double-checking every pill and hypo and ointment they administered. Master Kenobi had tried telling her not to worry, she could trust them, but this Sufi woman was having none of it. And she was trailed by a scrawny girl child called Greti, who had a strange Force presence and kept running back to Master Kenobi to make sure he was all right. Ahsoka thought that was quite odd.

But I can’t really blame her. He looks terrible. They all do
.

They looked so bad—cut and bruised and seared in many places by blasterfire—that every time her gaze fell on them she felt her heart bump, and her breathing hitch. It brought back memories of how scared she’d been on Maridun, when Skyguy was injured, and how afraid he’d been after Master Kenobi’s never-explained mission to Zigoola. She had to keep reminding herself that the past was the past, she must focus her mind on the present.

In the present, Torbel’s villagers were scared of her.

Before she’d been hustled away by three medics, all to herself, Taria had pulled her aside. “You’re going to make them uncomfortable, Ahsoka. Don’t take it personally. These people are culturally—unsophisticated.”

No kidding. They’re looking at me like I might try and eat them, or something
.

She was doing her best, but it was a
little
hard not to take it personally. Especially since she’d just helped save their lives.

“Ahsoka!”

Startled, she looked up. “Yes, Master Kenobi?”

He crooked a finger at her. “A moment?”

“Master?” she said, joining him, and flicked a smile at Skyguy and Taria. Even though they were hurt and exhausted they both smiled back, then looked at Master Kenobi. So did she.

The medics had given him so many chems his eyes had gone blurry. “Padawan Tano, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.” He turned. “Greti!”

The skinny girl was sitting beside one of the sick villagers. Hearing her name, she leapt up and came running. “Teeb?”

“Greti, this is Ahsoka,” Master Kenobi said. “She’s one of the people who saved Torbel from the droids.”

“Saved?” The girl pulled a face. “It’s burned down, Torbel is.”

“
Greti.
” Master Kenobi flicked the end of her nose with his fingertip. “Manners. If not for Ahsoka you’d likely be dead.”

The skinny village girl looked her up and down in silence. Then she put her hands on her hips and tipped her head to one side. “You don’t have any hair.”

“That’s right,” Ahsoka said warily. “I’m a Togruta.”

“Your skin’s a funny color, too.”

“Not where I come from.”

Now Greti twisted her fingers in her frayed tunic pockets. “Is that far away?”

Ahsoka nodded. “Very far.”

“Oh,” said Greti, and thought about that. “Can I go there?”

“Well—I suppose so,” she said. “If you want.”

“Does anyone have hair where you come from, Ahsoka?”

Skyguy and Taria were trying not to laugh. She shot them a look, then frowned at the skinny girl. “Y’know, Greti, not everybody wants hair. Not everybody needs hair. Not everybody
likes
hair. I don’t—”

“Obi-Wan,” said Master Windu, appearing without warning. “I’ve just—” And then he stopped, because even Master Kenobi was laughing. “What?”

Greti stared up at him. “Are you from Togruta, too?”

“No,” said Master Windu blankly. “Who does this child belong to? She needs to be kept with her family.”

Master Kenobi sobered. “My apologies, Master. Greti, go find your mam. I’ll see you again later.”

“Promise?” said the skinny girl, and threw her arms around him.

Surprised, Ahsoka watched Master Kenobi pat the girl’s back, gently. “I promise.”

As the girl scuttled away, taking her strange Force presence with her, Master Windu fixed Anakin, Master Kenobi, and Taria with his dark, intense gaze. He’d been so busy being in charge, and they’d been pounced on by the medics so fast, this was the first time he’d spoken to them since the end of the brief, intense firefight.

“I’ve just been in communication with Senator Amidala,” he said. “She’s been talking with Queen Jamillia, and they have offered refugee status to the people of Torbel.”

Anakin sat up. “They have?”

“If the villagers agree, the Supreme Chancellor has authorized
Coruscant Sky
to take them from here directly to Naboo. So—who do I speak to?”

Master Kenobi took a deep breath and pushed to his feet. “That would be Rikkard, Master. Excuse me.”

Ahsoka frowned as Master Kenobi walked slowly to the group of sick and injured villagers. Anakin and Taria were frowning, too. It wasn’t right, Master Kenobi without his customary, confident swagger.

“Master Windu,” said Master Kenobi, returning with another man who was streaked head to toe with dirt. “This is Teeb Rikkard, head miner and one of Torbel’s village speakers. Rikkard, this is Master Windu of the Jedi Council. He has a proposition for you, one I think you should strongly consider. Jaklin, too, if she’s feeling better.”

Master Windu nodded gravely. “Teeb Rikkard.”

“Master Windu,” said the man Rikkard. There were tears in his eyes, and his voice was unsteady. “Torbel thanks you for what you’ve done.”

“I’m sorry it was necessary,” said Master Windu. “I’m sorry you’ve lost your home. But we might have found you a new one. Please, Rikkard. Walk with me.”

Once Master Windu was out of earshot, Master Kenobi looked at Anakin. “Interesting. By any chance did you—”

“No,” Anakin said quickly. “I don’t have a comlink. But I think it’s the perfect solution. Don’t you?”

Master Kenobi stared at the ruined village, and then at the groups of uninjured villagers at the far end of the square. “It could be, yes,” he said at last. “I hope it is.” Then he sighed. “I wonder how much longer we’ll be stuck here. There’s very little I wouldn’t give right now for a hot shower and a bed.”

But Ahsoka could tell it wasn’t himself he was worried about, it was Taria. And he was right to be worried. Even full of painkillers, Master Damsin felt… wrong.

“Ahsoka,” said Anakin, his tired eyes shadowed with concern. “Since we’re grounded, why don’t you go and find out?”

She nodded. “Yes, Master. Love to.”

Because the sooner we’re off this rock, the happier we’ll all be
.

And they did get off it, eventually, once all the farewells were done with. The skinny girl Greti clung to Master Kenobi, trying hard not to weep. Her mother did weep, thanking him for saving her hand, and her life. The bossy woman Sufi hugged him, nearly hard enough to break his ribs, and another woman, in an ancient antigrav harness, hugged Anakin as hard, and Master Kenobi, too. The village speaker Rikkard was sad to see them go. They were all polite to Taria, but it wasn’t the same.

Watching, Ahsoka realized that Anakin and Master Kenobi must have done amazing things in Torbel, that they were loved by these odd, unsophisticated villagers.

I hope this time Skyguy tells me properly what happened
.

Leaving Master Windu and the villagers behind to their discussions and decisions, they flew to
Indomitable
with Captain Rex and a clone medic for escort. Master Kenobi sat on a portable soft-seat, with Taria dozing against his shoulder. Standing beside Anakin, Ahsoka stared out of the gunship’s rear viewport at Lanteeb, falling fast behind them. Lifting his hand, Anakin wriggled his fingers.

“Good-bye, and good riddance,” he murmured.

Which pretty much said it all.