Chapter Text
𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚𖥔
"The moment is upon us, my friends. Please switch to your assigned battle channel now, and may the Force be with you."
~Admiral Sien Sovv, alter mundus.
𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚𖥔
Pinyumb.
The cavern-city was as magnificent as it was venerable, built in layered tiers that once glittered with the wall-strewn lights of her inhabitants. She was the inverse of Inyusu Tor, the benevolent earth that had sheltered Sullustans for generations. Indeed, she predated the written histories, her beginnings inherent to her purpose even now — she protected the Sullustans. More than any other city, here beneath the turbulent surface of Sullust, hers was a city for the rank and file, a capital city by Sullustans for Sullustans. Where the others served tourists, or the corporations, there had been something sacred about Pinyumb.
Once.
It all had been carved across three main layers, each straddling the igneous substrate for purchase, embracing gravity-defying cityscapes that made the railings a necessity, and bravery in the face of heights a prerequisite. The vast expanse of the present, the result of thousands of years of machinery and generational patience, was crisscrossed by all manner of structures, from the massive arched bridges cut from the rock itself to the lifts along the walls, to the gondolas that braved the gap. In the upper tier, where the dark found its connection to that infinite above, the freight entrances opened to the traffic, and the administrative towers clung to the cavern city like stalactites of transparisteel and duracrete.
They had fallen first.
Even now the silhouettes of LAATs could be seen, pouring through the breach still streaking inky lines of ash. Green and blue poured downward, and hanging towers burned, sloughing off the precipice and dropping like icicles down far below. Their descent was marked by turbulent columns of dark smoke, the result of crumbling civilization. Transparisteel and claricrystal drifted down silently and slowly, shimmering with a splendor unearned by the invader. That first line of defense, meant to endure even atmospheric storms, to be secondary to the great battle before the slopes, had fallen quickly. Those who were able fled from the precarious structures, vulnerable as they were to the effects of war. They had run to the lifts, to their speeders, to what they hoped would be the relative safety of the middle city.
And as above, so below.
The middle city had held longer. Not long enough. CIS Marines had joined here, deployed haphazardly from those ships refueling and repairing, teal B1 marines and all matter of Confederates pouring out into the narrow streets, making their stand in the commercial districts. Strange sights dominated the bazaar, burning cloth whipping through the air, punctured and scorched by the dread advance of brigade after brigade. Clone forces led at the tip of the plunging spear — they always had — marking priority targets and executing without emotion. Even still, the weaponry of war churned, B2s anchoring lines that could not easily be broken — though they could be dented. Comms had been cut to the fleeing remnants of that last stand twenty minutes ago. The final transmission, from Diamond-class Syndic Captain, had been clipped, professional, and final.
We are holding the upper berths, do not reinforce, I repeat, do not reinforce. We will do our part up here. Good luck down below.
In that lightning operation, any meaningful defense had been left to the third tier — or the first, depending on which Sullustan you were asking. Below that tier more still remained, Inyusu Tor the ancient home of one thousand buried secrets.
There were the Quadanium refineries, the mining tunnels, and the dark, damp connections to the other underground cities. Rubble covered much of the cavern floor — twisted piles of warped metal and sadder things built up from the battles above. Few could spare it a thought, what might have been buried below. Instead, they focused on the collapsing world around them, and the enemy that descended, that seemed to be hunting them to the last.
The Sullustans had a saying for times like these.
When the surface shakes, dig deeper.
When the deep shakes, hold still.
When everything shakes, you are home.
And everything was shaking.
𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁
They were holding a bridge named Kitum.
And that name still mattered in war.
Beings died harder for the named places. Kitum was the widest of the lower crossings, broad enough for ore haulers and refinery crawlers, broad enough now for murder in bulk. The great thoroughfare stitched one hanging life to another, carried workers to their shifts and ore to the refineries. The rock had felt the passage of time, half-tracked by rail lines, the other half worn to a polished onyx by ten thousand years of footfall. Overturned mining carts and makeshift barriers scored its form, each obstacle a battle line drawn by the defenders, to be crossed by the relentless attacker. Line by droid line stood in defiance, marked by dozens of B1s, groups of B2s, surrounded by piles of discarded durasteel and wreckage that had fallen from above.
Sullustans wove between the ranks of inlaid defense, ducking between piles of warped metal, firing blind, dragging their wounded fellows to those places still unoccupied by the enemy. They stumbled with every shake of their world; they nervously traded glances with the smoking gunships that wove within their cavern. Some still wore their mining gear down to the headlamps, others were in their nightclothes. All ran from the white plastoid that had cut into their sacred space, digging deep.
To the west end was one end of the lower districts, dark smoke pouring off of it toward the space above. To the other, to the east, was the middle of the mountain's cavernous interior, a great arching support of volcanic rock that held firm the capital of the Sullustans. On this end lay a gondola station, one of many built to commute across the other side — where the bridges had already been blown. Upon the gondolas, and around the platforms, Confederate anti-air emplacements sliced red toward the darkness above. The thud thud thud ping! of their resolve shone through every directing OOM, every Sullustan team, every mortar squad that poured unceasing ordnance towards the descending judgment. They fought hard… for Kitum was the last major crossing left, the last that braved the western half of the cavern, now overrun with Imperial forces.
At bridge's center, anchoring the crumbling battle-line of lower Pinyumb, was a droid unlike all the rest.
The Scorpenek Annihilator Droid.
It held firm at bridge's center; the Empire was rebuffed, wave after wave, their deep battlecries reverberating amidst the flutter of engines.
It stood firm, that crooked creature, glinting prongs burrowed deep into cracked rock, interior reactor whining loud, red optics fixated unerring on the enemy ahead. It was a fortress of bronzium, flanked by its smaller kin, Droidekas in their regular and sniper variety sheltering in the massive blue sphere to lay continual fire from that space of safety. It traded few words but those powerful weapons bestowed upon it, standing impossibly tall as the pinnacle of Colicoid nest's creations. Enemy missiles crisscrossed the space, and an LAAT tried to burst past the span. With a single gesture, one of the supermassive droid's cannon-arms tracked it, and fired twice. The gunship exploded from the back, its remains continuing on to whatever objective lay on the other side.
Objective denied.
Then, it turned its twin arm-cannons on the span ahead.
Imperial forces, led by an emergency redeployment of the 212th airborne, gathered for their next attempt at breaking the enemy. Their next push. They had tacked down the cavern's western side, crushing any resistance that stood in their way. Now, they needed to find the path to the east. The walls of the cavern behind them were streaked with strange lines of soot — the result of a weapon few would comfortably name.
Clones rushed in, diving behind the bridge's barricades, the entire venerable structure shuddering from the monster's fire. Sergeants called out over comms — supermassive droid, unknown class, Colicoid design — as they waited for reinforcement. Firing teams pushed their streaked weapons over the rubble, laying down continuous pressure that would have to break, and soon. Another column of B1s sortied forward without fear, clean lines that were pieced apart from precise blue volleys. Where they dropped, the wreckage of two clone attempts at assault already lay. White armor lay burst open, bodies half-covered by the same strange grey particulate that drifted ceaselessly like snow from the sky. The dead were slowly taking the mountain's color, as were the living.
Above the span, the battle climbed, descended, folded through the cavern on every crevice and axis. A HMP gunship came skidding between the western residential towers with one side already burning, its chin cannon hammering at an LAAT's heels, the gunship trying to force its way down to the western approach. Red caught up, finding the flank and punching molten holes through the Rothana plating. It lurched aside from the blow, smoking, but it kept flying. The LAAT never abandoned the run. The clones never abandoned the objective. Its bubble cannons raked across the cavern, green finding and bursting incoming rocket pods into plumes of fire and smoke, and the squad within its hold deployed with the little time they had left, leaving any prayers for their brothers, the pilots, behind.
Eight jet troopers fell in a clean stagger, thrusters firing almost as one, and landed on a maintenance bridge flanking the great span. They fired before both boots were even planted, finding the defending droids behind the barriers they used as cover. With a single gesture, one of the jet troopers unslung their plex launcher, while another crouched down. Another clone grabbed ordnance and slid it into the awaiting launcher, two others providing covering fire in the process. Then they sprinted down the maintenance bridge, keeping their balance as it withered under the relentless assault. Droid forces found them, groups of B2s leaning over the sides to discharge rapid fire on the advancing clones. With little cover two of the clones fell to the red streaks, while two stayed behind to hold the line. When they reached an invisible point the missile trooper dropped to one knee, and fired at a gondola full of Sullustan citizens, their aim immaculate.
Their orders were clear. Disable the gondolas, corner the enemy, grapple across and win the day. Civilians no longer factored into mission success. In fact, they had been re-labeled altogether, a distinction that may have mattered little to non-clones, but meant everything to those perfect executioners of the Emperor. Every non-combatant on Separatist battlefields were now inherently traitorous, their lives forfeit for the cause they served, consciously or not.
The missile was intercepted by the desperate defenders, a hundred scattershot lines of tibanna racing out to intercept one missile. The Scorpenek turned its bulky attentions to the bridge, and found the root of the problem. One shot punched out, destroying the side bridge altogether. Around the great droid, clone after clone descended from the heights above, dropping everywhere and searching for weaknesses — firing with precision until their hearts stopped beating. Droid forces scrambled in response, their programming unfit to the dimensions of the fight before them. The forward droid line buckled from three dimensions of pressure, while reinforcements sluggishly broke the latest descent of Kamino's finest. Droidekas fired from within the massive shield, and the descending clones found no easy answer. They sheltered, they were flanked, and they died. But more took their place, their predecessors unmourned.
This was how the Empire fought here. Not with one push, but a unrelenting descent from all angles. The rifle teams pinned on Kitum kept constant pressure on the Scorpenek's massive shield. Heavy repeaters and snipers from the cavern walls added to the combined fire, joined by mortars and every LAAT that could make it this far, down this deep amidst the falling rubble. As a result, the bubble shield of the great droid flared in incessant splashes of teal, yet none of it was enough. It would have to be. Romodi wanted that span intact. The clones, that extension of his will, would execute, or die trying.
On the other end, the remaining resistance knew that all too well. B1s continually poured forward to the bridge in clattering files, released from gondolas now filling with civilians and the wounded. The exchange bought the droids grateful nods, which they took merrily with them towards their certain demise. B2s followed at a slower pace, their missiles first flicking out at the battle over the open air. Sullustan militia moved among them, hunched low in their work jackets, refinery masks, whatever they had managed to strap on when the war came down into their district. Some cradled proper carbines. Others carried pistols and holdout blasters, pilfered from SoroSuub lockers. One man had a cutting torch and a bandolier of grenades on his chest. They crossed the span in knots and starts, dragging back the wounded that could be saved, shouting for room, ducking in instinct every time their behemoth fired. At their rear, amongst those boarding the next gondola, a demolition team waited beside the cavern walls with a blasting box and a goal, however tragic.
Kitum would fall on their terms.
Sien Sovv stood among them with the detonator cradled in both of his hands.
He had armed the sequence ten minutes ago — it was ready to blow, on demand. It should have been simple. Wait until the last of their people made it across. Watch that old span, the one that had always been there, the one he had first seen as a little youngling on his father's shoulders… fall into the dark. But the last never seemed to come. Even now, more soot-covered Sullustans were dragged back, hoping beyond hope that the gondolas would last a moment longer. Would there ever be a right time?
He didn't need to wait long for his answer.
"SIEN! SIEN! WE HAVE INCOMING! ITS THE JUGGERNAUT!"
From the darkness of the western approach, a behemoth emerged from the dark.
Credit to artist Jasmin Zejnic
The A6 Juggernaut was as black as the rock around it, doused in soot and leaving billowing plumes of smoke in its wake. It hit the bridge with a speed and mass so violent that Sovv thought the bridge would go down from its weight alone. Ten wheels bucked as it crossed onto the great thoroughfare, its suspension heaving as it poured over every barricade, droid, and ashen plastoid in its way. Fracturous webs took the span, but the bridge held its weight. Without pause, missiles spat out, the first salvo striking the Scorpenek dead center, splashing against the shield in a wash or blinding light. Blue lasers joined the barrage, pockmarking the shield, joined by another barrage, and another. Sullustans and droids alike covered eyes and photoreceptors, tearing back from the span in a panicked run lest the giant consume them whole. In a panic, the sheltering Droidekas rolled out from the protective shield, clone sharpshooters finding them the moment they escaped from its safety.
The Scorpenek quietly mourned its smaller kin, but did not hesitate. Instead, its twin rapid-fire heavy blasters found the approaching wall of durasteel and responded in full. With a whine it routed all power to its blasters, and cracked out a salvo at center mass. Massive red bolts slammed into the front of the Imperial war machine, showering sparks across the span, collapsing the front of the war machine, and killing its drivers in a single blinding red barrage.
The wheels kept turning.
A final wave of missiles lashed out and popped the Scorpenek shield with a deafening boom of pressurized air, leaving its form open to more shearing blue fire. The droid fired again, joined by a wave of Confederate missiles, mortars, and small arms fire. Tibanna dominated the space, yet the huge vehicle lurched, swayed, and drove on.
Clones and droids alike dove out of the way, the unfortunate losing their footing, falling into the space below. The sound of wrenching metal and ringing blaster fire was deafening, horrific to the ear. It was the sound of two great beasts heaving one last time, two monsters that were set on leaving no survivor. From the Juggernaut's hatches clones dove out in droves for the bridge.
What was inevitable and dreaded became sickeningly real. The two beasts met each other head on, the Scorpenek, even dug in, was unable to challenge the barreling wall of industrial might before it.
But it could redirect.
Bereft any command to do so, drawing from a lifetime of war, the droid made its choice. The Colicoid pressed deep into the bridge, wrenching with every hydraulic ounce of force it possessed to the side. The driverless juggernaut, wheeling out of control, twisted ever so slightly with the movement. Momentum did the rest. With a final screech of durasteel and bronzium, the two behemoths of war fell off to the side, smoke curling in their wake as the mountain yawned wide to greet them. They joined the dread procession of falling livelihoods, of shattered dreams.
Sovv simply stared, surrounded by droids and Sullustans who did the same. Their shock couldn't last long, however, for the clones advanced at speed, unceasing even with the death of dozens of their brothers. Blue fire lashed out, taking advantage of the disturbed droid line. From above another score of descending jet troopers attempted to land all around the defenders, their fire indiscriminate, finding the fleeing and fighting both.
"Hold the line!"
Anti-air rattled off counter fire, droids dropping where they stood, taking the emplacements when their companions of the cause could not. Sullustans dropped as low as they could, taking all manner of barrier to buy a little more time for the next gondola. They had the relative cover of the central cavern support, all manner of stations and walkways carved and built upon its side. From the other end droids continued to arrive in support, but there was only the one gondola left.
The clones had drawn too close. It was time. He thumbed the activator. Damn it all!
Click!
Nothing happened.
Sovv looked down at the box, holding back ashen tears as he frantically searched for the problem. Clones drew closer, now passing the halfway point, one group tearing through a group of lumbering B2s as if they had never been there to begin with. Behind them, a pair of LAATs dropped in reinforcements.
"Kriffin box of scrap…"
Click!
Click!
Click!
"DAMN THING ISN'T WORKING!"
His fellow Sullustans turned to him in a panic. One, an old friend named Rabb, pointed at the bridge with a shaking finger.
"Look!"
From below the bridge, the reason for the faulty charges revealed themselves with controlled bursts. Jet trooper teams, rising from underneath the bridge with their objective completed. They landed amidst the advancing clone numbers and joined in the overwhelming assault. Clone squads were moving at a brisk jog now, their DC-15As held firm, barking out blue shots at every droid and Sullustan in their way. Droids tried to peek around cover to break the enemy momentum, only to find a well-placed shot in the head as recompense. Thermal detonators sailed over the barricades, joined by enemy mortars and rockets that made meter after meter rapidly indefensible.
They were doomed.
Sullustans broke entirely, sprinting from the bridge to escape certain death. Sovv watched them run by, and grabbed at one of his fellow militia. "We have to buy more time! For the final gondola to offload!" The others slowly nodded. Dark eyes turned to the bridge before them, and faced their fears quietly.
Sovv took the first step, and the rest made to advance, gripping their weapons hard and yelling out at the retreating Sullustans to take their stand, to hold the line. Ash-slick work boots scrabbled to the east end of the span, finding the final layer of defenses, settling in alongside droid repeater teams. Others stopped retreating to join in, a collective understanding dawning even here in the deep dark.
How long can we hold here?
It seemed impossible. Every clone that took up a firing position found their mark, without fail. Ten meters to his left, a clone volley dropped three Sullustans who had just returned to defend. His head swiveled to his right, just in time to watch another volley kill one Sullustan still limping back from the bridge. A mortar landed behind them, dropping a squad of Sullustans that were running for the bridge. A bubble canon raked out and Sullustans cowered, the green line vivisecting an unfortunate woman with a sickening shearing sound. And ahead he could see them now… dark plastoid marred from the assault, blaster wounds that failed to kill, headlamps that cut through the murk to find their enemy, without an ounce of mercy. Was this what it was like to face the clones? How could they? How could they…
"INCOMING!"
He dropped to the ground on instinct as a wave of red fire roared over their heads to the bridge beyond. The Sullustan turned back in shock, finding a sight that seemed a miracle. New droids were rushing forward from the final gondola, elite models, including one squad of B2s led by a red-lined Super Battle droid. Also with them were a squad of black Guardian droids — SoroSuub's finest. Their Paladin blasters barked out return fire, while one of theirs made its way to Sovv. The clone advance halted ever so slightly, precise red fire meeting with precise blue, shimmering heat meeting its match in the crisscrossing dark.
"Are you leader of the militia?" The lead GU droned, while the group of B2s unleashed a volley of missiles down the span.
"Yes he is!" one of his comrades called out. "Got us into this kriffin' mess!" Some of the others laughed with dread.
"Very well. The General wishes to speak with you," the lead GU responded. The droid held out a commlink, unaffected, or unimpressed, even, by the clone advance. The other Guardians by its side took kneeling firing positions, laying down covering fire.
Sien Sovv struggled to believe his eyes. A General? With a shaking hand he accepted the commlink, pressing it to his ear to hear over the sounds of battle. All the while, he poked his blaster out, squeezing blind shots out at the nightmares made real.
"So… Sullust fights on, it would seem," a voice crackled out.
Sovv struggled to find the words. He ducked as a thermal detonator exploded before their cover. "W-we defend our home, Sir."
"Your home… yes. Mine has already fallen. My droids will cover your retreat. Get to the gondola, militia leader. We will await your numbers there, for the final crossing."
Sovv wasted no time, as the next wave of droids took their positions. He spotted one Tactical model by the base of the cavern support, gesturing at the line beyond. B1s and B2s continued to pour from the other side of the great rock pillar in reinforcement.
Now or never…
"Sullustans! With me!" he cried, grabbing his rifle and gathering his composure, running as fast as his legs could take him to the rear lines. His fellow militiamen followed, those that still lived, firing backwards with abandon as they did. They crossed the gap to the rock face itself, where an OOM gestured at other advancing B1s, and took a moment to point them to the gondola.
"You're almost there!" it chirped cheerfully.
Sovv burst through the final distance, ignoring the blue blaster fire that slammed against the rock face around them. Explosions, missiles whistling in the air, the shuddering of a mountain that was being devoured from within. The steady fall of ash, the murky black below, the roar of engines. And then he spotted it. The final gondola, offloading finished, with droid teams upon its roof firing into the air above. Another group of GU Guardian droids stood at the entrance in defense, cloaked in black, defined by twin pinpricks of white that watched them. They gestured to the new arrivals.
Sovv dared one glance back, only to witness a nightmare made real. Clones and droids fought at closing ranges, B2s receiving shot after shot, only to burst out defiant fire regardless of the damage received. From above, an enemy AT-TE was walking down the cliff-face, its fire slamming into the defensive base of the cavern pillar.
The comm crackled in response.
"Rise from below, meet their assault, my multitudes. Rise, rise! Rise against the Empire!"
Before he entered into the gondola, as Sullustans sprinted into its safety, he saw it. A hundred smoking shadows climbing up the rocks, their red photoreceptors blinking to life mid-stride. Dwarf Spiders and Crabs, scuttling as a swarm might, firing up as they climbed. At their center was a Spider Droid unlike any he had seen, bulbous and donning a heavy turret that took advantage of the plentiful ranging fire. A barrage of their rising light found the descending ATTE, causing it to lose its hard-fought war against gravity. It dropped, and he entered.
Soon after, the gondola lurched from the station with a groan of cable and mechanism, swinging back and forth as it crossed over the ashy void. The retreating silhouettes of droids continued onward, pouring toward the bridge that would undoubtedly be their demise.
Inside, the survivors of Kitum's fall pressed against every surface. Sullustan militiamen slumped against the walls, chests heaving, weapons cradled close or set aside. The adrenaline of the retreat bled out into the shaking exertion that replaced it. Droids stood where they could, B1s wedged here and there, a pair of B2s occupied the rear with their intimidating bulk. Somewhere near the back, a Sullustan was quietly being sick. Another was praying in half-muttered mother tongue.
Two militia fighters were already climbing the maintenance ladder bolted to the gondola's port side, hauling themselves up through the roof hatch to join the droids fighting from there. At the windows, a fireteam of GUs fired their paladin rifles even now, down at the half-crumbled bridges, up at the enemies in the air. Red bolts lanced out from the roof and windows, holding at bay whatever Imperials chanced the void to reach them.
Through the window, the battle sprawled out in all directions and dimensions. Below, the lower bridges burned. Above, the cavern ceiling rumbled from the continuing discharge of the Harnadian cannon, a likely home to yet another last stand in a city full of them. Debris, droids, and living things fell from the sky, all consequence to the descending apocalypse. Flying things danced at the edges of one's view, a thousand silhouettes that held sorties and stories of their own.
Sovv found a swaying handhold as the gondola continued onward. He pressed his back against the bulkhead, trying and failing to get his breathing under control. Beside him, his group of Sullustans were peering out, or holding themselves together from within.
"There, the mines," Rabb muttered, almost to himself. "What a sorry sight. Look Yeel, do you see that? I can see them fighting. If we can get down there… maybe we can cross to the metro tunnels?" he asked the tense air. "Get to Piringiisi…"
Sovv could have sworn, laughed, or cried. "You act like its so easy Rabb. I couldn't even tell you how we got here. Let alone how we get there."
Rabb turned to him, sooted and smiling despite it all. "Worth a shot, eh? 'Militia leader.'"
"Heh. Won't let me live that one down, will ya? Still Macho, to be optimistic even now…"
Sovv was interrupted by a Guadrian droid that pushed its way toward their group, silver rifle couched in one arm. Its glowing white eyes fixated on the Sullustan.
"The General requests your presence, citizen."
Sovv blinked. "My presence?"
The droid nodded.
"Getting popular, eh Sovv?" Rabb chuckled out.
Sovv glared at his friend. "You're joining me… friend."
The laughter died at that. Together, they joined the droid in pushing through the crowded gondola, grabbing at the supporting rails every time the carriage shuddered. Near the front of the car, where the viewport offered a forward view of the approaching eastern wall, they found a General of the Confederacy, War Profiteer, Developer of Weapons, Corporate Climber, and War Criminal.
He was all of them. For he was Lok Durd.
He was laying against the gondola's frame, spindly legs sprawled out before him. A 2-1B medical droid attended to his chest, working on wounds that even Sovv knew were beyond a bacta patch. The Neimoidian's fancy blue dress was darkened by lifeblood, and he looked to have taken a blaster shot below the ribs… another at the left shoulder. His skin was a pallid grey in the dim lighting, his rebreather hanging loose around his neck, his data goggles pushed up on his forehead, exposing eyes that were dull yellow and deeply sunken.
His hands were rattling against the deck, arms limp at his sides.
It looked constant, possibly older than the wounds that had him breathing shallowly now. At his side, standing vigil, was a Sullustan, a surviving corpo by the looks of it. He simply stood there, eyes distant, not all here.
The General lurched his head up as Sovv approached, and something in those yellow eyes sharpened.
"You. Sit."
So Sovv sat. Rabb ambled over and crouched beside him, choosing now to inspect his ashen blaster.
For a moment, the two strangers simply studied one another. The medical droid softly whirred with movement, its needle extremities poking and prodding at wounds that would never heal.
"...Your name, militia leader."
"Sien Sovv, Sir."
The trembling fingers slid up to his legs, drumming his knees. "Sien… Sovv." The General turned the name over. "I know the name. A Captain by that name. A relative in the Confederacy?"
Sovv wanted to scoff, but held the urge at bay. "My uncle serves SoroSuub under contract. Hardly the Confederacy, General. They aren't the same." he bit out.
Durd's mouth twitched. "A difference, is there? What does SoroSuub serve if not the Confederacy?"
This time he did scoff. "The Confederacy is make-believe, any Sullustan could tell you that. You are a Neimoidian of the Trade Federation, acting on their behalf. My people fight for SoroSuub, for profits, dividends, and war contracts, no more."
The Neimoidian raised a brow, raising one spastic hand to drum against his chin in thought. "Is that how your people see it? Well, where is your uncle? Up above us?"
"Far above us. Eriadu. With the First Fleet."
The laugh that croaked from the Neimoidian was thin, rasping, and genuinely amused. It ended in a wracking cough that caused the droid to lean in closer, act with more urgency. "Eriadu. Fighting under Grievous, then, whether he signed up for that or not. Your uncle is a hero, young Sien. Do you know why?"
"I do not."
Durd took a moment to push himself a little bit higher, wheezing with the attempt. Then, he affixed his red-lined eyes squarely on Sovv.
"Because, young Sien, whether they win or lose out there, they proved something through their combined effort." Durd's eyes drifted to the gondola's viewports, to the crisscrossing fire beyond the transparisteel. "That a Confederacy is stronger when united after all. Stronger, when a corporate board does not have to approve its engagements. When credits do not dictate its designs. Without Dooku and his promises, even, perhaps. He looked back at Sovv. "Do you know why I am here?" he tried and failed to spread his arms wide, chuckling from the wasted exertion. "Not to defend your city, beautiful as it is, I promise you. I am here because SoroSuub paid me to be. I counted every credit I assure you. They paid for my services as General, an advance retainer, and then applied further payment for every droid I brought with me, at the behest of the Trade Federation, which was to receive a cut of course. They were to pay for every downed droid to be replaced via a Baktoid contract, with a provision that they would provide further munitions as needed. I was paid further for all specialty weapons. You saw one such beauty holding the bridge, I believe. I am to be a rich man, when they remember that they must pay me the rest."
The gondola swayed. A bolt struck the cable housing above them, showering sparks through the roof hatch. Sullustans cursed, and the fighters on top returned fire. Sovv frowned at the Neimoidians words. Why reveal his greed? As if I had ever been under any delusion.
"However... SoroSuub is finished." Durd continued. The corpos around him nodded in exhausted agreement. "The Empire had targeted Byllurun first, when they had still called themselves the Republic, and still required excusable targets. I would know all about that, oh, I would know." His trembling hand reached out, gesturing at the gondola around them, at the militia pressed into every corner. "So who is holding this mountain, young Sovv? Who is fighting in this great cavern? It is not SoroSuub. Not alone. It is not the Commerce Guild, or the Banking Clan, or any of the fine institutions that crafted this Confederacy as a business venture."
Sovv remained silent. In that silence, the General pointed a rattling finger.
"It is you. Sullustans of all walks of life. Many of you stole from SoroSuub to arm yourselves!" the laugh came out wetly this time. "The structure that started this war is dead. And yet you all fight on… why?"
The droid drooped over Durd to apply another patch to his heaving frame. Sovv said nothing, allowing this stranger to speak his thoughts. It beat worrying about the cable that kept them alive.
"I served directly under the Count, you know…" Durd continued, once the droid backed away, seeming to shake its head solemnly. "I built weapons for him, wondrous things. I had my aides, colleagues, of course. One was named Pune Zignat… now that was an Aqualish. He had given everything so that I could live on. Friend, he called me, as if the corporate war built friendships out of smoking ruins. He died… freeing his friend." His voice had dropped, but Sovv heard nothing but his raspy, rattling voice.
Other Sullustans began to gather behind Sovv, listening in.
"Pune believed we were fighting for something, oh, we argued every day… but that was the Aqualish stance. You want to learn how to hate the Core? Discuss politics with an Aqualish. He had been a true listener of Dooku's words, latched onto them, even. He once showed me a recording… could you believe I had not cared to watch it before? It was that address he made on Raxus, at the very beginning. A smoother politician you would never meet, oh, he had Pune working on weapons development with a smile… with convictions. I never understood it. What more did I need other than the beauties themselves? The beautiful things we built."
The mountain groaned, and in the middle distance an administrative building fell from the ceiling, still intact, down, down, down to the growing graveyard under Inyusu Tor. The world shuddered.
"Of course, we aimed our weapons at the helpless. Made it easier, I found. The less they fought back, the easier it was to get clean results. With that said… oh, perhaps there was a bravery in confronting war with peace, weaponry with some strange... unity. Perhaps there was more value in living beings, of all walks, than I initially estimated."
Beings listened on in shock.
The gondola swayed past a burning bridge, close enough that the heat could be felt through the transparisteel. Below, Sullustan militia were fighting from behind overturned carts and debris, their fire reaching toward clones descending on rappelling lines. The mountain shuddered again from the great cannon. Ash drifted in flurries, the gondola pushing through with wisps of smoke.
"Of course, the war I remember was nothing like the one I returned to." Durd said, his voice growing thinner but no less clear. "Something changed… somewhere, while I was locked in a holding facility, dragged through one interrogation to the next." He looked up at Sovv, the faintest smile crossing his features. "And it began with beings like you. Not just here, though your stand has been magnificent, I assure you. It started on Geonosis, perhaps. It spread from there to Jabiim. Then when the Quarren declared for the cause. Ando, Yag'Dhul, Umbara, Raxus, Onderon. The list goes on, I am sure. I heard of these happenings, cared little. But now we are here, and I have been left behind. I worked on weapons the likes of which you could not imagine, for a war where organics were the occasional oddity, not the rank and file. Yet fate placed me here. To face my faulty assumptions."
The eastern wall was growing closer through the forward window. Bristling Confederate defenses were visible, barricades and emplacements guarding the refinery entrances.
Durd looked up. Through the gondola's upper windows, through the haze and the ash and the battle, his eyes fixated on something above.
"I can see it now," he said softly. "The light. Up there, past the fighting… the storm must have cleared. Can you see it? Militiaman Sien Sovv?"
Sovv turned to look where the Neimoidian was gazing off with a smile. He saw darkness, the same streaks of blue, green and red. He saw the flicker of explosions, the destruction of his home. He saw no light.
"I… no, General."
"Oh, it's there." Durd's hands had gone still as some point, resting flat on his thighs. "The Confederacy of corporations is dead, Sovv the younger. The contract your uncle signed is no more. SoroSuub… well they would never say as much, but they have lost sight of whatever profits they once chased. This battle has been many things, and none of them are economical. Of course, that goes for all of the corporations, even my Trade Federation. Their time as careful curators counting credits has finished." Lok Durd spoke to Sovv, to the Sullustans who were watching them. He said it to the droids, to the life he was tired of living. He saw it, now. What came next. "The question is whether you accept it. The gifts of past evils. The weapons, the unending fight, the cause, all of this death… the entirety. Oh, but you do not need more words from this escapee, this criminal. No more running from justice."
He turned to the medical droid.
"Give me something for the pain. And then leave me be."
The surgical droid hesitated for a moment, photoreceptors peering at him through various wavelengths, calculating something unspoken. Then it reached into its medical compartment, selecting a vial. It administered the injection gently.
Durd exhaled. The tension left his frame as air to a bellows, completely, settling him deeper against the swaying bulkhead.
"There," he said. "Another evil has met its match. And yet the fire burns bright before our eyes." He grew distant, looking beyond those before him. "Romodi attacked quickly, completely. Sacrificed half a division as a feint, left me the fool. Oh, he won in every measure, mercilessly, without pause. But he was not nearly fast enough. He left you all breathing… after all, in your own… ashen air. This… new Confederacy… I could… never, never defoliate it. It is… beautiful."
He stilled forevermore.
The gondola reached the eastern station. The cable mechanism engaged, the car settling into its housing with the familiar clunk of engineering built into the mountain's bones. The doors opened, and the GU-guardians stepped out first, Paladins sweeping the platform.
Sovv's eyes hovered on the slumped General for a moment longer, wondering what the man had truly seen, in him, in the space above them. Then he walked to the doors with the others, stepping out into the sounds of war.
There, at the edge of the platform, a destroyed repulsortank sat smoking in the dim light. It was a design Sovv did not recognize, bulky, mounted with a cannon of unusual proportion, its hull dented and scorched from concentrated fire. It had been seemingly left behind, left to sit and smoke and gather dust. Whatever the Empire had thrown at it, they had wanted it dead badly. Strange, pale residue marked the ground around the wreck, a dusting that matched the particulate he had seen as streaks on cavern walls. Sovv looked at it, wondering for a moment what it had all been for, for what purpose did such a thing exist.
Then, he looked away.
The militia filed out behind him. The wounded were carried. The Sullustans who had listened to the General glanced at one another with expressions that had not been there before. At the refinery entrances, the remaining corporate soldiers, SoroSuub's last, were coordinating what they had left, their uniforms standing out amidst work clothes and mining gear.
They walked towards them, Rabb sliding to his side, as always.
"Time to run?"
"I die in my city. You?"
"I was just asking. We're with you, Sien."
𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚.𖥔 ݁
The broadwave hit every transceiver at once.
It cut through the static and uncertainty, lay waste to the interference and ash that had blinded Pinyumb for weeks, punching through with the authority of a signal broadcast from newly arrived C3 Munificents. It found Commander Klyp's comm unit at the defensive line, where corporate soldiers and militia conscripts held the deepest dark, side by side.
Open frequencies to remaining defenders. The Confederacy of Independent Systems has arrived to relieve Sullust. To all Imperials in system — your time has run out. Eriadu is ours. The General has added a further decree. All Imperials in the Western Reaches are to face our might, so long as they trod on sovereign ground. This is your final warning.
The survivors had run to the ledges, craning their heads for the light Durd had spoken of. It was there, beyond all hope, the light of day that poked through the murk of battle. From the blinding white maw emerged hundreds of small silhouettes, missiles flicking out from their forms at the enemy rear. In a single move, clone units had been encircled, caught in the act of finishing their slaughter of the innocent.
Romodi's hopes of a quick victory, in concert with complete regional success… had failed.
Sien Sovv cheered with the others when the day had mercifully ended, waving at droid craft as they wove through the rubble to find those remaining pockets of enemies. He was twenty-one years old, five months removed from the lecture hall at the Pinyumb Technical Institute. And only now did he truly understand the General's words. For when the Confederacy arrived, they had not only spoken to SoroSuub, to quivering Bribbs and his safehouse in the countryside. They had asked for a leader of his people, those who would represent Sullust, not SoroSuub, in the years to come. For his heroics he was named, for his uncle he was cheered, and for all of it he saw the light for what it truly was.
When the surface shakes, dig deeper.
When the deep shakes, hold still.
When everything shakes, you are home.
The mountain had stopped shaking.
And they were home.
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