Alto Stratus paced the dim command bunker, rain hammering the duracrete roof like artillery. His transmission to the Separatist Council had gone out hours ago, a desperate plea wrapped in nationalist pride. Now he waited, fists clenched, the flickering holoprojector his only companion in the gloom.
At last, it hummed to life. Wat Tambor's insectoid face materialized beside the Trade Federation Foreman's stoic mask. "We welcome you, Stratus," Tambor intoned, his voice modulator flat and mechanical. "We have awaited your call."
Stratus's eyes burned. "Reinforcements. Count Dooku promised aid against the Republic invaders. Yet not one transport has touched Jabiim's soil. My people bleed in the mud while your promises rot."
"Difficult weather conditions," Tambor replied smoothly. "Storms render orbital descent hazardous. But rest assured—the first wave launches within hours. We deploy dispersal rockets: a chemical compound to fracture the cloud layer, create temporary clear corridors."
Stratus leaned closer. "Do you have the Republic base coordinates?"
"Precisely. Once atmospheric flight stabilizes, bombers will saturate the site. Ground troops will land directly atop their positions—overwhelm and eradicate."
A grim smile cracked Stratus's face. "I will support from the ground. My Nationalists will meet your droids at the breach. This ends today."
The hologram winked out. Stratus stared into the dark, the weight of a million dead pressing on his shoulders. Victory or annihilation—either way, the rain would wash the blood away.
---
Another raid on the enemy's rear lines shattered like glass. Ahsoka and I were gearing up to drop from the Juggernaut, prepping another hit-and-fade on a Nationalist supply column, when Mirro's voice cracked over the internal comm.
"General! Get in here—now!"
I felt it before I saw it: a cold spike in the Force, sharp as a vibroblade. Danger. Vast. Inevitable.
"What is it?" I asked, already moving.
Mirro's console glowed with intercepted chatter. "Enemy transmission. They've fired dispersal missiles—special compound to burn off the clouds. Windows opening directly over the base and surrounding sectors. Look outside."
I stepped to the viewport. The perpetual gray curtain was tearing. Shafts of sickly light pierced through, turning the rain to silver needles. The sky bled pale.
One of my salvaged OOM command droids droned from the turret feed: "Sir, atmospheric conditions now optimal for Separatist landing operations."
The tin can was right. Brightness crept in, unnatural and wrong after weeks of endless night.
"Hutt spawn," I snarled. "All units—this is General Dagon. Break off raids. Return to base at maximum speed. Enemy orbital insertion imminent. Repeat: full retreat to defensive perimeter!"
Engines roared across the comms as Juggernauts, AT-TEs, and scout speeders turned back toward Handuin. But the sky answered first.
Explosions bloomed high above—bombers screaming down through the widening gaps. Lucrehulk drop pods and Munificent-launched transports darkened the horizon like locusts.
Our Scorpenek annihilator droids—those hulking, scorpion-like monstrosities we'd captured and reprogrammed—reacted first. Their dual twin laser cannons spun up with mechanical fury, crimson streams lancing skyward. Shields flared blue-white as they absorbed incoming fire. One after another, CIS bombers disintegrated mid-dive, wings shearing off in fireballs. Transports—perhaps a hundred—plummeted, trailing smoke and debris, slamming into the mud with earth-shaking crumps. Bodies and droid parts rained down, half-burned, half-melted.
But the assault didn't stop. The rest adapted: waves of AATs, MTTs, Hailfires, and spider droids poured across the plain, backed by endless B1/B2 phalanxes and nationalist militia screaming through the thinning rain. Nimbus commandos skimmed on repulsor boots, thermal charges ready.
Our lines buckled under the weight. AT-AT walkers strode forward, rotary cannons chewing through droid ranks, but even they strained against the tide. The battlefield became a slaughter pen: oil-slicked mud churned red with blood, burning vehicles belching black smoke, screams drowned by blaster fire and thunder.
I leaped from the Juggernaut, dual lightsabers igniting in my hands—one blue, one the green I'd claimed from a fallen Jedi long ago. The Force surged, dark and hungry beneath my control. Battle Meditation threaded through our troops, sharpening their aim, dulling their fear—but it wasn't enough.
The enemy vanguard closed: militiamen charging with bayonets fixed, droids marching in lockstep. I met them head-on.
Lightning crackled from my fingertips—purple-black arcs, jagged and wild, like storm-chains from forgotten Sith holocrons. They leaped from one soldier to the next, searing flesh, melting armor, charring droids to slag. Bodies convulsed and dropped, smoking in the mud. I spun, sabers blurring, carving through B2 torsos, severing limbs, heads tumbling into oil pools. A nationalist officer lunged; my blade took his arm at the shoulder, the second slashing across his throat in a spray of arterial red.
Left and right they fell—soldiers bisected, droids bisected, the ground a carpet of twitching corpses and sparking wreckage. I pushed deeper into the fray, lightning chaining across a squad of Nimbuses mid-leap, dropping them like broken marionettes, repulsor boots fizzling out as they crashed.
Ahsoka fought nearby, her green blades a whirlwind against the flanks, keeping the clones cohesive. She didn't see the full extent—the raw, dark fury I unleashed. I kept it veiled, appearances maintained. Light side for the Padawan. Shadow for the war.
Then the true threat arrived.
A shadow loomed through the smoke: **Savage Opress**, towering, red-skinned, horns crowned like a demon. Double-bladed lightsaber spinning in one hand, brutal war axe in the other. Behind him marched twelve armored Nightbrothers—Zabrak warriors in heavy plate, vibro-axes and electrostaffs gleaming, yellow eyes burning with Nightsister magick.
Savage's gaze locked on me. "Jedi," he growled. "Your head for Mother Talzin."
He charged.
Our blades met in a storm of light and fury. His double-blade hammered down, raw power cracking the air. I parried with crossed sabers, Force-enhanced strength holding against his bulk. He swung the axe low; I leaped over it, countering with a slash that scored his pauldron. Sparks flew.
The Nightbrothers circled, axes whirling. I unleashed lightning again—arcs snapping between them, frying one man's nervous system, dropping another in convulsions. Savage roared, Force-pushing me back, but my ancient Sith training—lessons from a long-dead holocron master—kicked in. I anticipated, rolled, came up slashing.
It wasn't a duel. It was execution.
I severed one Nightbrother's arm at the elbow, then drove my blade through another's chest. Lightning chained through three more, their armor glowing red-hot before they collapsed, flesh sloughing off bone. Savage pressed, double-blade spinning in lethal arcs, but I was faster—trained in forgotten forms, tempered by years of shadow war.
A feint left, then lightning straight to his chest. He staggered, roaring. I closed, sabers crossing at his throat—then down, severing his weapon arm. The double-saber clattered away. He swung the axe one-handed; I ducked, drove blue blade through his gut, green through his heart. Savage Opress dropped to his knees, yellow eyes dimming, then face-first into the mud.
The remaining Nightbrothers fell in seconds—sabers through throats, lightning through hearts. Bodies piled around me, smoking, broken.
Ahsoka was too far, too engaged with droid waves, to witness the full darkness. Good. Let her see the hero. Not the butcher.
Without their commanders, the assault collapsed. Nationalist lines fractured. Droid formations faltered, leaderless. Our Juggernauts and AT-ATs rolled forward, cannons thundering, crushing resistance.
The battle ended in under an hour. Over a million droids and vehicles littered the field—twisted metal husks, oil pools iridescent with rainbow slicks, burning tanks sending plumes of acrid smoke into the clearing sky. Nationalist bodies lay in heaps: burned, bisected, lightning-scarred. The rain returned, tentative, washing blood into the mud.
Clones moved among the wreckage, securing prisoners. Five Jabiimi nobles knelt in binders: Thorne Kraym—Stratus's second-in-command, face pale with defeat—and four others whose names meant nothing now.
I walked the carnage, stepping over corpses. Savage's double-bladed lightsaber lay in the mud; I claimed it, clipping it to my belt. From the Nightbrothers, I took their beskar staffs—dark-forged, etched with Dathomiri runes. Trophies. Tools.
I knelt by Savage's body, placed three thermal grenades on his chest and those of his fallen kin. "No resurrection today," I muttered.
The detonations were muffled, thorough. Flames consumed flesh and armor, reducing them to ash and slag. No evidence. No dark-side relics for scavengers or Nightsisters to reclaim.
I turned away, the sky now half-clear, half-storm. The war wasn't over. Just another delay in the inevitable.
But in the mud, a million more waited.