Chapter 35: Capture

"Run! Run...!"

Across the general comms frequency, a field commander was screaming himself hoarse, desperate to cover himself and his unit in glory. But his shouts were largely drowned out by the static and interference generated by the Separatists.

Right beside me, a soldier fell, killed instantly by a direct hit to the head. A group of stormtroopers, who had successfully hunkered down behind the wreckage of our own armor, surged forward. They were on the verge of reaching the enemy's first line of defense. In the cacophony of battle, I couldn’t hear it, but I saw it clearly: a brilliant flash buckled the earth, tossing several soldiers aside like ragdolls. They did not get back up.

A shell detonated nearby, burying me from head to toe in dirt. The smell of wet earth clogged my nostrils. Spitting out grit, I lunged behind the remains of a tank, desperate to catch my breath.

Hutt’s breath! I definitely wasn't ready for this. My premonition was screaming that nowhere was safe. In the total chaos, it was impossible to tell which threat to react to first. In the gloom that reigned on this side of the planet, you couldn't see where the next shot was coming from. Only the muzzle flashes of blasters gave away the enemy's position.

The Separatist fortress, housing an artillery battery, seemed impregnable. Double-ringed walls protected the units inside. The cannons, hidden securely, fired upon pre-calculated grids with near-perfect accuracy.

When we first made planetfall, those fat-bellied idiots, who were clearly listed as our commanders by some bureaucratic error, immediately sent a portion of the personnel into a frontal assault. No reconnaissance, no plan, nothing. Just thrown forward. And like a fool, I went along with them, swept up in the general fever.

The unit I was with was decimated in moments. When I saw, as if in slow motion, a severed arm in white armor flying past me, I didn't think twice. I hit the dirt and tried to burrow as deep as possible.

Once the first wave of our attack was repelled and the stormtroopers retreated to the small beachhead we had managed to seize, I began to carefully extricate myself from the killing field.

I could feel it on my skin—the snipers in the fortress were watching with their mechanical eyes, searching for anyone left alive on the field. I had to move slowly, crawling, practically digging my way back toward our positions. Even if the snipers didn't get me, there was no guarantee they wouldn't open up with the big guns just as a precaution.

And the artillery did fire. I lay there, calling upon the Force, forming the strongest shield I was capable of, and tried to show no signs of life. All because those idiots in command had sent the men into yet another suicidal charge.

Only when the explosions finally ceased was I able to safely climb out from under the mountain of corpses, earth, and blood that had accumulated over me during the passing hours.

Filthy, reeking, but alive. I didn't have the strength to reach our lines. In fact, I had no idea where the Imperial forces were even stationed now. For all I knew, everyone else had been wiped out. Droids might be combing the area right now to finish off survivors.

I had to move in bursts to reach the forest line, praying the Separatists weren't paranoid enough to have mined the woods as well.

After putting several kilometers between myself and the battlefield, I leaned against a tree. Right there, I was seized by a fit of uncontrollable, hysterical laughter. Tears streamed down my face. My legs gave out. Collapsing onto the ground, damp with blood and night mist, I kept laughing hysterically.

The cold night air chilled my feverish skin but brought no relief. The thought that I had survived so much only to nearly die in a war that meant absolutely nothing to me sent me into fresh spasms of hysteria.

It took several minutes to pull myself together. It’s fine. I’ve survived worse.

I had to spend the night perched in one of the local plants. Communication was almost completely dead; occasionally, fragments of chatter broke through, but so rarely, maybe once or twice an hour. The initial frontal assaults had failed, and I had no clue where the headquarters might be now.

In the morning, from my vantage point in the tree, I spotted stormtroopers in once-white armor slowly picking their way through the forest. They were so caked in mud they almost blended into the terrain.

With them as an escort, I finally reached our positions.

There, I was handed a new unit and told to storm the fortress again. A bloated officer, spitting as he spoke, barked out absurd orders. We were to go forward without preparation, without air support, at our own peril. But such was the order of the High Commander, Vader, and no one dared to dispute it.

The officer was simply following orders. If he hadn't been hiding behind Vader's command, I would have had no trouble decapitating this incompetence and taking his post myself. But if it truly was an order from the High Commander, that was a different matter. I didn't want to do it, but it was unclear what was worse: a direct conflict with Vader or the Separatist guns.

And so, here I was again, forced to hide behind wreckage, trying to scramble for some kind of plan.

"Sir."

The stormtrooper was so filthy I didn't notice him at first; he blended perfectly with the dark earth.

"I’m listening, soldier."

"We need to fall back and regroup. We can't do anything like this. The enemy has this whole zone zeroed in."

"Agreed. Move the men back, but not to the main camp. Into the jungle."

"But sir, what about—"

"Follow the order."

"Understood, sir."

The artillery barrage didn't let up. From our positions, blaster cannons and mortars barked back, but the damage they dealt was laughable compared to what we were taking.

Under the accompaniment of explosions, I led my squad into the local woods that everyone seemed to have forgotten. If the enemy did remember us, the trees would at least offer some cover from their sights.

Exhausted by the short but energetic breakthrough, the soldiers slumped onto the bare ground. I needed to give them rest and devise a plan.

"Commander, report on personnel strength. They threw us together before we could even be introduced."

"We have one hundred and thirty-four men left."

"Equipment?"

"A pair of mortars and rocket launchers, a few dozen grenades, and that’s about it."

"Not much. Any ideas?"

The stormtrooper only shrugged.

"None, sir. The fortress is well-defended from all directions. I suspect the forest was cleared specifically to create a kill zone. We can't come in from above; we have no dropships. Even if we did, they’d be shot down on approach. By land, there's no chance either. The approaches are mined. If we had air support... but we don't."

My gaze drifted over the surrounding landscape until it snagged on a single detail. A sizable hill rose a few kilometers from the fortress.

"Commander, can your harpoons reach the fortress walls from that high ground?"

Following my gaze, the stormtrooper shook his head.

"Too far. It won't reach. Our maximum range is a hundred meters."

"It might reach."

We turned our heads. It was a young soldier, carefully checking a rocket launcher.

"You forgot your place, private?!"

"Stop." I held up a hand to the commander. "What do you mean?"

"If we put a grappling hook in this little beauty instead of a warhead, it’s just a question of the cable length. The engineers can rig it to work. At least, we can try... if we have a decent cable, we can make the attempt."

"Interesting idea. Commander, your thoughts?"

"In theory, it's doable. But in practice..."

"Well, we won't know unless we try. It’s better than a frontal assault. Do we have the cable? No? We’ll make it."

Night reclaimed the thrice-cursed planet. A column of stormtroopers, led by me, ascended the steep slope of the hill. Men occasionally slipped, only to be caught and hauled back into line. Feet sank into the loose soil, and the night dampness seeped through protective suits already battered in combat, chilling the soldiers to the bone.

"We’ve reached the summit. Men, ten minutes of rest. Then it gets hot."

Walking to the edge of the hill, I studied the fortress through macrobinoculars. A modified but standard Separatist fortress. I never thought I’d be storming one of these again. Life is a strange thing; sometimes experiences that seem meaningless turn out to play a vital role in your fate.

"Commander, when is the main offensive scheduled?"

"In a few minutes, sir."

"Who came up with the brilliant idea that a night attack was a good plan? Did visibility suddenly improve, or is he just having a fit of aggression?"

"The same officer, sir."

"Well, it works in our favor. Get the men up. If this works today, you’ll be heroes."

Faint, hopeful chuckles rippled through the stormtroopers.

"I can already taste the drinks, sir."

The night was torn apart by blaster flashes. The crimson bolts looked even more imposing in the dark, and the dark silhouettes of men being tossed about looked even more helpless. The brief flights of glowing energy illuminated columns of droids taking up defensive positions around the fortress. Their numbers were easily in the thousands, if not tens of thousands.

"Everyone to your stations!"

"All clear, sir. We can begin. The droids are distracted by the main assault. There's almost no one on the wall."

"Excellent. Go."

A muffled boom, and the cable disappeared into the darkness. Through my macrobinoculars, I saw the hook snag one of the defensive crenellations. High enough to scale the wall without issue.

"Hit. I'm going first. When you see the signal, follow immediately."

I hooked on and slid down toward the enemy fortress. Praise the Force, none of the droids decided to check this section of the wall. Landing softly on the rampart, I immediately melted into the shadows. During my observation, only a few small squads of droids marched past in groups of three or four. After a large explosion rocked one of the outer walls, they stopped patrolling this area entirely.

Things were going better than planned. Activating my saber, I waved it at the invisible stormtroopers on the hill.

One by one, the soldiers of my squad crossed to the wall and took their positions. I had to use the Force to save a couple of clumsy ones from falling. When over half the unit was beside me, I felt the moment.

"Alright boys, let's move!"

We charged. A coordinated volley from every rifle literally swept away a patrol squad that had the misfortune of stepping out from cover.

"Groups two, three, and four, you take the cannons. Groups five and six, take the command center. Cut their internal comms. Engineers, mine the approaches to our positions; we don’t have much time. The rest of you, with me. We draw their fire."

And we did. We drew it all too well. The mechanical soldiers standing in the courtyard awaiting orders noticed the intruders on their walls. In orderly ranks, a column of droids marched toward us. There were many, too many for a squad like ours. At least seven hundred, and more were pouring into the courtyard from adjacent rooms.

A chill ran down my spine. Did I overestimate us?

The tight blocks of the enemy closed in from all sides. Most came from the courtyard, but separate detachments were flanking us along the walls.

"Sir, explosives are set."

"Wait."

More droids emerged from the dark doorways into the light. It seemed they were being stamped out right inside and sent straight into the fray. But then, a small gap appeared between the continuous ranks. "Now!"

Deafening explosions rocked both sides of the wall. A couple of hundred enemy soldiers who had managed to step onto the ramparts were either killed or severely damaged. Now, they could only attack us from one direction: from below. Which is exactly what they did.

A wall of blaster fire washed over our positions. The fire wasn't precise, but volume certainly compensated for quality.

But we held. The stormtroopers took cover behind makeshift barricades and protruding elements of the station. They leaned out only to fire a couple of shots before ducking back and reappearing elsewhere seconds later. Defending against an enemy coming from below is easier than attacking them.

In this dizzying dance of red bolts, it was hard to track everything. My ears were ringing from the thunder of the batteries and the endless drone of passing blasters, layered over the rhythmic, metallic clanking of droid footsteps. My eyes couldn't keep up with the blur of bodies, shots, and explosions.

My perception narrowed to a small sphere around me, where I could reach any point with my blade. My Soresu training, however brief, had not been in vain. The blade dissolved into a blur; you could only see where it had been a second ago. It felt as if a crimson hemisphere was shielding me from one side.

However, I knew that if I took even a few steps to the side, my rhythm would break, and then things would get very, very bad. But I had no intention of going down to them; I stood my ground as if rooted to the spot. There were too many variables down there.

Even though we were taking light casualties and nearly every shot we fired found a mark, the droids were winning back ground inch by inch. Defending the three ladders leading to our platform was becoming impossible. But that was fine; it was part of the plan.

"Blow the side ladders!"

Detonators were tossed onto two of the three approaches. An explosion followed, and the structures collapsed, burying dozens of droids who were only meters away. Now they could only reach us from one side—where I stood. And nobody was getting past me.

The first droid to get too close was run through. I used the Force to hurl it back onto the enemies climbing up. This happened again and again. Minutes of continuous combat passed, but I felt no fatigue yet. The grueling training had paid off.

Precognition was running at full tilt, focused on the climbing enemy. Because of this, I felt the threat from the side only at the last possible moment. I barely managed to redirect a rocket flying at me into the wall. But that split second was enough for a blaster bolt to sear my thigh. Curse it!

I had neither the strength nor the time to assess the situation to my side. But the stormtroopers acted on their own, opening fire in that direction.

Another few minutes of relentless fighting ended with another blaster bolt slipping through my guard, scorching my side. Gritting my teeth, I suppressed the pain with every ounce of will, maintaining the frantic pace. I couldn't allow the thought of a breather. If I stepped back, we’d be overrun instantly.

The droids seemed bottomless. The courtyard was still packed with these mechanical killers. Where the hell is that other group?!

Several of my men ran out of ammo. I had to distract myself for a moment to pull the droids' blasters over to our positions. That was enough for another rocket to streak toward me. By a miracle, I twisted out of its path.

Almost immediately, I had to form a Force shield. It was the only thing that saved me when an explosion nearby threw me off the ladder rather than tearing a limb off. Even so, I tasted the metallic tang of blood in my mouth. My leg was on fire, and my face was smeared with soot. Blood seeped from numerous scratches, mixing with sweat. Damp fabric clung unpleasantly to my skin.

Clenching my fist, I lifted several metal beams and hurled them at the enemy. At the same time, I didn't see but felt through the Force the blaster bolts flying at me. Deflect one, two, three... I didn't know how much longer I could hold out.

The wave of attackers split. One stream rushed toward me, being ground away by my blade. The second went up the cleared ladder and began pushing back my already thin cover.

Through the roar of passing charges, I barely heard the stormtrooper's voice over the comms. But gods, it was perfectly timed.

"Sir, the cannons are under our control!"

"Turn them on the courtyard! Wipe them out!"

Another lapse cost me a scorched forearm. The entire left side of my body was practically numb. I was forced to hold the saber with only my right hand. But that was a trifle.

Fury, fear, rage, everything that had been coiling inside me since the start of the battle erupted. A wave swept away the surrounding enemies, throwing them back several meters and destroying most of them instantly.

I felt it was time to leave. Despite the excruciating pain in my one good leg, I coiled my muscles and made a massive leap back to the wall, catching the remains of an approach to our position.

Strong hands in once-white armor caught me and hauled me up. A medic immediately appeared by my side and began administering first aid.

Several geysers of concrete, metal, and droids erupted in the inner courtyard. Excellent. The rest was just a matter of procedure.

Methodically, step by step, we destroyed everyone who offered resistance. I was forced to limp, leaning on the medic's shoulder in the center of the column, but that didn't matter. With the enemy's own heavy artillery at our disposal, it was easy to tear the place apart from the inside. If they wanted to restore this fortress, it would take a massive effort.

As we were breaking into the final sector, shielded by massive doors, a Separatist shuttle took off, flanked by several starfighters. A few shots missed the ship, which vanished into the night.

Hutt. It looks like we missed the Tactical Droid. But without its leadership, the remaining clankers won't hold out long.

"Soldiers, finish off the survivors. Signal the main force that the inner fortress is captured."

******

"My Emperor."

Lord Vader knelt before the gargantuan hologram of his Master.

"How go your efforts, my friend?"

"The Separatist fleet has retreated. We control the airspace."

"I feel your discontent, your anger. What is the matter?"

"The officers you allocated... they are incompetent and foolish. They have already lost ten percent of their personnel trying to establish a foothold on the surface, and this is only the beginning."

"Precisely. Do you not realize the reason for this?"

"No, Master."

"All ground forces were formed from units and officers who hinder the development of the Empire. They are too old, too weak, too foolish. Some achieved their rank under the Republic through connections or bribery. The Empire needs young blood capable of leading it to prosperity. An extensive purge is necessary. This war is most opportune. The most capable will survive and take their rightful place; the rest will die. Believe me, I take no pleasure in spending so many resources here. But it was the only way. The Senate still restricts me. Their cronies in the army had to be removed so the troops are under our total control. As for the disciples and Inquisitors... it is a shame to lose such a resource, but the first generation performed too well. In time, they may become a threat. Some have already broken free of their conditioning. The Priestesses are monitoring the process, and the statistics are far too dangerous. If they survive, their numbers will be few enough to monitor. If they die, at least they die for the benefit of the Empire."

"I understand, Master."

"I am counting on you. I am certain a man of your talents can crush the Separatists even with such an army. I believe you can bring this long war to an end."

"Yes, my Lord."