The battlefield stank of ozone, scorched meat, and spilled oil. Rain returned in hesitant sheets, no longer a solid wall but a cold drizzle that hissed on still-smoldering wreckage. Over a million droid chassis and vehicle husks stretched across the plain like a rusted graveyard—twisted metal limbs, cratered hulls, pools of iridescent coolant mixing with blood until the mud looked like spilled engine oil. Nationalist bodies lay in grotesque clusters: some charred black by my lightning, others bisected by sabers, faces frozen in mid-scream. The clearing sky let in weak, gray light that made everything look even more lifeless.
I walked among them, boots sinking ankle-deep, the weight of Savage Opress's double-bladed lightsaber heavy on my belt beside the beskar staffs. Trophies. Reminders. The grenades had done their job—Savage and his Nightbrothers reduced to blackened bone fragments and fused armor slag. No magick could resurrect ash.
A clone sergeant—CT-4782, "Ridge"—approached, helmet off, face streaked with mud and soot. "General. Perimeter secure. Enemy remnants scattering north and east. No organized counter-push… yet."
"Casualties?" My voice came out flat.
"Another three hundred KIA. Five hundred wounded. We lost two AT-ATs—direct missile hits—and half a dozen Juggernauts crippled. Scorpeneks held the line, but one's shield generator burned out. It's down to secondary cannons."
I nodded. Numbers. Always numbers. Two thousand dead before this assault. Now another three hundred brothers gone. Machines could be salvaged or rebuilt. Clones… we buried what was left.
Ahsoka approached from the eastern flank, her montrals and lekku streaked with mud, green blades still humming faintly before she deactivated them. Her eyes—too bright, too young—scanned the carnage. "We did it," she said quietly. "They broke. But… Force, the cost."
She hadn't seen the lightning. Hadn't seen me carve through the Nightbrothers like they were training dummies. I'd kept the darkness leashed, channeled it away from her line of sight. Light side appearances. The Jedi way. The lie we all told ourselves.
"Cost is the only currency this war accepts," I replied. "Gather the wounded. Prioritize the critically injured for the Pelta. The rest… hold the line."
She hesitated, gaze flicking to the blackened circle where Savage had fallen. "That big one… the Zabrak. He was strong. Dark. I felt him from across the field. You took him down alone?"
"Luck and training," I said. "Ancient forms. Nothing more."
She didn't press. But the doubt lingered in her eyes. She was growing up too fast on this mudhole. Seeing too much.
Clones moved through the wreckage in fireteams, stripping salvageable gear: power cells, beskar fragments from the Nightbrothers' armor, intact blasters. One squad dragged the five Jabiimi noble prisoners into a makeshift holding area—a gutted MTT transport, doors welded shut except for a slit. Thorne Kraym knelt at the front, wrists bound with mag-cuffs, face bruised but defiant. The other four—minor lords and militia commanders—looked broken already.
I stepped inside. The air was thick with the smell of fear-sweat and burned cloth.
"Thorne Kraym," I said. "Second to Alto Stratus. You led today's vanguard."
He spat blood onto the deck. "And you're the offworld butcher who slaughters my people by the thousands. Jedi… or whatever you pretend to be."
I crouched to his level. "Your cousin Cordelia is alive. In binders, but breathing. Cooperate, and she stays that way. Resist… and the next wave of droids will find nothing left to rally around."
His eyes narrowed. "You think killing us ends this? Jabiim bleeds for freedom. Stratus will burn the planet before he lets you win."
I felt the dark side coil tighter inside me—tempting, whispering. One burst of lightning and his defiance would end in screams. Easy. Clean.
Instead, I stood. "Take them to the holding cells. Separate interrogation. No rough stuff—yet. We need intel on the next landing zones."
Ridge nodded and hauled them out.
Outside, the sky was almost fully clear now—patches of pale blue mocking us through ragged clouds. The dispersal rockets had done their job too well. Orbital descent was possible again. More Lucrehulks would come. More droids. More death.
I climbed atop a wrecked AAT, surveying the field. Clones worked in grim silence: dragging bodies into burn pits, salvaging what they could, marking KIA positions with small beacons so the burial teams could find them later. The Pelta's shuttles—small, battered—ferried the worst wounded up to the hidden frigate. Surgical teams would work until they collapsed.
A young clone trooper—barely past his growth acceleration—approached with a salvaged beskar staff. "Sir… found this on one of the red-skinned ones. Thought you might want it."
I took it. The metal was cool, etched with Nightsister runes that pulsed faintly under my touch. Dark. Hungry. Like the lightning still crackling in my veins.
"Good work," I said. "Stow it with the rest."
He saluted and moved off. I stayed there, alone with the dead.
The Force felt… heavy. Battle Meditation had saved us again—nudging units away from kill zones, sharpening clone aim—but it left me hollow. Head throbbing. Nosebleed starting again, copper taste on my tongue. I wiped it away with a glove already crusted brown.
How long could I keep this up? The dark side didn't just tempt; it seeped in. Every time I called lightning, every time I cut down enemies without mercy, it carved another piece away. I told myself it was for the clones. For Ahsoka. For the Republic. But the lie tasted thinner every day.
A low rumble echoed from the horizon—another column? No. Just thunder. The storms weren't done yet.
I jumped down, boots splashing in a pool of oil and blood. A nationalist militiaman lay nearby, half his face burned away, one eye staring blankly at the sky. He couldn't have been more than twenty. Probably had a family waiting in some flooded village. Now he was fertilizer.
I knelt, closed his remaining eye with gloved fingers. Pointless gesture. But I did it anyway.
"General!" Ahsoka's voice cut through the haze. She jogged over, face pale. "Scout reports incoming signals—high orbit. At least three more Lucrehulks dropping pods. They're not waiting for the weather to close again."
I stood. "How long?"
"Two hours. Maybe less."
Two hours to prepare for another million. Two hours to bury our dead, patch our walkers, and pretend we could hold.
"Sound general quarters," I said. "All units to defensive positions. Scorpeneks on the high ground. Juggernauts in mobile reserve. Ahsoka—you take the eastern flank. Keep the line fluid. Hit and fade if they breach."
She nodded, but her eyes searched mine. "You okay? You look… distant."
"I'm fine." The lie came easy. Too easy.
She lingered a second longer, then turned away.
I watched her go, green blades swaying at her hips, then looked back at the field. The rain picked up again, heavier now, as if the planet itself mourned.
A million droids down. Five nobles in binders. One Sith apprentice and his Nightbrothers reduced to ash.
And still the war came.
I ignited one lightsaber—just the blue one—and let the rain hiss off the blade.
"Come on, then," I whispered to the sky. "I'm still here."
The thunder answered.