Chương 26: 26

26 A Young Girl's War Between the Stars 26 Serenno, 40 BBY/960 GSC.

"That's a lot of droids," Jango mused, studying the army arrayed before us, set in position to defend Ramil's home. Or at least, the home of someone working with Ramil, who he had confiscated the home from after they died under mysterious circumstances.

"I count just over five thousand," I nodded. They were divided into easy to count battalion sized formations of one thousand each, further sub-divided into two hundred unit companies, all lined up in neat little square and rectangular blocks.

"Are we ready?" Master Dyas glanced over at me from the side. Sending me a grin, his feelings radiating amusement and a bit of exasperation, he asked, "I suppose there's no point to asking if you're sure you want to go?"

"I'm sure."

"Then I'll make sure the rebels make enough noise to keep them from looking up," the Jedi chuckled, moving back away from the ledge we were laying on and making his way down the other side of the mountain, to the waiting rebel army below—all that Jenza had been able to muster for this final confrontation.

"Let's get into position for the jump," Jango instructed, and I followed him back, then a bit further up the mountain on the opposite side, to where our group of eight other Mandos equipped with jetpacks was waiting. I took a moment to strap mine on, before sitting down to wait for the signal, checking over my weapons in the meantime as the rest of the group made their own final ready checks.

Unlike the others, my jetpack had been modified since I'd gotten it—removing the missile and adding a fuel tank in its place, giving me much more range than their own jetpacks. Not that it would matter for this mission.

"We should get her a helmet," one of the Mandos spoke up—a darkly tan woman I believed was named Sheena or something along those lines. I only recognized her because she had been in Jango's group since this mission started and I'd caught them sneaking off for recreation when they thought no one was looking a time or two. The woman's sentiment was echoed by the others and I shook my head.

"No point. Once this is over, we're going back to Coruscant. I won't be able to bring it to get it resized and I'll outgrow it in a year, two at most. I'd rather wait and get one commissioned when I finish out most of my growth."

"It's not about practicality, it's about—" one of them began, and I cut him off.

"Tradition. Yes, I am aware. I have enough armor to count, according to Jaster," I pointed out, tapping my chest hard enough to make the beskar under my robe top thump.

"It will have to be good enough for now."

"Come on commander, don't you have an opinion?" one of them asked Jango.

"Yeah, boss! It's not safe! She's gonna get her head dinged, and there we'll be! Our team mascot dead!" I turned an amused look on Jango.

"Yes, Jango. Please share your opinion." The man in question refused to look up from where he was checking his wrist-mounted flamethrower—for the third time since this conversation began, by my count.

"If the girl who can smack my own blaster bolts back at me thinks she's fine without a helmet for now, I'll take her word on it." The banter continued, with them now mocking Jango for being 'afraid of a little girl.' I smiled, mostly tuning it out as I focused and centered myself, preparing myself mentally for the mission ahead. The plan was simple, really.

After capturing and interrogating the Abyssin leading the last of their mercenary forces, I had sent in a request under his name to meet with Ramil to discuss a plan 'the commander' had for taking out the Jedi and rebel forces on Serenno in one fell swoop. He had approved the meeting and given us the location and a time.

Then, I had sent a secret order using the commander's credentials ordering the remaining Abyssin forces to leave the planet if it looked like the rebel forces were going to make a push against Ramil—they were to cut their losses and run. The reasoning being, they couldn't spend their credits if they were dead and Ramil had already fucked them by not paying for reinforcements. Unsurprisingly, they had agreed. The first team was to go in and deal with Ramil directly.

That job was for Master Dooku, Jaster, and the others. The second team was made up of the rebel army, led by Master Dyas. They would serve as a distraction for the droid army ground forces. The third team—myself, Jango, and our best Mando troops—would be making an insertion by jetpack to take out the droid command vessels.

They didn't have a mothership, so control of the droids was left to a group of five command and control vessels—four, now that we had captured one and proven that shutting it down would shut off the droids connected to it. All four of those were sitting safely behind their army—at least, they believed they were safe. A ll at once, our comms squawked as calls began coming in.

Distantly, we heard the sounds of fire from various sized blasters—a constant stream from small arms, the steady thump of larger crew served weapons, and the rhythmic pounding of cannons. The others looked to Jango, who in turn looked to me. I shook my head, even as I checked the chronometer built into my computation orb." Let them get engaged properly," Jango answered their unspoken question, before standing.

"But let's move into position. I want to be ready to go when it's time." We stood and followed him up to the summit, careful not to silhouette ourselves and give our position away. We belly crawled to a point where we could take in the battle. The rebel forces swept in from the southwest—maybe two thousand men strong, on top of a mechanized battalion worth of tanks and other vehicles with mounted weapons.

Blaster fire swept across the battlefield like rain—a chaotic mess of men, droids, and machines all hammering away at each other. This is just a prelude to what's coming, if the Trade Federation get their war, I mused taking it all in and keeping a careful eye on the enemy forces. Even from here, I could feel it. Not the distant booms of explosions— that was a familiar sound that I could fall asleep to. No, this was new—at least, at this scale.

The anger, terror, horror, rage, righteous fury, and so much more of men and women pushed to the brink and finally given an outlet, unleashing all of that pent up emotion upon the enemy as they fought with their hearts as much as their bodies. Then, there was the feeling of loss. Of lives being snuffed out. Whispers in the Force. That, at least, I had experienced before in this universe—though again, not to the sheer scale I was feeling it now.

I felt every one of them like I was there—as though a tiny part of myself was cut. Individually, they were barely noticeable, but the more they came, the more it hurt— I took a breath and forced myself to focus. I needed my senses for this. I couldn't shut it out, but I could muscle through—I would have to. Jango noticed it about the same time I did, but he called out first.

"They're fully engaged. Let's go, people!" We quickly got to our feet and took to the air, the whine of jetpacks lost in the roar and pounding booms of blaster fire. Wind whipped over me, sending my hair ou t behind me as a white streamer, and for a few moments, the feeling of people fighting and dying against a cold, unfeeling enemy was lost in the excitement, the exhilaration of flying again.

"Dive!" Jango ordered, and the men abruptly changed course, breaking off into small groups their individual targets. I followed, accelerating ahead of them into a powered dive. I scanned our targets as Jango's voice came over my earpiece again.

"Tanya, the ships—""I see them," I murmured in acknowledgement, pulling my carbine up and spinning up a sniping formula. Locking on, I fired as we descended—four white-silver bolts flying out and turning an equal number of droids manning turrets on top of the ships into so much scrap. Then, we were flipping over and burning hard, decelerating into a running landing on top of the ships. I had one to myself while the others all went three to a ship.

We moved almost as one to where our investigations had shown was the best location to breach from to quickly disable the ship. While the others set breaching charges on theirs, my lightsabers floated off of my belt and turned on, blades pointed down. A smile pulled at my lips as I spun the blades rapidly around me, creating a circle of molten metal as I bored through the hull. With only a few rotations, I was through, and the metal plate under me fell through as I knelt and covered myself with a shield.

Blaster bolts flew through the air, nearly intersecting in the area over my head that an adult's torso would have occupied. My lightsabers flashed out, two white-silver circles spinning through the room around me as I fired the carbine with one hand and drew and fired my blaster pistol with the other, spraying the droids in the room.

Droids were cut into glowing parts and blasted into fragments as I rolled away from my initial landing position to reposition behind a central column in what passed for a bridge or control room. Abruptly, the inside of the room went silent and my sense of immediate danger in the Force fell away. A look around showed all of the droids were down. Humming, I studied them for a moment before spotting one I didn't recognize. This one had been beheaded, but otherwise appeared intact.

It looked new, and new was almost universally bad when it came to the enemy making any sort of innovation. Grabbing it in the Force, I pulled it over and dropped it on the slab of hull, then went about setting up my demo charges. When I finished, I moved over to the slab and grabbed the droid. Engaging my jetpack, I blasted out of the hole and hit the switch for the detonator.

Below me, the control ship exploded and, as I climbed and angled towards our forces' back lines, I saw the other three likewise explode and spotted the painted armored forms of Jango and the others flying away along the same vector as me. Below, the droid army went silent and still, many of them falling over as they had been mid-step when the control computers were destroyed. It took the rebel army a few moments to figure out what had happened, but they quickly stopped firing as well.

A cheer went up then, barely audible over the wind as we approached, along with a sudden rush of feelings—relief, joy, vindication, and so much more. A small smile pulled my lips upwards as I found Master Dyas and landed on the vehicle he was directing things from, dropping my prize on the deck for now. Hitting the quick-release for my jetpack, I dropped it to the deck for the moment—I'd pull it back on when I needed it." Excellent work," Master Dyas beamed, moving over and laying a hand on my shoulder.

Jango and the others landed nearby and he turned that smile on them.

"This wouldn't have been possible without all of you."" Let's not celebrate just yet. There's still the count to deal with," Jango pointed out, nodding towards the airship that was beginning to ascend from the grounds.

"That's probably not good."

"No," Master Dyas frowned.

"It's—" A wave of Force and immense danger washed over us, Master Dyas and I both turning to look at each other and confirming that we had both felt it." What was that?" I asked, looking towards the source of the disturbance, in the middle of the field." What was wh—whoa!" Jango held out his arms and spread his legs to steady himself as the hovertank we were on, which had set down when the droids stopped fighting back, abruptly rocked under our feet.

Everyone else on the tank likewise had to re-balance, while others nearby fell over, or lost their footing and fell to the ground.

The earthquake didn't stop—in fact, it got worse, as vehicles that weren't hovering began to fall over. Master Dyas quickly got us into the air as a gout of earth and stone erupted from the center of the field, wrecking and scattering inert droids. We watched as something pulled itself up out of the earth, the ground shaking hard enough now that snow and rock had begun running down the nearby mountains.

I t stood up and shook from head to tail, like an enormous cat or dog shaking off dust—which, really, is exactly what it was doing. Dirt and rocks went flying everywhere like ancient siege weapons, bowling through first the inert droids, then smashing through the rebel lines, crushing machines and people beneath their weight and turning anyone they hit into a bloody smear.

Master Dyas and I reacted at the same time, grabbing as much of the debris heading for the army as we could with the Force and directing it off to the side, but there was enough that pieces still slipped through. Finally, the creature was revealed as it reared back, flaring out enormous wings—two or three times as wide as the creature was long, but even with that much wingspan, it just seemed impossible to me that it could fly.

The thing had to be th e the size of a football field from nose to tail — a hundred yards, give or take. I t had scaly black hide covered in back-swept spikes, and a set of four massive curving horns framed its head on top and bottom, while a shorter horn jutted from its nose. It opened its mouth and roared, revealing rows of teeth very much like a shark, before slamming back down to the ground and jostling those had just started to stand again, sending them back to the ground.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. From somewhere in the crowd, someone screamed a word, "Tirra'Taka!" Panic surged through the army, before people started turning and fleeing. The more intelligent of them jumped into or on vehicles and turned, driving away at speed. Distantly, I heard Master Dyas mutter, "All the blasting must have woken it up." I turned to Master Dyas, before slowly pointing towards the creature.

"That's a dragon." The man nodded, still staring at it.

"Yes."" Looks that way," Jango agreed woodenly. S omeone, I wasn't certain who, muttered, "I don't think we have a gun big enough for that."" No. You don't understand," I shook my head, not sure how I could make my sheer incredulity any clearer." That. Is a. Dragon. Why?!"" I think Master Lene may have been right after all, when she came here years ago, searching for dark side artifacts. Do you feel it? It's been exposed to the dark side of the Force. Tainted. This is the artifact she was looking for.""

Yes, but—" I cut myself off and shook my head.

"Not important. We need to evacuate before—" The dragon turned, four gold eyes—a pair vertically on either side of its head—locking onto the transports, tanks, and people below. Then, someone made the mistake I had been dreading. One of the tanks opened fire, a red blaster bolt streaking out and slamming into the dragon's side.

It stumbled, before opening its mouth and roaring a challenge as it started sprinting at us, far faster than anything that size had the right to, the pounding of its eight feet sending people falling on their asses as its claws churned the earth below it—radiating anger and hunger. F or just a moment a thrill of fear ran through my body and froze me in place. Doubt. Pure, undiluted animal instinct upon seeing an incomprehensibly large predator bearing down.

All of that flashed away under my own response as my heart hammered in my chest and adrenaline flooded my veins. Anger at the threat to my life. Desperate determination to live. The conflict between fight or flight resolved, settling on clawing, thrashing, teeth gnashing survival. And then I was moving, shooting off at the big lizard as the wind whipped around me.

I was vaguely aware of the whine of jetpacks and the feeling of the Mandos behind me falling into formation, but a quick ping off a detection formula told me I was leaving them in the dust. Between the overgrown lizard's unexpected speed and my own acceleration, I had seconds at most before I closed to within knife fighting range—I had to make every one of them count. Distract it. Make it mad and draw its attention away from the army.

Reaching into my computation orb on instinct, I spun up a targeting formula and brought up my carbine. Locking onto the pair of eyes on the left side of its face, my right, I fired off two quick shots. The eyes were huge, each easily the size of a man, but they were still just eyes and the blaster bolts were so small in comparison, and it had so little time to react, that it either didn't or couldn't flinch or blink in time.

My Force empowered bolts struck and detonated, and the eyes exploded into gooey, bloody, steaming soup. That got its attention, as the big lizard abruptly stopped, jerking away as it shrieked in pain and sudden fear, the movement tripping it up and sending it tumbling in a multi-ton heap of muscle and bone on the ground, crashing through the line of abandoned vehicles and armor closest to it.

Once more it surprised me as, with catlike reflexes, it rolled back to its feet and sprang into the air all in the same motion, before throwing open its wings and furiously beating as it impossibly hauled itself into the sky and began to very quickly build speed as it pulled away. I adjusted course and accelerated, coming up behind it as its wings popped in the air with every beat.

Landing on its back, I hurried to the wing joint for the left wing and pulled out all of my grenades, sticking them in place and setting them to remote detonate or go off in three minutes. Blaster and missile fire caught my attention and the flying lizard roared again as Jango and the others caught up and began harassing it. Using the distraction they had given me, I hurried towards the head, moving along the neck one spike at a time, before I crested the ridge between its horns.

Looking ahead, I frowned as I spotted its target—Carannia, a city comparable in size to Serenno City, and completely unaware of the threat coming for them. In the distance, I spotted the airship that had taken off before heading that direction.

Reaching out with my senses, carefully filtering things out, I felt the familiar presences of Masters Dooku and Qui-Gon, along with Jaster, Obi, and Satine aboard, along with others that were less familiar but I believed to be Master Kostana and Jenza, and several I didn't recognize at all. Can't let it reach the city and I can't let it distract Master Dooku and the others from whatever they're doing. Considering for a moment, I nodded and made my way back down to the base of its neck.

Holding one of the spines with one hand, I pulled my lightsaber with the other and flicked it on. The white-silver blade bit into the flesh but didn't penetrate like I was hoping.

"Tch, plasma resistant." That was fine. I had an answer to that. Grinning, I created a mage blade over the saber and thrust it back in. Flesh and blood sprayed up from the wound as the blade hit in and punched through the outer layer of scaly black hide. An explosion from behind me signaled the detonation of my grenades and the winged lizard lurched to port hard as it fell out of the sky.

But I doubted that a bad landing would kill it, and it would definitely still be dangerous to the city and everything around if it wasn't stopped here and now. The blade punched in and hit the spine beneath it, slipping through the gap I'd aimed for. With a heave and a shout of effort, I dragged the saber through, severing everything I could reach. The creature went still and I felt its pain and fear as it fell—not dead yet, but dying from an internal decapitation.

Deactivating my saber, I pushed away and took to the air, getting clear as it hit the ground and flopped in on itself, doing nearly a full forward flip as it rolled in an undignified heap. Hovering there, I panted, taking it all in for just a moment. The enemy army droid destroyed. The Abyssin mercenaries routed, their morale broken, and driven off planet through subterfuge.

An enormous, ancient threat, like some kind of fantasy creature brought to life and twisted into madness by some Sith in the past using the dark side slain just in time to save a city. And I'd been a contributing factor in all of it, if not the decisive factor, in the case of the… what was it the natives had called it? Tirrataka? Victory felt good, but as good as it felt, I was wiped. I just wanted to lay down and sleep for a week. Why am I so tired? I wondered as the strain began to build.

My flight faltered and I slipped, falling towards the ground at an alarming rate as gravity decided to remind me that it didn't appreciate people ignoring it. Someone slammed into me at speed, knocking the wind out of me and slowing us both down as we touched down on the ground. A moment later, Jango set me down and I flopped onto my back, closing my eyes with a sigh. The other Mandos landed around us, and I felt them keeping a wary eye on the dying lizard.

"You forgot your jetpack."

"Hm?" I murmured, before realization set in, and I barked a laugh.

"I guess I did."

"So, how'd you do it? Flying without a pack?" I opened my mouth and he cut me off with a warning.

"If you say 'math' I'm going to kick you."" Math. Oof!" I let out a breath as he kicked me right in the ribs. Thankfully, it wasn't hard, and he'd mostly caught the armor anyway.

"We should get back to the army and let them know it's been neutralized," someone spoke up from nearby. As they spoke, I forced myself to breathe, to draw in more of the Force from my surroundings. There was an enormous well of it just right there beside me in the creature that had already expired, so I grabbed onto it and pulled, drawing it into myself and feeding it into the seed of Force within the computation orb. I began feeling better almost immediately."

Should probably check in on Jaster and the others," Jango agreed.

"Alright, squad three, go report in with Master Sifo-Dyas. Squad two, let our people know to bring in the ships and start the battlefield salv ag e. There's a lot of good droid parts, weapons, and equipment out there we can use. Squad one—"" We need to go reinforce Master Dooku," I said, pushing myself to my feet and now feeling much better—maybe a little over-full of the Force at the moment, given how it left me feeling like I'd downed a triple espresso. Jango considered for a moment before nodding.

"Need a lift?" I looked within myself, measuring my reserves against the expenditure I'd made against the dragon. Checking the range to our target and running the numbers, I nodded.

"I should be fine. It's a short flight."

"Alright. Let's move out, people!" Jango ordered, and we took off, our three groups splitting up for our individual targets.

"That's still weird to see," the third member of Jango's team commented, his eyes occasionally glancing to me as we flew in formation. Jango's answer was short and dismissive, meant to get them back on-mission.

"Jedi shit, don't worry about it."

"Roger that." As we flew, I frowned as I realized that I was using way more Force than I should have been—or perhaps I had less to use? I studied what was going on within myself before coming to a conclusion. No, I'm missing something. Emotion, I think. What was it Master Kostana said? For a Force user, emotions are an open flame, and the Force is starship grade fuel. I was running on pure emotion and instinct when I activated it. The very first time I got it to even work, it was the same. So…

what emotions can I feed it? If, as she said, negative emotions are potentially harmful, then why not positive emotions? I was both a Zeltron and self-aware enough to understand my own feelings… most of the time. It should come naturally to me. It did not, unfortunately. It took a while, but I did eventually manage to squeeze out some minor improvements by focusing on the feeling of victory and triumph I'd had in that moment when I'd brought down the lizard—but it was nowhere near what I'd gotten earlier.

Still, it was proof of concept and I could build on it later. In the meantime, we had a job to do and a mission to finish. Feelings and a sense of something being wrong in the Force reached me from the airship and I focused on it, spinni n g up a sniping formula so I could see it closer. On the large, flat deck beneath what looked like a blimp structure or something similar for lighter than air travel, I spotted everyone standing topside. On one side, the Jedi and Mandalorians.

On the other, soldiers and a human man, holding a blaster to the blonde head of Satine Kryze. I didn't recognize him nor could I make his face out from this angle. At a guess, whoever he was had to be relatively high up within Ramil's organization, and this entire situation looked like some kind of last stand—a last ditch effort to get out of the trouble coming in the form of the Jedi and whatever trial Serenno would give them if they were taken alive. But they'd taken a hostage.

And not just any hostage, but a foreign diplomat. One who, while I didn't owe any form of allegiance to because she wasn't the Mandalore, I did owe it to Jaster—and he would want a threat to his people's civilian leader removed with prejudice. A lso, Obi would be sad if something happened to Satine, and I'd had more than enough of that lately, so …" Maintain course and land between the two groups.

I'm going to circle around high and from the front," I instructed, activating my optical camouflage formula as I slowed down, letting the Mandos catch up as I broke formation and circled ahead of the airship. Touching down on top of the lifting device, I dropped the camouflage formula—I was running on empty, but I had enough left for what I needed to do next. I waited as the Mandos swooped in and came to a landing, guns drawn.

The besuited man holding Satine hostage radiated fear and anger as his hand shook and I knew he was going to shoot.

"I'm not playing! Anybody makes so much as—" I dropped softly to the deck behind him and drew my blaster, a targeting formula giving me the angle I needed to end him and not hit anyone on the other side. I fired. A white-silver bolt took his head off in a shower of gore that coated the left side of Satine's face and shoulders and the man's body dropped to the ground.

Satine dove away, hitting the deck and covering her head as the four men who had been pointing blaster rifles at the other group turned, registering an enemy suddenly behind them. Apparently, they did the math very quickly, because their guns hit the deck and their hands went up immediately after. The Mandos moved to secure them and I holstered my sidearm, moving up and helping the blonde to her feet.

Looking to Master Dooku as he and the others put away their lightsabers, I said, "The droid army has been disabled and the Abyssins have fled. There was an… incident, but it's been taken care of. Nothing else to repor—…" I paused as everyone who hadn't been part of the group I'd arrived on the airship with stared, looking between me and the headless body with the still smoking neck stump. As occasionally happened with wounds from blasters, the cauterization gave way and it began gushing blood all over the deck.

"…Did I miss something?" At my side, Satine sighed and a moment later, I felt the taller blonde's arm wrap around my shoulder as she pulled me into her side in a hug. Her left side. Which squished unpleasantly as she pressed blood, along with bits of bone, flesh, and brain matter between us. I was definitely going to need a proper shower after this." Nothing important, Tanya," she murmured.

"Nothing important." A s the others started moving and discussing our new plans and I felt the Force within me waning again, leaving me in need of a nap, I had a feeling she wasn't being entirely truthful. Shaking my head, I resolved to figure it out later. I tried to push her hand off of me, only to find she didn't want to let go. Not wanting to argue at the moment, I gave up and closed my eyes, pulling on the Force as I took a few moments to recenter myself as Obi hurried over.

She went straight to Satine— of course she did—murmuring hurried questions, checking her over like the taller blonde might fall apart at any moment. But then, unexpectedly, her attention shifted to me. I couldn't help it. The corners of my mouth tugged into a tired half smile.

"I'm fine Obi, really." Her hands prodded this way and that as I felt her fretting.

"I'll be the judge of that. How could you be so, so… Nn!"

"Decisive? Well-timed? Heroic, even?"

"Idiotic," the girl pouted.

"Nice to know you care," I suppressed a tired laugh. Satine rolled her eyes.

"If you're quite done flirting—"" We're not —!" Obi began to protest, only for Satine to speak over her.

"I'd like to find a shower. I think I have bits of brain in my hair. I don't want to know how difficult this is going to be to get out." I didn't bother to hide my snort." A pain in the ass."" Speaking from personal experience?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Yes."" Interesting~. Care to share?" I considered it for a moment, before shrugging.

"Maybe." Obi's horrified look as we made our way into the airship was worth the stains.