A miniature blue map of the comms center jumped into existence from Rex’s handheld holoprojector.
“The control center’s all the way on the third floor,” Rex began telling the rest of the troopers and Jedi assembled on the tram platform.
“This tentacle is blocking the dish from the right alignment. To contact our forces, we need to get this thing off from the outside and contact the fleet from the inside. That means we need two teams. It’s confirmed that demons have occupied the building and will attack on sight. It’s also likely that demons will spawn from the outside. Stay alert, and fingers on the trigger.”
The resulting split-up of their forces led to Cal taking Anakin, five 501st troops, and three 41st Battalion troopers up to the exterior of the comms array.
The rest of the troopers and Jedi entered the center.
Once they clambered atop the comms center, Anakin introduced his five troopers to Cal: Fives and Echo, batchmates and experienced ARC troopers; Oz, who was examining a stain on his forearm bracer with notable disdain; Ringo, who enjoyed old music; and Tup, a relatively new trooper to the 501st.
The 41st troopers, in turn, introduced themselves to the Jedi: Specs, who was in charge of surveying and research; Choke, a long-time sniper with two green handprints on his collar in the choking motion; and Click, who had a nasty habit of clicking his tongue when he was focusing.
He did it again in surprise when he spotted, in the distance, the enormous tentacle wrapped firmly around the main satellite dish.
“Karabast. How’re we gonna get that thing off?”
“Lightsabers, the Force,” Cal began listing, turning to regard them.
He was ahead of the group by a small margin.
“And some elbow grease.”
The small group traversed around the comms center via an outside ledge.
It was narrow and pockmarked with scratches and burn marks, and some more horrifying runes were drawn in blood on the ground.
The troopers stepped uneasily over them.
To their left was the wall of the comms center, and to their right was a steep descent into navy-blue nothingness, their ledge barely enough to keep them from falling off.
Eyes shot everywhere, looking for airborne demons like gargoyles, Cacodemons, Revenants, and Lost Souls.
Cal, most predisposed to traversal, was the leader.
Though only 12, he was surprisingly fast and agile.
When they soon faced a large stretch of ledge which disappeared into the wall, he just leaped, wall-ran for several meters, jumped off, double-jumped, and called a dangling cable to his hand, which he used to shimmy up and onto the next stretch of ledge.
From there, he jumped ten feet up to their left, onto a higher level of the base, and hit the release button for a maintenance ladder that clattered down for Anakin and the rest to clamber up.
Once they did, and walked a bit further, Anakin and Cal looked at each other, then to the next obstacle.
A pile of rubble and debris blocked their path on the higher ledge.
Both Jedi seemed to understand what needed to happen, and with a combined Force push from both, the debris was blown away, tumbling off the side of the building like acorns.
The group continued.
They soon reached some construction scaffolding– open to the air and coating the outside of the building.
Thin sheets of metal, pipes, plywood, and sheets comprised the entire structure they needed to ascend.
Cal led the way.
Anakin followed closely, and he glanced down at the tools the construction workers were using: Bolt-cutters, drills, hydrospanners, jackhammers, saws, and buckets of nails, glue, and paint.
Some were spilled, staining the wood, cloth, and metal.
But it wasn’t long before Anakin saw little shapes painted on the outside of the comms center and on the scaffolding.
Some were more demonic runes, thick and drippy from the brush, but there were also slurs, swear words, and odd phrases like Lemmy is god, RIP Dr Peters, and Justice 4 Mick.
Anakin followed Cal up a slant of scaffolding to the second floor, which already felt wobblier under his feet.
His eyes were drawn to a painting on the outside wall.
It was the stupidest, most brain-dead-looking creature Anakin had ever seen– a green blobby fish with popped eyes and a buck-tooth grin.
Underneath it was a phrase, also painted in green:”Dopefish wuz here.”
Behind him, Click made his signature sound and sighed; he had spotted a white drawing of a penis on the wall just a little further down.
“Some things never change,” he muttered.
From a hole above Anakin’s head, Cal shunted down another ladder.
Anakin stepped aside to let the other troopers go up first.
Every step creaked the floorboards, but Anakin could hear over the sounds.
Near the rear of the line, Fives and Tup were speaking.
“…Er, no, sir. This is my first real mission,” Tup shyly revealed, shaking his helmet.
“I never thought it would end up being like this, though. Thought I’d be scrapping clankers on Saleucami or Felucia, or something.”
“Eh, there’s plenty of war left for you to see, Shiny,” Fives encouraged, tapping Tup’s shoulder.
“When you get outta here, you’ll be able to see it all.”
Tup turned to face Fives, and even though he had his helmet on, Anakin could tell what sort of face he was making.
“When I get out, sir?”
“Not if,” Fives clarified.
“Doesn’t make sense to give up now of all times, does it?”
“…No, sir,” Tup agreed, shifting to let Fives go ahead of him up the ladder.
“It’s just a lot, that’s all.”
Anakin allowed Tup to scale the ladder, then just leaped up to the next level.
When he did, Anakin saw what everyone else was looking at: a dead imp hanging by his neck from one of the scaffolding ledges.
A chain was haphazardly, quickly tied around his neck.
Cal reached out and reluctantly touched the taut chain.
A second later, he shook his head and turned to Anakin.
“A construction worker was fighting him. Just a contractor, nothing to do with the UAC. This was the best he could do before he was overwhelmed by two others.”
“Not everyone’s a soldier,” Choke gruffly remarked, hoisting his sniper.
“Not everyone has to be. But you gotta defend yourself. Don’t want to die to small fry.”
Specs, meanwhile, was scanning the hanging imp’s chitinous flesh.
He then took a little vial from his belt pocket, smushed it into the broken skin around its neck, and filled it up with stagnant blood.
He resecured it in his belt.
“Just in case,” he said to no one in particular.
When he was done, the group ascended one more level of scaffolding.
The main comms dish was level with their eyes now, and just ahead of them, along the pathway of another ledge.
And they were about to advance forth, when suddenly a series of bright flashes materialized all around them.
Blasters found their marks.
When the flashes died down, they revealed a series of imps and gargoyles all over the scaffolding.
“They must have started combat inside!” Anakin deduced, his lightsaber flaring to life and deflecting a fireball.
“We need to push forward!”
Cal took advantage of the unique terrain first.
He leaped, swung on monkey bars from a secured pipe of the scaffolding, and flipped midair to land past the enemy lines, forcing some imps to turn to face him.
Those enemies were promptly shot down.
A gargoyle spat a glob of acid at one of the support pipes right under where they were standing, and it caused the small section of construction scaffolding to collapse into a slide.
Fives, Echo, Tup, Click, and Choke tumbled down that section, while Anakin, Cal, Oz, Ringo, and Specs dove free just in time.
But now their forces were split on two levels.
An imp, hanging from the overhead bars, dropped atop Specs, forcing him onto his front.
Just as the imp raised his claw to tear out Spec’s throat, Anakin used the Force to hurl a nearby flat-head screwdriver through the imp’s eye, stunning it and giving Specs the time to kick him off and promptly shoot it.
“Get to the dish, General!” Fives yelled from the level beneath them.
“The objective takes precedence. Go, go, go!”
Anakin’s mind raced, torn for a split second between the objective and the lives of his men.
But he soon nodded and indicated the three other troopers.
“Come on!”
When the last trooper, Oz, got moving, Anakin stayed at the rear in case of stragglers while Cal ran along the new ledge to reach the dish.
But it wasn’t far before they could see an obese Mancubus blocking their path on the ledge.
It was facing them, but only barely big enough to stay on the narrow ledge, so it couldn’t even move.
Its enormous arms raised, priming to fire.
So, from behind the troopers, Anakin’s fist clenched.
A spot of stone ledge beneath the Mancubus’ bulbous foot shattered.
The alarmed Mancubus lost his balance and toppled over the edge, roaring helplessly as he plummeted.
And Anakin and the others quickly passed where he had been.
Soon, they reached a spot on the ledge where the fleshy red tentacle was directly beneath them, squeezing around the satellite dish.
Oz, Ringo, and Specs began opening fire on the tentacle, but it quickly proved futile; the enormous tentacle was absorbing blasterfire like a deflector shield generator.
The blue blaster bolts sizzled on impact, but didn’t move the tentacle one inch.
Cal’s eyes flickered all over the tentacle, processing it.
After some thought, he turned to Oz.
“I need three bombs and a detonator. Now!”
Oz quickly produced the explosives from his backpack, and Cal took them.
Looking briefly over the satellite dish, Cal soon leaped off the ledge, double-jumped, and barely caught the edge of the satellite.
From there, he pulled himself up, then over the edge.
Anakin was at the right angle to see Cal slide down the slope of the dish, down to the base and close to the tentacle.
“Give him some cover!” Anakin ordered the troopers; some faraway gargoyles had begun crawling and flapping into view close to Cal.
As Oz and Ringo began shooting them from afar, Anakin and Specs began fighting off some smaller demons that had crawled down from the top of the comms center.
Imps scrambled down like monkeys, landing on the ledge from some distance away and hanging from little antennas, gathering fireballs in their palms.
Anakin deflected some fireballs as they were launched at him; his Jedi reflexes could easily move away from where the balls were about to land.
When a larger flash was soon summoned, then died down, it showed off a Hell Knight and a Cacodemon together, way off down the ledge.
The Knight began barging at him, while the Cacodemon floated more slowly just out of reach, spitting balls of plasma.
Anakin flipped and jumped out of the way of the plasma, putting himself closer to the charging Knight.
As the Knight closed in and swiped at him, Anakin dove between his legs, swiping at the Knight’s knees as he did.
The crippled Knight toppled onto his front, and Anakin promptly turned and slashed the Knight’s back from kidney to shoulder blades.
It was then that he spotted a gargoyle about to descend on Oz.
Ringo looked up from his long-range shooting and spotted it too.
While Ringo tackled Oz just before the gargoyle could land and swipe him, Anakin hurled his blade at the gargoyle’s back, slicing it in half.
Anakin called the whirring blade back to his hand.
And as it was returning, Anakin spotted three balls of purple plasma shoot over his head, at Ringo’s unprotected back.
Anakin yelled, but it was already too late; two of them had chewed into his back, protecting Oz but disintegrating Ringo’s armor and charring him to a crisp.
A gargoyle took the chance and snagged Ringo’s body, flapping into the air.
It was then quickly swarmed by three other gargoyles, who instantly began ripping his limbs off.
A torrent of blood splattered onto the ledge and discolored it, and Oz screamed in horror.
With his saber back securely in his hand, Anakin turned to find the culprit.
It was the Cacodemon, who had closed in enough to snap his jaws at Anakin.
Anakin dodged backwards just in time, suddenly furious.
Anakin had seen men fall in battle before, but somehow, this time around, whilst facing demons and not just droids…
A wind-up of organic energy pulses signaled the next volley, and he quickly swirled his saber and deflected four rapid-fire plasma balls from the hovering Cacodemon’s gaping maw.
The purple balls sailed away into the dark blue Bracca skies.
The Cacodemon took a deep breath, and Anakin took the chance to seize it with the Force.
The demon quivered in midair, its grotesque expression pulled in shock.
To Anakin, this abominable freak of nature now merely resembled a fruit – a piece of shurra he had once stolen from Padme’s plate, back on Naboo.
Before the war…
Anakin’s clenched teeth let loose a snarl, and his outstretched left hand began to close.
The Cacodemon shrieked, and blue blood began to spurt from around its eye, dribbling out of its eyelids and shriveling his eye like a raisin.
It thrashed about in his invisible grip, its monstrous gums deforming and loosening.
Some of the thick red plates on its outside cracked and crinkled.
Its tiny, tiny arms reached out– in hate or pleading, Anakin couldn’t say.
Anakin didn’t care.
His face contorted in fury upon seeing it thrash like that.
His left fist closed.
The disgusting thing imploded with a wet, deep pop and dropped to the ledge like an overripe fruit, landing in a thick blue mess.
Pieces of it oozed off the edge like egg yolk.
After a second of shock upon seeing the thing, he turned back to the battle.
Specs and Oz were hastily trying to fend off the rest of the gargoyles, but more of them were closing in than they had to fire on.
This meant that Cal, way down below, was undefended.
Deciding to experiment, Anakin reached out again with the Force.
It was as if an invisible wave had washed over the hovering gargoyles, freezing them in place.
Even their wings stopped moving.
Specs and Oz didn’t question it; they took the opportunity to shoot the demons, like fish in a barrel.
Once all but three gargoyles had been shot and dropped, Anakin forcefully brought his hand down.
One gargoyle’s head smacked into the side of the ledge with a sharp crack, and it tumbled away, unmoving, into oblivion.
Another gargoyle was swiftly impaled upside-down on an antenna, wetting the entire length with his blood and twitching uselessly around it.
The final gargoyle had landed on its knees and wing joints, cracking them easily and making him shriek in agony, but remain in place.
This gave Anakin the time to stalk angrily for him.
Once in range, Anakin sneered at the helpless creature on his back, then fed him half a meter of plasma and cut up through the top of his head.
Anakin looked up.
Specs and Oz were massaging their joints, clearly having seen everything, but said nothing.
What was there to say?
Anakin then looked over the edge.
And, focusing his eyes, he could see the miniature Cal pierce deep into the tentacle’s flesh with considerable effort.
He then took his second thermal detonator and stuffed it deep into the puncture wound.
Like garlic embedded into a cut of nerf steak.
Sensing Cal’s intention, Anakin pushed his arms out.
An invisible wall of Force began warping around the satellite dish, seizing it firmly.
Anakin’s face quickly pulled in strain, but he kept it up.
The tentacle reflexively tightened around the dish, tensing itself up.
Which meant it would need to release at some time.
Cal finished pushing the last explosive into the tentacle.
So Anakin’s other hand reached out and seized him.
He yanked his hand, and Cal was suddenly tossed a good 30 feet in the air back up to the ledge.
But just a little bit too short.
Cal’s hands scrabbled at the ledge, hanging on by little more than his fingertips.
But Oz reached down and clasped Cal firmly by the wrist.
“Take it easy, little one,” Oz soothed gently.
With a good yank, Cal was hoisted up, and he rolled onto his back.
Cal took a moment to breathe heavily in and out.
“Gonna detonate that soon?” Anakin asked through gritted teeth; he was still tugging the satellite dish against the tight tentacle.
Cal made an embarrassed sound, reached into his robe, and pressed the detonator.
Three flashes of flame burst from the flexing tentacle, making it recoil and loosen its built-up tension.
The fleshy thing slid off the side of the comms center, leaving the path free for Anakin to move it.
But Anakin was only straining for three seconds before Oz laid a hand on his shoulder.
“General. Leave the alignment to the inside crew. We need to rescue the rest of our strike group.”
After a second of split indecision, Anakin let go through the Force.
“Fine. Cal, you holding up?”
The tween woozily sat up and gave a little thumbs-up.
“Never better, Master Skywalker.”
“Then come on!” Anakin barked, ushering them on.
“We don’t know if the others are even still alive!”
Cal made a little pained sound.
But he got to his feet, and with Oz beside him, the four of them quickly made their way back to the scaffolding.
____________________________________________________
As Anakin and the others disappeared from sight above them, Fives turned to the four other clones, taking whatever cover they could in the bare-bones scaffolding.
Blasterfire was pouring from their guns at the hovering gargoyles.
Choke’s shots were especially well chosen, taking down one monster per shot.
“Make ’em count!” Fives encouraged, shooting in two directions at emerging imps that were crawling out of the woodwork.
One imp fell right off the railing and plummeted into the darkness. This story is hosted at g.com.
“Imps, on all sides! Pick your targets, get your distance, make it quick!”
He spotted Tup, poor guy, hastily turn in all directions, giving a few shots here and there while backing up slowly.
Feeling a sense of responsibility surge over him, he rolled over to Tup, his pistols blazing.
They caught three imps in quick succession, staggering them briefly before they collapsed.
Fives placed himself in front of Tup.
“Shiny, cover my back. Give ’em hell!”
Tup obliged.
New though he was, he got the message quickly.
Echo soon joined them in a third angle, also firing his twin blasters as fast as his fingers could pull the triggers.
Choke and Click followed suit, and the five clone troopers were soon together, firing in a coordinated circle at the imps and gargoyles.
Every angle was covered.
Scorch marks quickly peppered the scaffolding.
And the demon’s numbers indeed soon began to wear thin.
Once they had cut the numbers down to about five imps and two gargoyles, however, a red electric flash sizzled into existence on the scaffolding in front of Echo’s eyes.
And a Hell Knight was crouching in the low space, roaring furiously.
“Aw, skrag,” Echo muttered.
“Scatter!” Fives ordered, and the clones immediately obeyed.
The Hell Knight barreled right at them, plowing through small metal supports as he did.
The clone the Knight was heading for was Click, but blasterfire was now raining upon the Hell Knight from four additional angles and making him scowl and stumble.
Click took the chance to take a small detonator off his belt and toss it on the wooden scaffolding floor in front of him.
He backed up and resumed firing, and the Knight in turn resumed his charge.
The detonator exploded beneath his feet, rupturing the rickety floorboards and making the Knight fall into the new hole.
He landed on his knee on the level below and bellowed in irritation.
“Go help Choke!” Fives ordered Tup, pointing at both troopers.
“He’s our best shot. Keep them off his back!”
The gargoyles and imps, meanwhile, were not relenting.
More fireballs and acid spit flew through the air, rupturing the floorboards and weakening support structures.
Smaller ones disintegrated altogether.
One such case made a pile of paint cans and power tools collapse onto their level.
Fives’ eyes darted all over the place, keeping an eye on all the troopers, but especially his batchmate Echo.
An imp, after throwing a fireball at Echo’s feet, jumped back.
A few steps too far.
His foot slipped on the edge of the scaffolding, making the imp stumble and fall.
His claw dug into the edge of the wooden boards, making him hang there helplessly for just long enough for Echo to snatch a hammer from the pile of fallen tools and approach the imp.
Using only his arm strength, the imp pulled himself back onto the scaffolding.
And that was perfect for Echo to swing and smack the imp’s skull as hard as he could.
With a loud crack, the imp’s skull shattered, and bits of bone and blood spattered the wooden floorboards.
He collapsed to the floorboards, shrieking and convulsing, and Echo bent over him, yelled, and bashed the imp’s head in twice more with the hammer before he kicked the now-wet body over the edge.
Echo turned and hurled the bloodsoaked hammer at a gargoyle who had landed in the scaffolding.
He evaded it, and Echo drew his second pistol and rolled away as the gargoyle recovered.
Right where Echo had just been, the Hell Knight from the level below emerged, jumping through the splintered floor and making a hole.
He landed, making a deep guttural ripple in his throat.
His head turned to Echo, and his bony nostrils flared up.
Fives switched his pistol settings to Stun, then began bombarding the Hell Knight with blasts; he was very hard to miss.
The setting could take out a man or sentient of average size with only a single blast, but as Fives peppered the Knight with stun blasts, it only caused the Knight to seize in place for a few moments.
The landed gargoyle, meanwhile, was also heading for Echo, and Echo was busy firing at it.
The little monster was agile, even on the ground; Echo’s shots from his trembling hands made blackened scorch marks on the floorboards instead.
And from this close up, both Fives and Echo could both see that the gargoyle had long, serrated gray blades for forearms.
One swipe with those, and armor or not, anyone would be a goner.
The gargoyle swiped.
It cut through a support beam like butter.
But it was closer now, and Echo managed to pierce it with two, then three blaster bolts.
Even then, the monster was merely stunned and staggered, but open to a kill.
Which Fives did by switching the mode on one of his pistols and piercing its skull with a sharp bolt.
It collapsed, finally.
The Hell Knight, fully aware of its predicament, was struggling to both feet, and now Echo and Fives were the ones shimmying backwards to get distance.
The Knight bellowed in rage and swiped an arm, but Echo had also switched his blasters to Stun and joined Fives in laying a constant stream of blue stuns on the Knight, which dissipated into his black skin, but effectively stunlocked him.
Another roar sounded from behind the Hell Knight.
But it was the roar of a machine, synthetic and bladed.
And Click emerged from behind the Knight and dug a bellowing industrial chainsaw into the Hell Knight’s collarbone.
He then dragged it jerkily across the Knight’s upper chest like he was slitting his throat.
A torrent of blood poured out and spattered loudly on both Click and the wooden floorboards, and the monster finally collapsed.
Click slowed the whirring tool down and panted heavily, now speckled with blood.
He jerked the makeshift weapon over.
“Come on! We need some help!”
As Fives and Echo rushed behind Click, Fives panted, “That’s… an unusual method, Click.”
“Surprisingly effective,” Click remarked, hoisting the power tool.
“When I snatched it and whirred it, the demons all kinda jumped back. Like they were scared of the sound. Odd, you know? They’re fine with any other awful Hellish shriek, but a chainsaw’s what gets to them?”
“Maybe they watched The Lothal Chainsaw Massacre or something,” Fives posited without seriousness.
They shoved aside some dangling white sheets in the scaffolding and soon reached Choke and Tup.
It was easy to tell where they were.
They were covering each other’s backs while holding off imps coming from every side.
There were three in each of their field of vision, and the imp’s fireballs had caused the floorboards to ignite in small pockets and spread to some fabric sheets a bit away, making smoke rise and obscure their vision.
Fives managed to shoot one imp in the back of the head.
An imp turned to face Fives, and he was shot by Tup.
And Click managed to plunge his chainsaw into the third imp, cutting him in half at a rough diagonal angle.
But even as the other three imps scattered and disappeared from sight, a new sound rose from behind the burning sheet.
It could be heard over the crackling of fire: A squeal, like a wild hog.
Fives turned to the burning sheet in surprise, his pistols trained on it.
“Eyes up! Now!”
As the troopers obeyed, a shape emerged from behind the sheet of burning fire, snagging it and entangling it around its big, burly foot.
Its feet, as well as the rest of its muscular legs and arms and massive head, were armored in thick pink plates that coated it like a medieval knight.
It was horned all over and as tall as a normal person, thickly built, bipedal but front-heavy, and had an enormous mouth full of dull-ivory fangs and beady, glowing eyes embedded deep in its front.
“What is that?!” Tup yelled, and began firing.
But the blue blaster bolts were repelled or dissipated like a rancor’s skin.
The stubby pink demon squealed like a hog again and charged.
It was fast, shockingly so.
Choke was only fast enough to shove Tup out of the way.
The pink demon got Choke, though, and he was carried on the demon’s front as he charged.
Choke screamed as the charging demon snatched him in his fangs.
With a tremendous crash, the demon plowed headfirst into the comms center’s outside wall hard enough to blast a hole in it, and rubble of all sizes landed on the floorboards.
Choke’s upper half fell as well, his helmet askew, his armor soaked with blood and crushed.
The dazed demon staggered in place, momentarily out of action.
“That’s not RIGHT!” Click bellowed, and he revved his chainsaw up again.
Fives began firing upon the pink monster’s stubby tail and backside, which at least scorched the skin instead of getting deflected.
The filthy armored piggy turned right back around again, and the blaster bolts once again simply dissipated or bounced right off.
“You’re wasting heat!” Echo chided Fives, waving his arm at him.
“That thing can take all the fire we give it. We need to find its weak point!”
The pink thing charged again, and Fives found himself staring at it as it drew closer and closer.
But his soldier reflexes kicked in just in time, and he dove out of the way, rolling on the floorboards.
The Pinky thundered past like a freight train, snapping small support beams and cutting through vertical scaffolding panels.
Also like a train, it was slow to stop, skidding to a halt but taking a moment to adjust.
Blue blasterfire pinged into him or scorched his back, making him only angrier.
“Get out of the way!” Tup yelled at the three other troopers.
Tup began moving for the perilous edge of the scaffolding.
“I can take care of this guy. Go, get around to the sides!”
For a split second, Fives wanted to yell at him.
He could infer Tup’s plan already, and Fives didn’t want the Shiny to be put into such danger voluntarily.
But the thought immediately came to him: He had been that Shiny once.
On the Rishi moon, thrust into danger he was unqualified for yet survived anyway.
Perhaps this was Tup’s first step into his larger universe.
So Fives focused instead on making the snarling, snapping Pinky-thingie turn back around.
Fives, Echo, and Click moved out into the Pinky’s blind spots, making Tup the only one the demon could see.
So the demon snuffed and snarled, huffed and puffed, and let out a piercing squeal as he charged right at Tup.
The trooper was unmoving, but his gaze was alert.
Tup waited until the last possible moment.
Then his hands reached up and grabbed the lower part of the framework above his head.
Tup pulled himself horizontal above the charging Pinky as it shot right where he had once been.
Behind Tup, there had been only a very thin guardrail protecting him from the outside abyss.
This rail could not stand up to the weight of the plowing Pinky, however, and the Pinky crashed right through it.
And the demon shot over the edge and plummeted, squealing, to his eventual death.
When Tup dropped back down again, his arms were shaking visibly.
Fives came beside him and patted him on the back.
“You did well, trooper. Let’s get back up to the general.”
“Ungh… yeah. Yeah, sir.” Tup drew his blaster again, but it was shaking in his grip.
Fives’ eyes narrowed as he saw it.
He couldn’t blame the Shiny for being shaken by that close encounter.
Tup had slain the demon on his own.
But he couldn’t lose his cool now!
“Hey.” Fives gripped his shoulder through his armor.
“It’s all right. It’s gone. Deep breaths now. And count doubles, okay?”
“Doubles?” Tup asked.
“Or prime numbers. Anything to get your mind off it. I know it was scary, trooper. But being shaky won’t help. Now isn’t the time for being scared.”
Tup let out a brief exhale, then began counting prime numbers under his breath as he followed Fives.
___________________________________________________________
It was a mess of blasterfire, fireballs, and shrieking demons inside the comms center.
Demon and clone bodies, both dead and undead, littered the bloody, scorched halls.
Ahsoka’s blades were always in motion to protect a nearby trooper from an imp’s fireball.
Their party was in one large group, moving as one.
The Jedi were on the outskirts of the body of clones firing in any direction at Z-secs and imps.
They hadn’t run into any heavy demons except for a Revenant and Hell Knight which Master Luminara and Master Tapal had taken care of.
Oh– And a Mancubus way at the end of the hallway.
It was soaking up blasterfire like a loud, angry fat sponge, no matter how much was directed at it.
But due to a sharp fallen piece of the ceiling, the Mancubus also couldn’t get any closer to them.
“This is it!” cried Rex from the group’s center.
“Two floors above us is the comms command center! That’s where we’ll realign the satellite dish!”
“We can’t make it up the levels without losses!” Barriss yelled as she deflected three quick Z-sec blaster bolts.
Ahsoka looked up.
Perhaps if this worked…
She threw both of her lightsabers up into the ceiling, then used the Force to swirl them in a half-circle each, carving a whole circle in the ceiling.
The circular piece of metal fell onto their level with a heavy clang that made everyone jump back.
“I will stay down here with Barriss, Ahsoka!” Jaro Tapal cried, spinning his saberstaff to deflect one of the Mancubus’ melon-sized fireballs.
“Go with Master Luminara and clear out the next level!”
As if to emphasize his conviction, Tapal reached out with the Force and threw the fallen disk of carved-out ceiling at the Mancubus.
It spun and twisted, then embedded into the demon’s front like a popcorn kernel into a tooth.
This stunned the Mancubus and made his barrage of fireballs stop.
While the troopers focused the rest of their fire onto the rest of the smaller demons, Ahsoka and Luminara easily leaped up into the hole and landed on the second level.
It was much like the hallway beneath them, but it seemed more organically sinister– webs of rotting pink and brown flesh spread in slimy puddles on the ground and dangled from the ceiling.
It smelled of death and of exposed meat.
And merged into this filthy hellgrowth were more bodies, their bones rotting, their limbs askew.
It was also full of hideous hissing zombies shambling aimlessly towards the two Jedi.
Ahsoka used a Force blast to knock down the zombies on one end of the hallway while Luminara did the same on the other side.
But there was something else, way at the end of the hallway.
Yellow eyes, heavy snorts and grunts…
And then it sprinted right for Ahsoka.
Its quick heavy stomps made the zombies beneath its feet squish into mush, and Ahsoka, frozen momentarily, did the only thing she could think of and jumped onto the wall right as the pink monster thundered past.
It tumbled into the hole in the ground, and several alarmed shouts from clone troopers accompanied it.
“We need more clones!” Luminara exclaimed, deflecting a blaster bolt from a zombified trooper at the other end of the hall.
“Ahsoka, get five of them up here!”
Ahsoka, her legs still shaking from that close encounter with the pink demon, raised her trembling hands to the hole in the ground.
One, then two, then three troopers were lifted up and touched down.
When Jaro Tapal saw what was happening, he catapulted some more troopers up through the hole from below using his hands as boosts.
And just in time, too.
A section of hallway from way down collapsed, sending a furious Hell Knight onto their level.
The six troopers that were with Ahsoka and Luminara barked in alarm and began pestering him with combined blue blasterfire, which only further enraged the monster.
He picked up a shard of the hallway and threw it like a discus.
Ahsoka barely deflected the super-fast debris in time, and instead of beheading a 41st trooper, it only cut through his arm, making him drop anyway, cradling his deep wound.
Blood flooded down his arm and turned it deep red.
Ahsoka made a loud sound she didn’t know she could make, and sprinted for the Hell Knight.
He, too, began charging.
Ahsoka hurled her smaller shoto lightsaber, and it embedded deep in his front, but it only stumbled him for a moment.
Which was all Ahsoka needed.
She wall-leaped and bounced onto the Hell Knight’s back, where she then sunk her other lightsaber into the demon’s spine.
It made the demon seize in place.
Ahsoka used the Force to get her shoto out as the knight toppled forward, and she used it to then pierce the demon’s skull.
Finally, she took her blades out of the tough demon’s flesh and swirled them to get back into a ready stance.
She looked up.
That hole the Knight had descended from was still gaping wide open…
“Rex, Hardcase!” Ahsoka yelled, gesturing with her saber.
“Come with me! We’re going for the control center!”
The two clones hurried over to Ahsoka, but she had already shot up into the hole in the ceiling. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
With two tugs of the Force, they too were carried up into the third level.
Hardcase woozily stumbled, but kept his gun steady.
Rex, meanwhile, sighed in annoyance once he got his footing.
“This isn’t gonna get old anytime soon, is it, Commander?”
“You mean tossing you in the air?” Ahsoka asked, shooting him a wry grin.
“Unless you don’t want me to stop… no.”
The three of them took a second to observe their surroundings some more.
It was a small circular atrium right outside of a series of three doors on the edges.
Like the rest of the facility so far, it was in shambles.
Piles of scrap metal from the ceiling had fallen down and were burning intermittently, and parts of bodies were strewn all about.
“Through there,” Rex ordered, pointing at the center door.
“That’s where the controls are.”
Ahsoka sped to the door and used the Force to sense the insides.
“It’s locked,” she reported.
“Aw, man. Do we need to find a keycard for this?”
“Just cut a hole in it,” Hardcase recommended.
He hoisted his Z-6 with obvious enthusiasm.
“Ha ha! You have no idea what I could do with a lightsaber.”
“I think I already know,” Ahsoka warily inferred.
She turned to the door again.
“But… you’re right.” She drew both of her sabers again and began cutting through the door.
As the saber dragged down through the metal, it squealed loudly, and a burning orange line was left in its wake.
A rumble of guttural organic thunder was heard in the atrium, and Rex and Hardcase turned in time to see a Mancubus slowly trudge into the atrium’s far end, blocking their way back.
The great ugly thing bellowed and began spewing twin gouts of flame into the atrium.
Luckily, Rex and Hardcase were both out of range.
Rex began pelting it with stun blasts from his pistols while Hardcase began focusing his rapid fire into the Mancubus’ guns.
All, of course, while Ahsoka was carving through the door.
The stun blasts did little to slow the Mancubus down.
The thing simply had so much mass, and its tough thick skin likely dissipated the blasts anyway.
They did seem to jolt him, though, like static electricity.
It began firing melon-sized Argent fireballs at the two clones, who managed to dodge and weave just in time.
One of the fireballs destroyed a pile of scrap near one of the other doors in the atrium.
This revealed a holopad which soon sprang to life a smiling, cheery UAC spokesman.
“Effective immediately, the phrase ‘demonic invasion’ has been deemed insensitive and should be replaced with ‘Extra-Dimensional Mortally Challenged Refugee Immigration Expansion Initiative.’ Using hate speech against the Mortally Challenged is grounds for human sacrifice.”
This could barely be heard above the sounds of battle, and none of the three really cared enough to listen.
The real problem was the Mancubus– and the imps that were crawling on the walls into the atrium behind him.
Rex’s shots went to putting the appearing imps down, which meant the Mancubus was now focused on Hardcase.
And Hardcase couldn’t keep it up for long.
But suddenly, the sustained fire on the Mancubus’ cannons worked.
One of them exploded off his left arm, making the demon stumble.
This gave Rex the time to quickly pull three EMP grenades– “droid poppers”– off his belt and toss them at the Mancubus’ feet.
One second after they landed, they ruptured, making the large demon shudder and seize in place as buzzing blue electricity coursed around him.
Ahsoka decided that enough was enough.
She turned from cutting through the door– it was almost done– and hurled her yellow shoto at the Mancubus’ chest.
It embedded deep between the demon’s ribs.
His eyes were wide open in shock, as well as his mouth.
Ahsoka’s hand willed the saber back to her hand, and not a moment too soon– the demon suddenly exploded into a mass of pink guts and organs, taking the imps beside it along back into Hell.
Ahsoka flinched back; that was unexpected.
“Go, go!” Rex ordered over the sounds of blasterfire, tossing thermal detonators with one hand and firing with his other.
“Get to the controls, call for help!”
Ahsoka didn’t waste a second.
She carved deeper down both lines of the doorway, and soon, it was at the point where she could blast it inside with the Force.
It was a good thing she did; it had crushed two Z-secs waiting for her inside.
The two zombified clones were barely poking out from the wreckage, and Ahsoka noticed with some trepidation that one of them had been holding a rocket launcher.
The rest of the Z-secs inside had their blaster bolts quickly parried back into their heads, dropping them.
Ahsoka sprang into the comms center control area.
It, too, was in ruins and was stained with old red blood.
But the electronics on the main panel were working just fine.
In fact, it was even on.
Glowing bright blue and buzzing, it was a main source of light in the control room.
The chiming of another hologram momentarily distracted her.
Along with the message of the UAC representative.
“Remember, these vibrant and colorful interdimensional visitors are diverse and inclusive. We offer a wide variety of mandatory reeducation programs for those with internalized bigotry against the demons. Please see Jessica in HR for a free pamphlet describing how you can show the denizens of Hell equality with your own kind. Failure to comply will result in termination—of employment, and otherwise.”
Ahsoka shook her head in frustration, clipped her sabers to her side, and rushed to the main console.
She swiped an Obsidian Edition Heavy Weapons clone trooper action figure off the computer stand, then reached for the toy and stuffed it into her belt.
She bent over the humming control panel, trying to figure it out.
It appeared as though the transponder had been intentionally shut off, instead of destroyed.
This was in addition to the altered satellite dish just outside the front view panel.
The permaglass was stained, foggy, and pockmarked with wreckage, but Ahsoka could still see the satellite dish just outside.
And the tentacle was gone!
Anakin and Cal and the others must have done their job.
So now it was all on her.
Turning her attention to the controls, Ahsoka fumbled with the interface for a few moments before she figured out the realignment system.
Setting it to the right coordinates, she could see the dish begin to move to its proper place, slowly turning and tilting up.
A deathly squeal was heard just behind her, and Ahsoka, realizing the source, turned in a heartbeat.
A pink, armored behemoth was pawing at the ground while looking dead at her, and despite the blasterfire from Rex and Hardcase, it was undamaged.
Ahsoka frantically glanced around her for anything that might help.
But that was it.
She was alone in the control center.
The Pinky charged while shrieking with heavy stomps, and Ahsoka quickly did the only thing she could think of.
She jumped into the air with the Force.
And the Pinky missed her.
But it did smash headfirst into the control panel right behind her, shattering it into pieces and causing an electrical explosion that stunned the Pinky.
Ahsoka landed, staring aghast at the flaming remains of the control panel.
It was gone!
They couldn’t contact the fleet now!
A feeling of overwhelming fear and guilt sprang to life inside her bosom, and Ahsoka could barely pay attention to the Pinky in the room, snarling and shaking his head.
Ahsoka’s eye came to the unfired rocket launcher in the dead Z-sec’s hand as the Pinky turned her attention back to her.
The Pinky once again stomped and pawed the ground.
Recognizing its movements, Ahsoka managed to calm her nerves enough to wait.
Finally, as the Pinky charged at her again, Ahsoka twitched her fingers with the Force.
It also twitched the fingers of the dead Z-sec, pulling the trigger of his readied rocket launcher.
It blasted into the Pinky’s side, staggering it and cutting off its charge mid-step.
This gave Ahsoka the time she needed to spring over the Pinky and plunge both sabers firmly into the demon’s back.
She flipped mid-air to land on her feet again, and spun to see the demon collapse onto the ground.
Blasterfire was still echoing from the atrium, but it barely registered to Ahsoka.
She clipped her sabers back with trembling hands, her eyes locked onto the destroyed console.
That was it.
Their one chance!
The comms center was the only thing strong enough to get through the disturbance that the Hell portal was emanating.
Perhaps if the fleet was considering sending down reinforcements anyway, that would be the only thing that could save them.
But Ahsoka couldn’t count on that.
For now, they were left all alone down here.
With only the troopers and resources they had.
Finally, the blasterfire died down.
Jaro Tapal and the others must have fought their way up by now and taken out the last of the demons.
Sure enough, a short time later, Barriss Offee jogged inside the control room.
“Ahsoka?” she wondered with obvious concern, glancing to the destroyed console.
“We’ve lost three more troopers on the… way…” Her eyes widened as they traveled between Ahsoka’s despondent expression and the destruction.
“…Oh, no,” Barriss whispered.
Luminara and Jaro Tapal peeked their heads in, along with commanders Gree and Keen.
Silence reigned for a few moments as the situation settled in.
“Fierfek,” Commander Keen cursed.
He kicked the severed arm of a Z-sec at his feet.
“We’re on our own, aren’t we?”
Ahsoka glumly nodded.
The other Jedi and clones began discussing among themselves, but Ahsoka barely registered it.
She was dreading the worst reaction of them all.
True to her prediction, Anakin came in just a few minutes later.
He was dirtied and stained, his hair sweaty and sticky-uppy.
His hand was still gripping his saber tightly, even though there were no demons left to slay.
He pushed Luminara and the clones aside to regard the carnage inside.
His eyes traveled over the dead Pinky, then the wrecked computer console.
Then to Ahsoka’s eyes, and once they captured hers, Ahsoka could not look away.
“Snips,” Anakin said, and Ahsoka could tell he was trying to keep his voice down.
“It was charging at me!” Ahsoka desperately defended, indicating the dead pink monster.
“If I hadn’t gotten out of the way, I’d be dead along with the console!”
“I know,” Anakin said, but through clenched teeth.
“It’s not you I’m angry at, Snips. It’s–” Anakin glanced back at the two Jedi masters watching it unfold, and he deflated.
He snarled something Ahsoka couldn’t hear, then turned and marched out of the control room, showing Ahsoka only his back.
Ahsoka felt something awful enter her throat, and she tried to take deep breaths, but it wasn’t working.
She had expected him to yell, to break something, punch a wall, kick a demon corpse.
But this obvious restraint he was putting on for her sake somehow hurt plenty on its own.
She slid down the wall and sat on her butt, putting her knees to her eyes.
Cal Kestis appeared in the control doorway.
He cautiously approached Ahsoka, not saying a word.
Ahsoka wasn’t sure in the moment if she wanted to be alone or not, and who would be with her.
Cal sat beside Ahsoka anyway, a few inches to her side.
He remained silent, his eyes trained on her.
The 12 year old was shockingly perceptive for a boy his age– an age she had been not too long ago.
It all hit in the moment.
The stress of the mission.
The things they had gone through already, the horrific sights and smells, the deaths, the loss, the life-and-death fights, the desperation.
And now that no hope was coming, and that it could have been otherwise were it not for her being in the wrong place at the wrong time–!
Ahsoka hiccuped as tears began to trail down her dirty cheeks.
She made a growl in her throat and began wiping her eyes with her arms, but to no avail.
At a loss, Cal floundered for a few seconds.
He finally settled on tearing the front of his Jedi robes and offering a small piece to Ahsoka.
Ahsoka took it after a moment and dabbed at her eyes.
They didn’t stop, but it helped.
When Ahsoka looked up again, Barriss had appeared and was kneeling down so she was on Ahsoka’s level.
She was blurry through her tears.
“I get it,” Barriss quietly said.
Her hands rested atop Ahsoka’s and squeezed.
The Force began flowing into Ahsoka through Barriss’ skilled healing hands.
It helped dispel the awful gloom in her mind, helped chase away the fog.
Ahsoka’s breathing grew steadier and deeper as Barriss continued.
When it was done, Ahsoka swallowed.
It hurt.
But at least there was nothing more to come out.
“Thank you,” she croaked.
Barriss smiled and guided Ahsoka into a standing position.
Cal followed.
A sort of mutual understanding hung in the air between the three Padawans.
And none of them seemed to want to be the first to say anything.
Even when their repose was broken, the one who did it, Commander Gree, seemed hesitant to come in.
He stepped in close and cleared his throat.
“Ah, Commanders,” he said.
“We’re heading out to the armory in about five minutes. Hope you cleared the air.”
“Thank you, Gree,” Barriss said– politely, yet firmly.
Gree nodded and turned to rejoin the rest of their forces in the atrium outside.
The three Padawans remained with each other, however.
Cal was the first to speak up.
“You were pretty cool, you know. Ahsoka. You can handle a lot. You’re pretty good at it. But we’re here to help you too.”
And suddenly Ahsoka was reminded of the advice that the clone Commando Boss had given her.
You’re part of a squad for a reason.
Call on them for support.
Vode an.
“Thank you, Cal,” Ahsoka said genuinely.
“I… know this wasn’t my fault. But it still feels… odd.”
“Indeed,” Barriss quietly affirmed.
“You are responsible for what is in your power to control, Ahsoka. These demons are not one of them. We make choices, and we must live with the consequences. Good or bad.”
Silence reigned after that.
When the squads announced they were moving out, the three Padawans moved to join their forces.
Vex and Drift from the 41st Elite had fallen, along with a trooper called Locke from the 13th Battalion.
Only 8 501st troops, 5 41st troops, and 5 13th Battalion troops remained.
The attitude among troopers and Padawans was more somber than they usually were, and surely the other Jedi would have noticed this too.
But they chose to say nothing of it.
And as Ahsoka marched alongside the 501st troopers, with Hardcase and Tup in front of her bantering back and forth about their experiences killing demons, Ahsoka felt some comfort fall back into her steps.
This was familiar.
This was something she knew how to do.
And she would take control over what she could, and trust in the will of the Force for the rest.