“I cannot maintain the veil Zannah! I am being pulled in far too many directions!” Nara shouted suddenly, both Rex and Kowani tightening their stances in abrupt alarm as they broke their transical gazes from the duel between Ahsoka and Vader to look at one another.
“Nara, we’re the only ones here!” Kowani shouted over the churning winds and Nara’s own incoherent garbles, lines of saliva trailing from the corners of the Mirialans mouth.
‘Nara.’ Zannah whispered smoothly into her mind, ‘conjoin your efforts and manifest the objective as a whole.’
Kowani noted the lolling of the clone’s head as it titled back, bearing drained eyes that where rolling into the back of her head. She wasn’t sure what Nara was doing precisely but understood it had everything to do with the storm whipping wildly about them. She could sense the flows of the Force Nara was tethered too, dwindling before her eyes from the exertion, threatening to cease altogether as the Mirialan closed in closer to unconsciousness. Kowani looked up toward Rex, “whatever she is doing it’s killing her!” She shouted again to be heard.
Rex dropped to his knee as he placed a hand on Nara’s back offering both strength and support. He planted his booted foot firmly behind her as he set his blasters to the ground and pulled at the tangled hair whipping freely about her face. He saw the same sunken and hollow eyes Kowani had witnessed, noting the creases forming in the outward corners of both. The skin that was pulled tight over the Mirialan’s cheek bones not thirty minutes earlier was beginning to loosen its grip, the muscles slackening their grasp as the tendons stretched before his eyes. Rex looked up and into the visor of Kowani’s helmet, “Ani, she’s….aging…” He wasn’t certain if she was near death but recognized the signs of accelerated aging transpire before his eyes. He’d seen it far too many times in his past, albeit not within the span of an hour.
Kowani dropped to Nara’s opposing side as she slung her A-180 over her shoulder, doing her own part to help support the woman and force a tangle of her hair out of her face, several strands loosening from her scalp and taken by the winds. The strands that remained in Kowani’s hand bleaching before her eyes, streaks of silver and white shocking through the Mirialan’s black roots. Kowani ripped off her helmet and cast it to the ground as she let the hair fall from her hands, placing her left hand on Nara’s cheek, “She’s burning up Rex!”
Rex could only raise his head, bafflement displayed across the entirety of his features, his eyes mirroring the helplessness he was feeling as he shook his head slowly back and forth.
Kowani could feel her adrenaline course through her veins, knowing she was anything but helpless but devoid of what it was she could do without instruction. Suddenly the whites of Nara’s eyes rolled back into the black eyes Kowani had always found disturbing, ‘the Force...KT….Kowani. My connection is….’ Kowani could feel the whisper as her mind took it’s time to register the source. ‘dwindling….so tired.’ the whisper continued as the black eyes found purchase with her own, sounding meek as if a whimper. Kowani closed her own eyes as she followed the courses the Force was taking, the flows that were torrid currents not moments before, finding alternative routes as the will of their original destination was slipping away. Kowani tapped at Rex’s boot heel and motioned for him to help her slide Nara onto her back. Her hands were moving faster than her mind was assigning tasks as they found Nara’s upper chest and abdomen. Kowani closed her eyes again as she focused on the trickles of Force flowing in and around Nara’s body. She pulled at the flows from the rocks behind them and the moisture in the ground far below their feet. She sought out tendrils of static flows from small ground covering plants and natural flows from fur covered rodents that had taken refuge from the whirling chaos in small clusters of stone and debris. She sensed three approaching forms, Force energy abundant within them, stride closer and closer to their position. Kowani pulled from every one of the sources she could harness, directing them all, including her own tether, into her hands and out through her fingertips. Nara’s eyes shot open as her mouth snapped wide in a silent scream that startled both Kowani and Rex hovering over her. Without a thought, Rex slid a hand behind her head to keep it from rocking into the hard ground beneath it.
Within seconds, the storm grew more intense. Loud peels and deafening cracks of thunder forced both Kowani and Rex to clamp hands over their ears as shocks of thick white lightning slammed with increasing ferocity into the ground in all directions, adding more rocky shrapnel to the beating winds that threatened to take them all from their feet. Within seconds, the three beasts that had been present with Nara when they had arrived, returned to her side, all of them drenched in rich ochre streaks of mingling oils and blood.
“I’ve been witness to strange things in my time Ani, but this is new.” Rex shouted to be heard as he looked into Kowani’s eyes. “I’m pretty sure that blood isn’t their own.”
The cat, who had been eyeing the prone form of its master, swiveled its head abruptly, alerting them both to approaching danger. Kowani reached for her helmet as she swung the A-180 before her. “Pudu…” Kowani cursed as she toggled the power actuator with no success. “Barrels jammed.”
“And I don’t think the helmet would be much help in this soup Ani, storm is just as much electrical as natural.”
Time froze in Kowani’s mind. She could feel her head turning slightly to the right as she noted every movement the cat was methodically contracting through. Its ears twitched as it homed in on whatever intrusive sound it heard and quickly snapped them back, plastered to the back of its head. She watched as its muscles tensed from spine to paw and back again, its jaw opening as curls formed on the bridge of its short snout. She felt their presence before she saw the troopers, her head slowly turning back to the left and toward a small rise in the terrain. She removed her hands from Nara’s body and reached for the saber clipped at her side as she moved in concert with the cat’s lunge. They both launched from both foot and paw simultaneously as time resumed at its normal pace. She saw the cat’s target in her mind as she ignited her saber, a soft pink light illuminating the eddies of dust and sand in her peripheral as the blade came to life in her hand. The hilt warm and conforming in her grip, solid yet nimble, as she gave her helmet a final palming with her left hand to rest it firmly into place with a short pinging whine. The cat was upon its target before she could move another muscle, teeth crunching through plastoid armor as it brought the entirety of its weight down upon the helpless trooper. Loud cracks Kowani couldn’t distinguish between plastoid, and bone drowned out only by a throaty scream of agony, cut short as the massive feline drove the white dome of his head into the sharp rock below it. In a final move, it lowered its head to the ground as it extended its claws to their extreme and ripped through the trooper’s torso, sending shreds of armor, flesh and bone alike swirling into the debris storm.
A sharp red flash snapped Kowani’s attention away from the cat and toward the oncoming troopers, her saber screaming through the clouded air before her with a forceful pitched hum. The dry air sparked small static discharges between the eccentric blade and windborne debris with a storm of short lightning bursts. She had the blade in position in front of her a split second before the troopers shot pierced her upper chest, deflecting it harmlessly into the dust and scree at her feet. Kowani had only seconds to catch her breath before the visor of her helmet warned of further imminent threats converging on her left as well as the trooper that had fired upon her with flashing red warnings, the targeting reticle racing wildly across her range of vision. She ducked herself into a low crouch as another blaster bolt seared over her head. Kowani bolted from her position deflecting two more incoming bolts with deft twists of her wrists as the cat belted out a tremendous roar, drawing the trooper’s attention. She did not slow her momentum as it carried her directly toward his leg at the same time the feline lept and engulfed the entirety of the same trooper’s head between its immense teeth. There was no scream. Kowani completed her maneuver with a knee first slide and quick slash at the trooper’s knee, taking the separated appendage with her as she snapped out her right leg to slow herself. She released her grip from the sabers hilt in midair turning her wrist to snatch it back just as quickly with an inverted clutch as she firmly planted her foot and spun to face the oncoming troopers.
Kowani released a throaty roar of her own as her motions fell into sync with her thoughts and determination. Without time expending another second she could instinctively feel the feline at her side. She could sense the beast’s wrath, its natural impulse to purge its home of intrusion and restore peace to its realm. In that moment Kowani realized the beast was bonding with her, a willingness to reach out to her through the Force to concert their common agenda. She looked briefly at the oncoming troopers then quickly back at the cat. ‘Mushi’ she thought as the word planted itself on the tip of her tongue. “Fear?” She said, surprising herself as she hadn’t spoken Mirialan aloud in quite some time. Kowani looked back toward Nara, Rex taking up a kneeling position behind her with his blasters drawn and ready. “Her fear.” Kowani whispered to herself, acknowledging Nara’s intimately personal discourse without understanding how she could possibly know.
Kowani returned her gaze to the cat, to Mushi, and nodded her understanding, whether the feline comprehended the gesture was irrelevant as she watched the advancing troops. Incoming blaster fire sailed harmlessly overhead, however Kowani knew it was only a matter of time before they found proper range. She wasn’t willing to give them the opportunity as both she and Mushi sprang again from their positions, criss crossing their advancement in respect to one another. Kowani pulled her hold out from the holster at her left side and started firing toward the troopers as she swung wildly deflecting bolts with her right. Several of the redirected bolts pinged into the stone close to Mushi’s paws, its head turning slightly toward Kowani, “I’m working on it ok.” She admitted to them both. Her targeting reticle, although able to identify the threats before her, struggled to lock onto a single one, rendering her own blaster bolts chaotic at best. “Not the point” she said under her breath as they closed the remaining distance, a methodical thud and metallic clank adding themselves to the din around her.
Mushi sprang from his rapid pace with his tightly packed hind legs sending him sailing into the nearest trooper and slamming the body hard into a rocky outcropping behind him. Kowani flipped the grip of her saber back to a standard grasp as she deflected bolt after bolt before her, closing the remaining distance between herself and two of the troopers. She lowered herself to the ground and spun quickly to build momentum as she raised herself with a brutal uppercut slash and followed immediately with a rotation to her left and into the plastoid chest plate of the second. She followed up both strikes with point blank blaster bolts to the center of either helmet’s visor, the bodies falling haphazardly, lifeless into heaps where they stood. Kowani could hear the thunderous roar of Mushi as he resounded his rage through the wrath of the storm encircling them all. And something else. The thud again, followed closely by the metallic clank and an inexplicable vibration she could feel through her boots.
Kowani tapped at the side of her helmet as the remaining reticles floated in and out of her field of view. Fed up with the interference from the storm, she slid the targeting reticle back into its upright position. She knew there were at least three more troopers in the vicinity although they had ceased firing. She toggled her helmet settings from a standard view to filter through an infrared aspect to find four heat sinks retreating toward a much larger red blur in the distance. “Mushi, yallah!” She shouted, raising her hand toward the beast sensing that he was ready to pursue. The words felt strange as she heard them, muffled, within the helmet. “Domai…” she continued, torn between the determination of Mushi’s rage and the severity of the situation. Again, her native tongue felt strange, even foreign to her as she cautioned the feline to stop and then to wait. ‘Wait….’ her own thought trailed off as the thud and metallic clank rang through her audio pickups again, followed by the same tremors, their vibrations rattling up her legs through the soles of her boots. She toggled through her visual array settings trying to clarify the enormity of the red blur that had only increased in size through the helmet’s visor without any success. Another thud, another clank and another tremor that snaked its way through her frame to resonate within the vertebrae of her spine, the red blur growing larger in her view. Desperate to assess the oncoming threat, Kowani extinguished her saber, clipping it to her belt as she pulled her helmet off. Through the chaos of swirling browns, tans, and reds a dark form was taking shape, nondescript but looming large behind the opaque miasma. The winds vied for possession of her helmet as they tore through the landscape, carrying the scent of battle from near and far. Kowani doubled down on her grip, unwilling to yield to the overpowering scents of fire and burning oils, carbon vapors from the barrels of numerous blasters, the bitterness of heated metals and that of fresh blood. Another thunderous clank managed to find her ears through the screaming winds as she beetled her eyes to keep them clear of airborne debris, just before another tremor threatened to take her from her feet.
The winds, abruptly clear of the enveloping sands and stone, left Kowani the slightest of windows to see what was confronting both her and Mushi. She felt her eyes widen as the massive, armored transport was fully exposed for the briefest of seconds, its dark gray armor menacing as she looked up towards its monolithic chassis and command cockpit. Its side mounted medium laser cannons swiveling to find range through the storm as the entire scene was stolen from her view by a curtain of returning sands and smoke, the winds only generous enough to provide a glimpse of what was to come. “Mushi, ta canha ro eteme.” ‘we’ve got a problem.’
✦
Nara felt a wellspring of vitality shock through her body. For the briefest of moments, she felt she was dying in a blaze of life her body wasn’t strong enough to contain. She could feel her veins and arteries, she could sense the strengthening of bone and the stretching of her skin over it. She felt the spasms of muscular contraction, frenzy out of control within her own mind. Her thoughts vanishing from existence in that precise moment as a flood of electrical synapses fired consecutively, connecting her unwillingly to the vast flows of the Force around her. She knew nothing and everything all at once. She sensed her aspects close by. Eerie, stained in foreign blood and slick patches of lubricants, ready to throw her might toward anything or anyone willing to get between them. Quin, a severe gash threatening to loose coils of innards on his broad side, heaved heavily as he squinted his eyes from the windborne debris. A menacing ripple across his snout, standing resolute in the face of his own mortality, ready to die by Eerie’s side for the sake of Nara’s survival. And Mushi, bearing his teeth as he continuously surveyed the immediate area for threats, flicked his tongue between his incisors in an effort to remove small bits of white plastoid.
Nara was intimately aware of Kowani’s hands upon her, Rex’s stoic obstination as he stood over them both, each hand tightly gripping a heavy blaster as he scanned the scene before him. She began to regain her composure as the influx of energy tapered off, Nara certain that Kowani had drawn from every source possible as she inhaled deeply. She felt both a resounding gratitude and genuine awe as she looked into Kowani’s eyes, the woman returning the gaze with an almost unreadable expression that drew upon it equal parts sincerity and loathing. Nara felt a deeply rooted empathy as flashes of their shared memories together never let her forget the intricately woven torment and anguish she had imposed on the woman, as well as others of Keno that had shown any signs of higher-level acuity.
Nara opened her mouth to form words of thanks and those of regret as she felt a sudden urge of tenacity shock through her system. She felt the entire sentiment of the those around her focus on something else in compliance with the sudden shift, turning her head slowly to catch Mushi’s entire form freeze as his head snapped taught at attention and his ears cowl back behind it. Something was coming. In a matter of seconds, Mushi had tore from his position toward her feet as he lept from his crouch, a small eddy of dust mingling with the twisting ribbons of windborne sands and debris. Without another second passing, Kowani burst from her position and disappeared from Nara’s side. Rex made a motion to grab Kowani’s arm in protest, but only reflexively and with little conviction as she was quicker than the action and, Nara knew, far too stubborn to be convinced the action was foolhardy at best anyway. He could only shake his head as he came to his knees again, offering Nara a hand at her back and an open palm held freely above her. She stared at the open hand far longer than was comfortable as unrelated thoughts involuntarily assaulted her. Nara knew the man from her own past as she borrowed heavily upon Barriss’ memories, the clone that had served so devotedly both Ahsoka and her master, risking his life at every turn and those of his brothers toward the only end they were ever designed to fulfill. She quickly thought of herself, wondering then, fully, what design, what purpose she herself had been engineered to fulfill, beyond her own understanding of Sidious’ machinations. She wanted to reach out to the clone Captain through words, yet none came that wouldn’t sound foolish or arrogant. ‘You are my brother of sorts.’ She thought but wouldn’t ever say. He’s known since birth what he is, ‘you’ve only discovered your own truth.’ Her mind retorted. She closed her mouth, deciding that saying nothing would say more in its own right as she spread her lips thin in a genuine smile and reached out to grab his hand.
Rising to her feet with Rex’s assistance, she felt her head sway slightly in protest as passing waves of dizziness gripped her. She placed a hand on the clone’s shoulder as he raised his quadnocs to his eyes again and began surveying the horizon.
“Nara, there is a squad of advancing troops approaching from northwest of our position. I believe Ani and your pet have taken action to prevent a flanking maneuver on our southwest.” Rex said, lowering the visual aid to his chest. Turning his head slowly over his shoulder, “How in the hell do they know where we are in this storm?”
Nara squinted her eyes as she trained her gaze in the mentioned directions, seeing nothing through the blinding haze of debris and smoke. She turned slightly to eye the quadnocs in his hands, “probably the same way you can.”
Rex was unsure if the woman was trying to play for levity or if she was still under the effects of whatever Kowani had done to her. “I meant from the beginning; they began their assault kilometers distant. The storm should have scattered them to the corners of this valley.” He almost shouted to be heard over the intensifying winds.
The question then took on a mirky quality Nara wasn’t comfortable with, however she knew enough about CT’s to understand they cared little for wasting time with misdirection. The answer to both his question and her building apprehension were felt and heard as a resounding metallic clank was quickly followed by an infinitesimal vibration through the ground. ‘Networked geolocation,’ she thought to herself immediately. “Even through the storm they would be able to navigate if the source were strong enough.” Nara said.
“If you just said something Nara, I didn’t hear it.” Rex said in return, his voice raised against the torrent of winds that had consumed even the sounds of battle. A notable vibration shook the ground where they stood, Rex planting his right foot behind him for added stability.
Nara tightened her grip on the clone’s shoulder to brace herself through her own weakness as she felt the vibrations work their way up from the pads of her boots. She closed herself off momentarily to everything around her, focusing only on the vibration, sensing immediately that they were sourced from multiple impacts, from multiple unnatural strikes at ground level from the southwest, precisely where Kowani and Mushi were headed. Nara swung her gaze involuntarily toward the perceived route in time to see a pink light illuminate the distance, specs of red firing wildly in all directions without a semblance of source.
“Nara!” Rex shouted, his right arm grabbing her waist and pulling her to the ground just as very distinct red bolts flared to life over their heads. She heard a high-pitched whine, a bleating call that forced the cacophonous sounds buffeting them into relative quite. She rolled her head to the side under Rex’s weight in time to see Quin fall to the ground not a meter away, his head instantly lolling to the side as his tongue squirmed across the stone, sands, and scree on the ground. He canted his head to look upon her, indirectly forcing Nara to view the smoking hole in his shoulder as his eyes widened in sheer terror then glazing over as the life that had so passionately filled them retreated fully. A small eddy of dust at his snout, signifying the beast’s final breath, mingled seamlessly into the vortex of swirling sands. Nara felt a surge of pain course through her entirely, a pain that dwarfed the physical agony she had endured in the cave as it became tangible within her. She pushed Rex’s arm away enough to twist her way out of his protective embrace and callously rolled to kneel at Quin’s side. She felt stinging tears well their way into the corners of her eyes as her vision began to blur over. Nara reached out to Quin with open palms, gently placing them over the fur at his neck, feeling, with hope ever dwindling, that she would be able to register a pulse from beneath. As the tears began to stream freely, her hand passed over the charred hole at the beasts shoulder, the cooked meat of his muscle still warm to the touch, the acrid tang of scorched hair and flesh hitting her fully as she bobbed her head in complete comprehension, burying her face into his soft fur, the flesh beneath already cooling. She slammed her fists into Quin’s hide as she raised her head, the winds blowing the remainder of the tears from her cheeks. Nara opened her mouth to unleash a blood curdling cry of lament and pain, which seemed to drown out the combined assemblage of whipping winds, blaster fire both near and far, the endless peels of ear-piercing thunder and strike points from erratic bolts of lightning that slammed into the ground.
Rex could feel the guttural lamentation in his bones as it silenced the din more than he could hear it. He felt her anguish and misery, her agony, her torment, and something else, something he did not expect. Rex felt an anger rile deep within himself that he could not control. He felt a rage stew and brim within his mind that he could not source. The shout continued as he felt a wave of adrenaline course through him, continuous waves following of clarity and direction. He picked his head up from the ground as he brought himself to his knees, Nara’s shout piercing through his very thoughts and directly into his mind, quelling any sense of doubt or perceived anxiety his analysis devised. What little of his own conscience he could perceive mingled directly into a churning storm of words, visions, and thoughts he knew were not his own. He could see images of Vader careening toward him, side mounted laser cannons swiveling slightly to adjust for windage and trajectory high atop an Imperial armored troop transport a pink saber lighting his peripheral, a full squad of Imperial storm troopers rising over the rocky shelf northwest of his position, then all evaporate into a single phrase, a single vision.
Blinking his eyes, Rex saw Nara rise to her feet with casual grace as she reached for the long hilt of the saber attached to her waist. Without thought he reached for both of his own blasters at his side and quickly took a position behind her. She ignited both lethal ends of her saber with a staggered eruption of bright orange, bathing the lifeless clouds of debris and that of the Cracian Thumper at her feet in a flash of active rage. She began to slowly twirl the weapon in her left hand, the blades cracking through the dry air with a deep hum, eliminating the resounding clamor of all but its hypnotic thrum. Multiple incoming blaster bolts deflected harmlessly into the ground at Nara’s feet as she began twisting her right hand in a complex series of motions Rex had never seen. Before he had a chance to even think through his role in the next few seconds he found himself reflexively aiming both blasters over her shoulders, firing between the impossible arc of her twirling saber and hearing muffled cries from targets he couldn’t even see.
A high-pitched squeal cut through time and space from behind them both, ‘Eerie’ Nara thought as she worked through the remainder of her somatic motions. The squeal became something more as the Thumper continued, its lament turning into a trumpet that echoed through their minds, one of remorse mingled with revenge. Nara felt it odd that the very creatures that would counsel mercy could be capable of revenge, but she also knew she would not deny Eerie what was her due. She pitched her head back slightly to add her own squeal to Eerie’s as she deflected a final blaster bolt then ceased the sabers twirling in the same motion as she reached forward with her right hand spread unnaturally wide. Rex could hear the shifting and firing before them cease completely as the sickening crunch of shattering bone registered from multiple sources.