Chapter 38: The Shield Wall
Smoke still hung over Christophsis.
Not dramatic, cinematic smoke either. The boring kind. Gray, drifting haze that stung the eyes and made every breath taste faintly like burned circuitry and melted plastoid. The kind that stuck to the crystal streets and the jagged white towers like a bad habit.
Morning light filtered through it anyway.
War, apparently, did not cancel sunrise.
Clone troopers moved through the rubble with quiet efficiency, dragging power crates, repositioning portable cover, checking weapons. Nobody wasted words. The supply depot explosion yesterday had burned through more than ammunition. It had burned through whatever optimism the first day of the campaign had left.
I leaned against a fractured crystal pillar and watched the line reform.
Armor scuffed. A few fresh scorch marks. But they were already digging in again.
Clones were good at that.
Ahsoka crouched on a broken ledge above the street, elbows on her knees, scanning the avenue through macrobinoculars. The orange tips of her montrals twitched slightly as she tracked movement through the haze.
Beside me, Maris sat cross-legged on a slab of shattered crystal like she was waiting for a bus instead of a droid army. Pale skin, dark robes, expression somewhere between bored and vaguely irritated by the entire concept of warfare.
“Good morning,” I muttered.
Maris didn’t look over. “Debatable.”
Fair.
Captain Rex stood farther down the barricade line, helmet under one arm while he spoke with a group of troopers. Calm. Efficient. The sort of command presence that made soldiers straighten without realizing it.
It would have been reassuring if I didn’t know how badly yesterday had gone.
The Force felt tense this morning. Not violent yet. Just… tight. Like the galaxy was holding its breath.
Which was usually a bad sign.
Ahsoka lowered the macrobinoculars slowly.
That was also a bad sign.
“Movement,” she called.
Rex slipped his helmet on in one smooth motion. “All units, stand to.”
Blaster rifles came up across the barricade line. Clones shifted into firing positions behind chunks of crystal and portable shield emitters.
The haze down the avenue stirred.
At first I thought it was just more smoke drifting.
Then the smoke moved the wrong way.
A faint blue glow appeared through the haze.
Shimmering.
Expanding.
“…what is that?” Ahsoka asked.
The glow pushed forward until it broke through the smoke completely.
A dome of energy.
Huge.
A translucent wall of pale blue light rolling slowly down the crystal street like a tidal wave made of electricity.
Inside it—
Droids.
Rows and rows of B1 battle droids marched in tight formation, skeletal silhouettes moving in perfect mechanical rhythm.
Behind them lumbered the bulkier shapes of B2 super battle droids, heavier frames gleaming dully in the filtered sunlight.
Droidekas rolled along the edges of the formation, shields already crackling around their hunched bodies.
And at the dead center of the marching formation—
A massive shield projector rolled forward on heavy repulsor treads, its armored chassis bristling with emitters that projected the glowing dome outward over the entire formation.
The generator itself didn’t fight. It didn’t need to.
The droid army marching around it did that job.
The whole formation advanced one block at a time.
Slow.
Steady.
Relentless.
Blaster fire erupted from the Republic line.
Red bolts streaked down the avenue and splashed harmlessly against the shield.
Each impact rippled the energy surface like a stone dropped into water.
Did absolutely nothing else.
“Keep firing!” Rex shouted.
The clones obeyed without hesitation.
Dozens of rifles cracked in rapid bursts.
The shield glowed brighter under the barrage.
Still didn’t break.
A heavy weapons trooper stepped forward and fired a rocket.
The missile streaked toward the dome—
—and detonated the instant it touched the barrier.
The explosion flared across the shield surface in a brief bloom of orange fire.
When the smoke cleared, the dome was still there.
Unimpressed.
“Oh,” I muttered.
That was not ideal.
Inside the shield, the droids kept marching.
Then the front line stopped.
A handful of B1 units stepped forward.
They walked directly through the shield wall.
The blue energy rippled as they passed.
Once outside the barrier, they raised their rifles.
“Roger roger.”
Green bolts ripped across the street.
Clones ducked behind cover as blaster fire hammered the barricades.
The droids fired a few disciplined volleys.
Then—casually—walked backward through the shield again.
The energy field swallowed them without resistance.
The formation resumed advancing.
Portable fortress.
That was the only way to describe it.
A moving bunker full of angry skeletons.
Rex crouched behind the barricade beside me, watching the shimmering dome grind closer.
“That’s…” He paused, clearly reconsidering several more colorful options. “…not ideal.”
No kidding.
Blaster fire kept splashing uselessly against the barrier while the shield wall crept closer block by block.
The clones were already shifting backward to the next defensive position.
Not retreating exactly.
Just… adjusting the line.
Very professionally.
My eyes stayed on the shield.
Something about it nagged at the back of my brain.
Energy bolts stopped.
Rockets detonated.
But the droids had walked through it like it wasn’t there.
A clone grenade sailed forward and hit the barrier.
Boom.
Energy ripple.
No penetration.
But the droids had stepped out.
Which meant—
My stomach sank a little.
“Oh.”
Ahsoka glanced over from her perch. “What?”
I pointed at the shield. “It’s a ray shield.” That felt obvious, but maybe she didn’t notice the giant red bubble blocking all of our artillery.
She blinked. “Okay…?”
“Energy stops,” I said. “Solid objects don’t.”
Her expression slowly shifted from confusion to understanding. “…oh.”
Yeah.
Oh.
The shield didn’t stop people. At least, not if they were still enough.
Which meant—
You could walk through it.
My eyes tracked the slow advance of the formation. The droidekas, the B2s, the endless line of B1s.
Thousands of blaster rifles waiting on the other side of that glowing wall.
We could go in.
Technically.
All we had to do was step through the barrier and charge directly into a literal wall of guns.
I watched the dome creep another few meters closer.
The droids inside it lifted their rifles in unison.
The Force tightened again.
Great.
Just great.
Because I had a very uncomfortable feeling about what Anakin Skywalker was going to suggest once someone pointed this out.
…
The command post was, technically speaking, a building.
That was generous.
Three of the walls were missing, the fourth had a crack running from floor to ceiling like someone had tried to fold the structure in half, and the roof had collapsed into a slanted mess of crystal beams and durasteel plating that let sunlight pour through in dusty shafts. Someone had dragged a holotable into the middle of the wreckage anyway.
War had a way of lowering architectural standards.
The tactical display flickered above the table, projecting a rotating map of the surrounding district. Blue markers clustered along a defensive line that kept slowly shifting backward as clone units adjusted their positions. Red icons advanced with stubborn, mechanical patience.
And in the center of the red formation sat a glowing blue dome.
The shield wall.
Obi-Wan folded his arms into his sleeves and studied it in silence.
Outside, muffled through broken crystal and drifting smoke, blaster fire crackled in sporadic bursts. The Separatist advance had slowed for the moment. That meant they were reorganizing.
Which meant the next push would be worse.
Captain Rex stood opposite the table, helmet tucked under one arm. Ahsoka leaned against a cracked pillar nearby, arms crossed, trying very hard to look like she had been doing this for years and not approximately five minutes. Ben hovered near the edge of the holotable, brow furrowed as he stared at the shield projection like it had personally offended him.
Maris lounged on a crate she had dragged over from somewhere, boots up on the edge of the table as though she were watching a particularly dull holo-drama.
Anakin stood beside Obi-Wan.
Which, historically speaking, meant Obi-Wan’s day was about to get worse.
Rex tapped the edge of the holotable and zoomed the projection in. The blue dome expanded across the display, highlighting the dense clusters of droid signatures inside.
“Our artillery’s useless,” Rex said. “Heavy rockets detonate on contact. Air support can’t hit the generator without crossing the shield.”
The holomap flickered as another line of data scrolled past.
Inside the dome, the red dots kept advancing.
Methodical.
Unstoppable.
Ahsoka tilted her head slightly. “What about flanking them?”
Rex shook his head. “Street grid’s too tight. They’ve got droidekas covering the side approaches.”
Ben gestured toward the glowing dome. “The shield’s a ray barrier.”
Obi-Wan glanced at him.
Ben’s voice had that particular tone of reluctant realization that meant he had just connected several deeply unpleasant dots.
“Energy stops,” Ben continued, tapping the projection. “Solid objects don’t.”
The implication hung in the air for a moment.
Ahsoka’s eyes widened slightly. “You mean—”
“Yes,” Obi-Wan said quietly.
They could walk through it.
Which meant the shield wall was not, technically speaking, impenetrable.
It was simply suicidal.
The holomap rotated again, highlighting the dense droid formation surrounding the generator unit.
Thousands of blaster rifles.
Super battle droids.
Droidekas.
A mobile fortress with a very convenient door that opened directly into the worst possible place a person could stand.
Obi-Wan exhaled slowly through his nose. “Then our options are limited.”
Limited was a polite way of saying nonexistent.
He reached out and adjusted the tactical display, highlighting the Republic fallback lines. “If we cannot break the formation, the sensible course of action would be a tactical withdrawal to more defensible terrain.”
The words tasted like defeat even as he said them.
But sometimes war required choosing the least catastrophic option rather than the most heroic one.
Anakin made a thoughtful noise beside him.
That was rarely encouraging.
“We could just walk through it.”
Silence.
Not the stunned silence of people who hadn’t heard him.
The very specific silence of people who absolutely had.
Obi-Wan closed his eyes briefly.
Of course.
Of course that was the idea.
When he opened them again, Anakin was already leaning over the holotable, pointing at the glowing dome with the confident enthusiasm of someone proposing a mildly risky podracing maneuver rather than a frontal assault on a shielded droid army.
“Jedi lead the charge,” Anakin continued. “We go through the shield first, draw their fire. AT-TE walkers push up behind us once the shield collapses. Clones follow the breach.”
His finger moved to the red icon at the center of the formation.
“The shield generator is the weak point. We take that out from the inside.”
The holomap flickered again, projecting the estimated number of hostiles surrounding the generator.
It was… impressive.
Obi-Wan let out a long, slow sigh.
Years of mentoring Anakin Skywalker had produced a very particular kind of sigh. It contained patience, exhaustion, reluctant admiration, and the quiet acceptance that arguing was probably pointless.
“That sounds extremely dangerous.”
Anakin straightened slightly. “Your point?”
Of course.
Maris raised a hand from her crate like a student volunteering for a particularly chaotic class discussion.
“I’m in.”
Everyone turned.
Maris shrugged casually.
“What? I’m tired of being on the back foot. Let’s kick some ass.” She paused, glancing toward Obi-Wan with sudden, exaggerated politeness. “Oh, uh, sorry Master. Is it cool if I say ass?”
“No.”
“…asshole.”
Obi-Wan stared at her.
There were moments in life when the Force offered no guidance whatsoever.
This was one of them.
Why did none of his Padawans respect him?
Was it the beard?
No. The beard was excellent.
Ben made a strangled noise that might have been laughter and immediately pretended to cough.
Ahsoka rubbed her temples like someone reconsidering several recent life decisions.
Anakin, traitor that he was, looked delighted.
Obi-Wan glanced back at the tactical display.
The shield dome crept forward another few meters.
Clone positions shifted again.
If the formation reached the next intersection, the Republic line would collapse completely.
The sensible option remained a withdrawal.
Which meant abandoning half the city and handing the Separatists a strategic victory.
Obi-Wan watched the glowing generator icon at the center of the dome.
One target.
One extremely well-protected target.
The Force flowed around the moment like a quiet current, offering no clear answer—only the familiar sense that events were moving forward whether he approved or not.
He exhaled slowly. “Very well.”
Anakin’s grin widened instantly.
Obi-Wan pointed to the generator unit. “We break the shield from the inside.”
Because, unfortunately, there was no alternative.
…
The shield shimmered like heat over asphalt.
Except this heat dome contained several thousand battle droids.
Which, in my professional opinion as someone currently walking toward it with a lightsaber, was deeply rude.
Clone artillery thundered behind us.
Heavy guns from the AT-TE walkers hammered the advancing shield wall with repeated concussive blasts. Rockets screamed overhead. Turbolaser emplacements along the barricade line spat angry red bolts into the blue surface of the barrier.
Every shot exploded against it in bright ripples of light.
Every single one did absolutely nothing.
The shield rolled forward anyway.
Steady.
Unbothered.
Inside the dome, the droid formation marched in lockstep rhythm. B1 units in long skeletal ranks. B2 super battle droids lumbering behind them like walking refrigerators with anger issues. Droidekas rolling along the flanks, their shields crackling faintly.
And dead center of it all—
The generator.
The ugly mechanical projector that encased our entire battlefield under one big glowing dome.
One target.
Protected by an entire army.
Anakin ignited his lightsaber beside me.
Blue light snapped to life with that familiar, comforting snap-hiss.
Obi-Wan followed a second later, his own blade glowing calm and steady.
Ahsoka rolled her shoulders like she was about to start a particularly violent gymnastics routine.
Maris stretched her neck to one side with a quiet crack.
“Ready?” Anakin asked.
The tone suggested he was about to try something fun.
Which meant Obi-Wan was about to regret several life choices.
Obi-Wan sighed the sigh of a man who had already accepted his fate. “Not especially.”
Anakin grinned.
“Great.”
And then we walked straight into the shield.
The barrier rippled as we passed through it.
Not resistance exactly.
More like pushing through warm water.
My skin prickled as the field washed over me, the Force buzzing faintly along my nerves as the ray shield slid harmlessly past flesh and fabric and lightsaber hilt.
Then we were inside.
And suddenly the entire droid army was very aware of us.
B1 heads snapped toward us in perfect mechanical unison.
Targeting photoreceptors glowed red.
“…oh,” one of them said.
A thousand rifles lifted.
Green bolts erupted across the street.
The world exploded into blaster fire.
I ignited the Darksaber.
The black blade snapped into existence with a sharp crackling hum that sounded nothing like a normal lightsaber. The blade was a void edged in white light, jagged and alive, swallowing the sunlight around it like it had opinions about physics.
Blaster bolts slammed toward us.
Anakin and Obi-Wan were already moving.
Blue and blue-green blades became spinning walls of light as they deflected incoming fire back into the droid ranks. Ahsoka dove sideways into a rolling flip that carried her straight into the front line.
I stepped forward.
A blaster bolt met the Darksaber.
The weapon screamed as it cut the bolt in half and sent the energy scattering into the pavement like angry sparks.
Okay.
That was still extremely cool.
Behind us, clones started pushing through the shield.
Boots hit the pavement inside the dome.
Blaster rifles snapped up immediately.
Then one of them noticed my lightsaber. Or rather, my Darksaber. Ah… that joke never gets old… does it?
There was a brief pause.
“That’s not a normal lightsaber.”
I didn’t even look back.
“Yeah! It’s way cooler! You know, I actually won this in a duel with the leader of Death Watch.”
Technically true.
Just… not necessarily in the impressive way that statement implied.
Pre Vizsla had clearly never been in an actual lightsaber fight before.
And it showed.
The clone’s voice came again, a little incredulous. “Wait. That’s a Mandalorian lightsaber?”
“I mean… technically? Look, I’d love to explain the lore and everything, but can we please go back to chopping up clankers?”
Because several of them were trying to shoot me.
I stepped into the first B1 line.
The Darksaber cut through a battle droid like it had personally offended metallurgy.
One horizontal slash separated torso from legs.
The blade hummed with a deep vibrating growl that felt different from any other lightsaber I’d ever used. Heavier. Hungrier. Like it actually wanted to bite through things.
A B2 super battle droid stomped toward me and opened fire with its wrist cannons.
Green bolts slammed toward my chest.
I angled the blade.
Two deflections.
One sliced clean through the droid’s forearm.
The Darksaber didn’t slow down when it hit the armor.
It cut straight through the durasteel plating like the B2 had been constructed out of aggressively optimistic cardboard.
The severed arm hit the pavement still firing.
Okay.
That was extremely good to know.
“Wow,” I muttered. “You are fantastic.”
The blade hummed approvingly.
Probably.
Hard to tell with ancient Mandalorian murder swords.
The street exploded into close-quarters chaos.
Clones poured through the shield behind us, forming firing lines as they advanced. Blaster bolts streaked past my shoulders as the troopers began cutting into the droid ranks with disciplined volleys.
Inside the dome, the neat mechanical formation dissolved into brutal street fighting.
Droids pushed forward.
Clones pushed back.
Jedi moved through the middle of it like extremely violent weather.
Ahsoka hit the battlefield like a hyperactive orange pinball.
She flipped over a B2’s shoulder, stabbed down through its neck joint, kicked off its collapsing body, and landed spinning into the next pair of B1s with two quick slashes that removed both heads.
“Move move move!”
She vaulted off a barricade and bounced into another cluster of droids before they could even aim properly.
Blaster fire chased her across the street.
She laughed.
Anakin barreled straight through the center line like a human battering ram.
His blue blade carved wide arcs through the droid formation, cutting limbs and torsos in pieces as he advanced. Blaster bolts hammered into his spinning defense and came screaming back into the droids that fired them.
He looked like he was having the time of his life.
Which meant Obi-Wan was having a deeply stressful afternoon.
The older Jedi moved with calmer precision, his blade flicking through tight economical motions that disarmed and dismantled droids with surgical efficiency while he advanced beside the clone line.
Meanwhile—
Maris had disappeared.
That was rarely a comforting development.
A B1 droid in front of me jerked sideways suddenly.
Its head popped off.
Not cut.
Removed.
It rolled across the pavement.
Behind the body, Maris stepped out of the smoke.
Pale skin.
Dark robes.
Yellow eyes glowing faintly.
She held a detached B1 arm like a club.
Another droid turned toward her.
She smashed the arm across its head.
The skull plate crumpled inward with a metallic clang.
Then she calmly stabbed the broken limb through the torso of the next one.
“Hi,” she said pleasantly.
The nearby droids attempted to process this.
Maris tilted her head slightly.
Then she moved.
Force energy surged around her like a predator stretching its claws.
She slammed one B1 into another hard enough to collapse both frames, spun low to rip the rifle from a third, and used it to club a B2 across the sensor cluster before casually finishing it with a short stab of her lightsaber.
It was less “Jedi Padawan” and more “horror movie antagonist.”
Thankfully her victims were all made of scrap metal.
Still.
I made a mental note to check her pockets for trophies later.
Just in case.
The clone advance tightened behind us.
Rex’s voice carried across the battlefield. “Push forward! Keep the pressure on!”
The shield dome hummed overhead as the fight churned beneath it.
Blaster fire.
Screaming metal.
Explosions from grenades bouncing through the droid ranks.
Inside the bubble, the battle had turned into brutal block-to-block street combat.
The shield generator loomed in the distance at the center of the formation, a towering projector surrounded by the heaviest concentration of droids as they fought to keep us away from it.
I cut through another B2 and stepped over its collapsing frame.
The Darksaber vibrated in my hand like it was excited.
Ahead of us—
The generator.
Behind us—
An entire clone battalion pouring through the shield.
The Separatists had brought a portable fortress.
Unfortunately for them—
We had just invaded it.
…
Blaster fire sounded different inside the shield.
Rex noticed it almost immediately.
Outside the dome, the battlefield had been wide. Open streets, long firing lanes, artillery pounding the advance. Noise spread out into the air.
Inside the bubble, everything compressed.
Blaster bolts cracked off crystal walls. Explosions echoed down narrow avenues. Metal limbs hit the pavement with sharp, hollow clangs. The shield above trapped the sound like a lid on a pressure cooker.
War, but louder.
Rex stepped through the rippling barrier behind the Jedi and immediately dropped into a crouch as green bolts streaked past his helmet.
“Forward! Forward!” His rifle snapped up and fired three tight shots into a pair of B1s trying to line up a firing solution. Both droids collapsed in a clatter of metal.
Behind him, clones poured through the shield in disciplined waves.
Boots hit the pavement.
Rifles came up.
The entire battalion surged forward into what was, tactically speaking, the worst possible place to fight a droid army.
Inside their own fortress.
Normally that kind of move would destroy morale.
Clones weren’t stupid. They knew when odds turned bad.
And the odds here were catastrophic.
Droids everywhere.
Heavy units mixed into the lines.
Droidekas covering the approaches.
The shield sealing the battlefield overhead like a cage.
Yet something strange happened the moment the clones crossed the barrier.
The comm chatter started.
“Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“The Jedi with the black lightsaber!”
Rex fired again, dropping another B1 before ducking behind a shattered column.
“What black lightsaber?”
“Right side of the street! He just carved through a super!”
Blaster fire lit the street in green flashes.
Another voice cut in over the squad channel.
“I’m telling you, sir, it’s not a normal saber! It’s black!”
Someone else added, almost breathless with disbelief.
“Looks Mandalorian!”
Rex risked a glance down the avenue.
He saw it immediately.
The blade cut through the smoke like a slash of darkness.
Black.
Not dark blue.
Not shadowed.
Actually black.
It hummed through a B2 super battle droid and split the armored torso open like someone had taken a plasma cutter to a tin can.
The droid collapsed in pieces.
The Jedi holding the blade—Ben Kryze, Rex recalled—stepped through the wreckage without slowing down.
Rex blinked once.
Well.
That was new.
He had fought beside Jedi before.
Lightsabers were impressive weapons.
They weren’t supposed to look like that.
Another B1 lunged toward the young Jedi and fired.
The black blade snapped up.
The bolt vanished in a scatter of energy.
Then the saber cut through the droid’s rifle, arm, and torso in one smooth motion.
The comms erupted.
“He just cut a super in half!”
“That blade’s insane!”
“Did you see that droideka earlier?”
“Sir, I think the Jedi stole a Mandalorian sword!”
Rex decided immediately not to question it.
Whatever that thing was, the men loved it.
And if something boosted morale inside a enemy territory—
You used it.
He rose from cover and pointed down the street. “Keep pushing! Follow the Jedi!”
Clone squads advanced in bounding movements, rifles firing in disciplined bursts as they followed the path the Jedi carved through the droid formation.
The battle churned forward through the avenue.
Ahsoka Tano flipped through the front line like a small orange hurricane, her blade flashing in tight arcs that dismantled battle droids faster than they could track her movement.
Skywalker fought like an avalanche.
Droids simply stopped existing wherever his lightsaber passed.
Kenobi moved with calmer precision beside the clone line, his blade flicking blaster bolts back into the enemy ranks while he guided the troopers forward.
And that black blade kept appearing everywhere.
Cutting.
Slicing.
Breaking the droid formation apart.
Rex tapped his helmet comm.
“Generator’s ahead. All squads push toward the center!”
Acknowledgments snapped back instantly.
For a moment, it almost looked like it might work.
The clone line surged forward through the chaos, using the Jedi as a spearpoint. Blaster fire hammered the droid ranks as the battalion advanced deeper into the shielded formation.
The shield generator loomed farther down the main avenue, a massive projector surrounded by thick layers of droid infantry and armored units.
Destroy that—
The dome would collapse.
Republic artillery outside the shield would finally have a clear shot.
The entire Separatist advance would unravel.
Rex raised his rifle.
“Move—”
The Force changed.
He couldn’t feel it the way the Jedi did.
But after enough battles beside them, a clone learned to recognize when something in the air shifted.
Like the temperature dropping before a storm.
The droids parted.
Not retreating.
Making room.
A figure stepped forward through the formation.
Tall.
Pale.
Bald.
Two curved lightsabers ignited in her hands with sharp crimson snaps.
Asajj Ventress moved through the droid ranks like she owned the battlefield.
Rex’s stomach sank slightly.
That explained the sudden confidence.
“Contact front!” he barked. “Dark Jedi!”
The first volley of blaster fire hit her a second later.
Ventress moved.
Her sabers became red streaks.
Blaster bolts ricocheted off the spinning blades and screamed back across the street.
A clone beside Rex jerked as his own shot came straight back into his chestplate.
Another trooper went down as a reflected bolt struck his shoulder.
Ventress laughed softly and stepped forward, batting the next volley aside like someone swatting insects.
“Pathetic.”
The clones adjusted immediately.
They weren’t new soldiers anymore.
“Spread out!” Rex shouted. “Don’t bunch up!”
More blaster fire streaked toward the Sith apprentice.
It didn’t matter.
Ventress cut the bolts apart or redirected them with casual flicks of her wrists.
A trooper fired from Rex’s left.
The shot came screaming back.
The man dropped.
Rex lowered his rifle slightly.
Right.
New plan.
You didn’t beat a Sith in a straight fight with blasters.
The Jedi were already moving to intercept her further up the street.
Which meant Rex had a different job.
He scanned the avenue quickly.
The droid formation stretched down the main road in dense columns. Tanks and heavier armor sat deeper inside the shield, waiting for the advance to continue once the infantry cleared the path.
The road itself ran between tall crystal structures—many already cracked and weakened from artillery strikes.
Rex’s eyes tracked the leaning tower halfway down the block.
Large.
Unstable.
Directly above the avenue.
Perfect.
He tapped his comm. “Torrent Company, with me.”
Several troopers slid into cover beside him.
Rex pointed toward the building.
“See that tower?”
A clone followed his gesture.
“…yeah, sir.”
“We’re bringing it down.”
The trooper blinked once. Then grinned. “Oh. That’s a good plan.”
“Set charges at the base. We collapse it onto the avenue.”
“Sir,” another clone said, already moving. “That’ll block the whole road.”
“Exactly.”
The squads broke off immediately.
Clones sprinted across the street under covering fire while others dropped thermal detonators and breaching charges along the cracked supports of the crystal tower.
Droids tried to push forward to stop them.
Blaster fire from the rest of the battalion drove them back.
“Charges set!” someone reported.
Rex glanced once toward the ongoing duel farther up the street.
Red and blue lightsabers clashed violently between the droid lines as Ventress engaged the Jedi.
Good.
That meant she was distracted.
“Detonate,” Rex ordered.
The street shook.
Explosions ripped through the weakened foundation of the tower.
For a split second nothing happened.
Then the entire structure started to lean.
Crystal groaned.
Metal supports snapped.
The building collapsed across the avenue in a roaring avalanche of shattered stone and durasteel beams.
The impact sent a shockwave through the street.
Dust billowed outward.
When the smoke cleared, the main road was gone.
Buried beneath a mountain of debris.
Behind the rubble, the Separatist armor column had nowhere to go.
The droid advance stalled instantly.
Formation broken.
Movement halted.
Across the battlefield, clones took advantage of the sudden pause to regroup and fortify their positions.
Rex lowered his rifle slightly as the fighting settled into a temporary standoff.
The shield still hummed overhead.
The droid army still surrounded them.
Ventress still dueled the Jedi farther up the street.
But the unstoppable march down the avenue had stopped.
For the first time since the sabotage, the Republic wasn’t retreating.
They were holding the line.
…
The bridge of the command ship had the quiet, controlled atmosphere of a military operation.
Which was impressive, considering it was being run by a bounty hunter, two Sith Lords who had conquered half the Outer Rim in a week, and an alarming number of homicidal assassin droids.
Aurra Sing stood with one hip leaned against the holotable, long rifle resting against her shoulder while the tactical display glowed across the bridge.
Blue stars.
Red sectors.
Lines of expansion radiating outward from the growing territory of the… whatever this thing was.
Empire. Syndicate. Cult.
Aurra still wasn’t sure what to call it.
Behind her, a metallic voice spoke with the cheerful enthusiasm of someone discussing household chores. “Suggestion: orbital bombardment of population centers would dramatically increase compliance rates.”
Aurra didn’t even turn around. “No.”
HK-55 paused, processors clearly offended. “Clarification: why not?”
“Because,” Aurra replied patiently, “we’re trying to run those planets.”
The assassin droid tilted its head. “Observation: exterminated populations are extremely compliant.”
Aurra slowly rubbed the bridge of her nose.
Working for Sith was exhausting.
Across the holotable, Darth Nox lounged in her command chair like a bored predator.
Black robes draped across the armrest. Pale Zabrak features lit by the flickering glow of the star map. One boot propped casually on the console like the bridge belonged to her personally.
Which, technically, it did.
The Sith flicked a glance toward HK-55. “If we wipe out every population center, we’ll have nothing left to tax.”
HK-55 considered this. “Recalculation: extermination postponed.”
Aurra blinked once.
That… had worked.
She still wasn’t sure how.
Darth Nox’s attention returned to the holomap, where a cluster of newly conquered systems blinked in steady blue light.
“Also,” the Sith added lazily, “you’re not allowed to exterminate anyone unless I’m personally there to watch.”
Aurra closed her eyes for half a second.
Yes.
This was definitely the craziest job she had ever taken.
Which was saying something.
The last person she’d worked for had been Jabba the Hutt.
Compared to this, Jabba had practically been a model of stability.
Aurra shifted her attention to the other Sith on the bridge.
Darth Sol stood near the viewport, hands folded calmly behind his back while stars drifted past the massive command ship.
Still.
Quiet.
Almost peaceful.
If Nox radiated chaotic violence, Sol felt like the exact opposite.
Aurra had seen the holos of what he could do with a lightsaber.
The calm was deceptive.
“Status report,” Sol said gently.
The words came out soft, even polite.
The entire bridge snapped into motion.
HK units relayed tactical data across the command consoles while the holomap updated with fresh information.
Aurra scanned the expanding sectors.
Jakku — secured.
Hoth — secured.
Dantooine — secured.
Several smaller Outer Rim systems had fallen under their control a year ago. And that number has only been growing. The number of settlements they’ve built, the petty skirmishes they’ve squashed, the entire planets under their rule. It was…. Amazing. Horrifying, yes.
But amazing nonetheless.
She shook her head slowly. “You two vanished for a week one time, came back with an empire, and we’re still in our growth stage. What do you think our status is?”
Overwhelming.
To say the least.
Darth Nox didn’t even look up from the map. “It’s called initiative.”
Aurra let out a quiet breath.
Initiative.
Sure.
That was one word for conquering multiple star systems with two Sith Lords and a battalion of assassin droids.
She glanced between the two of them.
“You know,” Aurra said slowly, “you two are the strangest Sith I’ve ever worked for.”
Darth Sol turned from the viewport. “You’ve worked for other Sith?”
Aurra paused.
“…no.”
She considered that for a moment.
Then sighed.
“Which I guess means you would have been the strangest Sith by default.”
A beat passed.
“Let me amend that,” she muttered. “This is the craziest line of work I’ve ever done. And if you know some of the assassinations I’ve pulled off, you’d know that’s saying a lot.”
Darth Nox smirked faintly. “Relax. If things get too boring we can always start a war.”
Aurra gestured toward the holomap. “I’m pretty sure we already did.”
HK-55 leaned slightly closer to the display. “Correction: we have begun several wars.”
Aurra stared at the droid.
“You’re not helping.”
The assassin droid made a small processing sound. “Statement: I was not attempting to help.”
“It shows.”
Across the bridge, Darth Sol studied the tactical projection quietly.
The First Order—Aurra was still getting used to calling it that—now controlled a chain of systems stretching across a significant portion of the Outer Rim.
Supply routes.
Shipyards.
Forward operating bases.
It had grown frighteningly fast.
Which meant the galaxy was going to notice soon.
Aurra leaned against the holotable again, folding her arms while the star map rotated slowly. “The Republic’s already mobilizing fleets,” she said. “The Separatists are doing the same.”
Neither Sith reacted.
Aurra squinted at them. “You do understand what that means, right?”
Darth Nox shrugged lazily. “Eventually someone will try to stop us.”
“Eventually?” Aurra repeated.
Nox finally looked up.
“Oh, they’ll try soon.”
That casual confidence was deeply unsettling.
Aurra returned her attention to the holomap.
Across the stars, war preparations unfolded like a spreading storm.
Republic fleets moving to reinforce core sectors.
Separatist shipyards accelerating production.
The balance of power shifting.
The galaxy was already unstable.
Now someone had dropped a third faction into the middle of the board.
Aurra watched the glowing map for a long moment. Then she shook her head quietly. “The galaxy’s about to burn.”
Behind her, Darth Sol regarded the projection in thoughtful silence.
“…yes. I believe you might be right.”