Аннотация: Shaak Ti walks around the battlefield and helps to look for survivors. Vict regains consciousness on the ship and ponders what to do next.
Much knowledge, many sorrows.
(King Solomon).
***
Jedi Order Magister Shaak Ti wandered through the battlefield between the skeletons of war machines, blast craters and droid debris, but her thoughts were far from this landscape right now.
The battle of Geonosis itself took twelve hours, and ended only recently. Now the ships of the fleet have descended to the planet to take on board the troops. Medical frigates landed directly on the battlefield to provide assistance to the wounded as soon as possible. Clones from the evacuation team and medical clones, along with med droids, scurried around the battlefield; they were assisted by free clone troopers.
Despite the fact that the clones acted quickly, skillfully and decisively, losses could not be avoided. Master Yoda risked a lot by bringing untrained troops into battle: theory is theory, but without practice it is not worth much. Although the clones were just "weapons", Shaak Ti felt that they were alive, and there was not one like the other, although they all looked the same.
The battle unfolded almost all over the planet in places where automated droid factories and transport ships of the Trade Federation and the Technosoyuz were located, onto which finished products were loaded. The detachments of the Grand Army of the Republic numbered four corps - at least one hundred and fifty thousand clones, supported by thousands of armored vehicles. The fleet consisted of fifty Approving BDK, thirty-five Consular-type corvettes and twenty-five MedStar-type vessels. The number of fighters exceeded four hundred.
The separatist forces numbered at least a hundred ships in orbit, and three hundred more were on the surface, taking millions and millions of battle droids of various brands into their holds -from the simplest B-1 to the formidable droidekas.
The battle in space was fierce. The Trade Federation's fleet, mainly represented by Baryshnik-type base ships that "distinguished themselves" during the blockade of Naboo, put up strong resistance. Especially those that have been upgraded, increasing their firepower by installing additional turbolasers by installing more powerful reactors. Such vessels were a formidable force. However, the Republic navy, having lost fourteen Approving ships and sixteen frigates, was able to perform a near miracle and destroy eighty-three ships, of which seventy-three belonged to the Trade Federation. The ground forces, having overcome the resistance of hundreds of thousands of battle droids, managed to destroy about a hundred more transport ships. But half of them managed to get away with full holds - the captains dragged on to the last.
Ground troops lost hundreds of armored vehicles. In twelve hours, the GAR forces lost twelve thousand clones killed, and another eight thousand were injured. There were not enough medical ships, and the wounded were loaded onto the Approving ships that landed on the surface of the planet.
Yes. Losses. Sadness settled like a nagging pain in the magister's soul. It's been a long, long time since the Order lost so many Jedi.... The death of each was felt in the Force, and worse, they merged into one continuous series of pain and suffering. Two hundred and twelve Jedi went on a rescue mission: magisters, masters, knights and Padawans. Most of them were killed. A member of the Council - vurk Coleman Trebor, died: trying to attack Count Dooku, he was shot by a mercenary named Jango Fett. Only a few managed to survive - only twenty Jedi left the arena. There were too many battle droids. The Jedi weren't ready for this, not at all.
Count Dooku managed to escape. Obi-Wan Kenobi, along with his Padawan Anakin Skywalker, failed to stop him. They chased him to a secret hangar hidden in the rocks. He was too good at fencing. The young padawan was too reckless. The master's skill could not overcome the power of the former padawan of Grand Master Yoda himself. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Skywalker would have been killed, but the intervention of the sensed Master Yoda saved the lives of these two; both were seriously injured - Skywalker lost an arm, Obi-Wan escaped with wounds on his shoulder and leg.
The Merchant Federation ships managed to escape. Many were battered, but under the cover of numerous Vulture fighter droids, they disappeared into hyperspace. Losses among the Republic's pilots numbered in the dozens. Although the Jedi pilots performed better on their Delta-7 fighters, shooting down one hundred and seventy Vultures out of eight...
***
While the woman was in thought, going over the events in her memory, which, apparently, had already irreversibly changed the galaxy, although not many in it understood it yet, the voices of clones could be heard here and there over the battlefield:
"Over here! There's a wounded man here!"
"The evacuation transport is here! There are two people here!"
Togruta was passing near the carcass of a walking tank, which had been mangled by the explosion, when she heard a faint groan. Looking back, she saw a figure in clone armor moving under the rubble. Turning to the nearest medics, Jedika exclaimed:
"Over here!"
A pair of clone orderlies hurried over to her. Deftly peeling back a couple of sheets of armor, they took out a clone, apparently the platoon commander, as indicated by the markings on the armor.
"Brother, are you okay?" One of the paramedics leaned over to him.
"Yes, but my head is buzzing. We were not lightly applied. The walker's ammunition exploded, along with the reactor," The lieutenant sat up with difficulty, leaning on both hands.
Looking around, he said.
"Where's the Jedi?"
"Which one?" The orderly looked around.
"Well, the one that led us into battle. He also had a wound on his chest," the officer explained.
Shaak Ti remembered. The young, smiling Jedi knight who flew with them on the gunboat. Closing her eyes, the magister concentrated, and, reaching out with the Force, she felt a faint pulse of life.
"There, under the rubble," Togruta pointed out.
Summoning a passing squad of infantrymen, the clones joined forces and deftly scattered the rubble. There was another clone underneath, and a man in a Jedi robe. Leaning over the clone, the medic ran a scanner over it and shook his head negatively.
"This one is ready," then he turned to the Jedi's body.
He looked like hell. Covered in dust and soot. There was a wound on his chest, a couple of burns on his arms and legs, his clothes were in complete disrepair, and his hair was burned off. The eyebrows also disappeared. Shaak Ti did not immediately recognize him as her traveling companion.
The scanner beeped happily.
"This one's still alive," the clone said, and shook his head. With such wounds, a man should have died, but the Jedi miraculously remained in this world.
"Get him to the medical frigate immediately!" The magister ordered. For the sake of such a case, it was possible to detach transport, even for one, but the number of victims demanded that day from those who arrived from the Temple would decrease.
"Yes, ma'am," two clones, having loaded the Jedi onto a stretcher, expertly trotted towards the med-transporter, which is a version of the BARK motorcycle speeder without weapons, equipped with two attachment points on the sides of the stretcher, allowing to transport two lying wounded at once at a fairly high speed - up to four hundred kilometers per hour. This allowed the wounded to be transported from the battlefield in record time. Often, every extra minute could cost a life, and the clones did not neglect these minutes. They tried not to abandon their own, the clones have excellent mutual assistance, they pick up all the wounded and, if possible, collect the bodies of the dead to send to Kamino. There were a lot of wounded, so some of them were loaded onto landing ships.
***
I woke up at the moment when the medical droid was examining me on the ship. Well, basically, there hasn't been a fight as such for several hours. The Neimoidians and other "aliens" left on their "Profiteers" in an unknown direction, taking a bunch of droids. The Geonosians had retreated into their catacombs, and no one wanted to go there. Clone commandos laid charges to blow up droid factories. A fortified base was being built on the planet - a garrison was to remain in it. The rest were due to leave for Coruscant soon.
All this was told to me by a rather sociable surgical droid, patching my wounds at a rapid pace, pouring bacta over them and applying healing bandages that sealed my entire chest, partially my arms and legs. There was even a bandage on his forehead. It will be scary to approach the mirror, just like a mummy. I didn't feel any pain, just a slight itching and burning sensation. The droid obviously injected me with something.
After work, having happily rung something life-affirming in binary, he ordered two clones to carry me to the ward. Apparently, he still had a lot of work ahead of him.
There were not enough medical vehicles, and I, like many other wounded people, was sent to one of the "Approving" ones. It turned out to be the flagship, and the surviving Jedi, led by Master Yoda, gathered on it. Right now, he and the magisters from the Council were in session discussing some of their business, but to be honest, I wasn't particularly interested in what they were talking about. Senator Amidala was also here. I soon realized what she was doing here. Well, of course.
Very few survived the rescue operation, and of those who survived, those seriously injured enough to be placed in a "hospital" could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Therefore, it was not surprising that I was placed in one of the cabins, hastily converted into a common room, where, drumbeat, Kenobi and Skywalker turned out to be my neighbors. The latter, lying on a cot with a bandaged stump, cursed in twelve languages, including Hutt dialects, Toydari, and even binary. I respect, there's nothing to say. Apparently, the guy was seriously fucked up. Obi-Wan, on the other hand, remained silent. Judging by his face, the Jedi was "tormented by vague doubts." As far as I remember, Dooku puzzled him with information about Darth Sidious and his influence on the Senate. Apparently, Obi-Wan's thoughts were about whether this was true or false. And I had a lot to think about.
***
The heat of battle passed, the adrenaline in the blood dissolved, and a quiet panic set in. The age-old questions- "What should I do?", "Who is to blame?" - rose up in front of me in full growth. Right now, realizing the depth of the ass I was in, I was in deep prostration.
I wonder what I did to deserve my "popadanstvo"? Or are the stars just that way? It doesn't matter. As far as I understand, I am clearly not destined to return. We'll have to get out of here somehow.
The Hutt FAFAG with its clone wars, dogmatic Jedi, corrupt senate, Sith combinator and all its charms - lawlessness, drugs and slavery. And in all this shit, it's me, Mikore Vict.
Okay, calm down! You're a Jedi or a wimp! Calmly, inhale and exhale, inhale and exhale.
That's right. I need to calm down and put everything in order. We are thinking how my "earthly" self can help me.
First of all, it turns out that in practical terms, I can't bring anything new - the culture and technology here are orders of magnitude superior to everything that I had in my homeland. The only thing that might be useful is my knowledge of history, because it tends to repeat itself. In general, I specialized more in the Middle East, Central Asia. I still had some basic theoretical principles of warfare in my memory, at least based on the example of ancient battles. Well, I also remember the battle charts in the school history textbook - all those blue and red arrows and squares. Moreover, over time, humanity only changed weapons and tactics, but the strategy was almost unchanged. That's basically my entire body of knowledge.
Now let's check my Jedi memory. Well, that's what we have his. Meditations, some ideas about politics (shit, shit) thanks to teacher Artaud, I know a little about local technology - nothing outstanding, just the general education level of the Temple, that is, I won't design a yacht, but I should be able to fix local analogues of Zhiguli with a tambourine and pliers. I know about FAFAG wars because the mentors said something there a long time ago, but it flew into one ear and flew out the other.
That's basically it.
Oh, right, I also know that the war will last three years, and then the Emperor will issue the sixty-sixth emergency order, and all the Jedi will have fun... fucking...
Okay, calm down. Put aside the panic. Think about what you're going to do, Jedi, and how you're going to survive in all this guano. As one of our teachers used to say: "Divide the problem into its components, and solve them one at a time. Perhaps by solving some of them, you will turn other parts to your advantage. Well, or you'll find new problems, as long as you're lucky." I hope to be lucky.
Let's consider possible options for my actions.
The first option. Let's call it "Laziness". We don't do anything, we follow the canon, as a result - either I die in the war, or - order sixty-six. Definitely not.
The second option. "The Prophet." Running around shouting "I know everything, Sith Chancellor." It's tempting, but who's going to believe me right away? Plus, they can get slapped in the process - don't go to a fortune teller. I read somewhere that Sidious has almost a third of the criminal world of the galaxy in his pocket and he is tightly tied to the financial system, like his teacher crushed his Banking Clan, and the student, accordingly, did not hesitate to inherit. And what's stopping Palpatine from announcing order sixty-six right now, when a bunch of clones are on Coruscant? It's nothing. Moreover, in the canon, four Jedi masters came to arrest him, including Kit Fisto and Mace Windu himself. Yes, not romantics who have rusted in the peaceful air, but seasoned by the three-year war, seasoned wolves, if they managed to lose their shape somewhere, it was only in their dreams of a happy old age. And Sidious almost crushed them all. And later, even Yoda couldn't handle him alone. Either Palpatine is strong, or the Jedi have softened over the millennia since the Order's fighting backbone died on Ruusan. Discard it.
The third option. "Get on your feet." Escape and hide far away, preferably in Unknown Regions, for reliability. Obviously not a ride. If the Jedi don't find it, then the separatists, not the separatists, then Vader will find it and chop it into small pieces. How many Jedi are there in the galaxy right now? Well, there are definitely tens of thousands. And how many of them survived before Luke left Tatooine? A dozen pieces? Statistics, however. Or even the Vong will show up, if I live to see them. Well, how long before their invasion? It is now the twenty-second year before the Battle of Yavin, they will arrive in the twenty-first year after the battle. In total, only some forty years. Well, what the fuck do I have to enjoy in my old age? Br-R. Definitely not.
The fourth option. "Maybe we can evolve into waterfowl in a quick way?" That is, to become a Sith. Laugh at the chickens. I'm stuck... S-chaz! Just like Darth Revan's holocron, I'll find the ghost of Marky Ragnos and talk him into becoming a teacher, yeah. But Darth Sidious clearly doesn't need competitors without these tricks. After all, Bane's rule is-although he seems to have already come to the idea of his inferiority. He'll find it and finish it off with a special passion. Or Vader will strangle me. I'm not particularly attracted to Power at all - yes, it's a cool thing, but there are more interesting things in the Far, Far Away.
Damn, wherever you throw it, there's a wedge everywhere. Think, Miko, think, your head is designed for this.
As a result, I came to the following conclusions: in order not to die, you need to become a significant figure, which will be unprofitable for either the Jedi or Palpatine, after all, people from former Jedi were recruited to the same imperial Inquisitorium - people actively went there, many were transported to Biss on special prison ships. And the upcoming war will give many Jedi the opportunity to advance as commanders. We need to be one of them. Then, having gained fame, you need to enlist the support of some significant figure, preferably from the Senate (although, hand on heart, I responsibly declare that finding someone normal there is simply epic). Senator Chuchi's name flashed through my mind and disappeared. Then we have to get around the sixty-sixth order somehow. There's a special problem with this, but time is running out, I'll come up with something.
Besides, you need to improve as a Jedi. Train and train again. Naturally, I won't get to the level of the same Skywalker, not to mention Yoda and Palpatine, but... I might make a good average guy. Probably.
Slowly, a plan began to form in my head. After learning that we were going to Coruscant, which would take fifteen hours to reach, * (see footnote.- Approx. Author), I decided to take a nap and let the wounds heal. And when else will there be such an opportunity in the near future? The days ahead of me are obviously going to be very stressful.
***
Meanwhile, a meeting of the Jedi Council was taking place at the command post of the flagship Approving. Thoughtful and silent, Yoda listened attentively to Mace Windu's report. ...
"A special clone squad infiltrated the arena, collected all the bodies of the Jedi and brought them aboard the cruiser. The death of Magister Trebor has been confirmed," Windu's stony face showed no emotion. "We screwed up. If not for the timely help of the clone army, hardly anyone would have left this arena alive. Magisters, knights, Padawans... almost two hundred Jedi died," The magister did not give vent to his feelings for a moment.
"How are Kenobi and Skywalker?" Ki Adi Mundi asked. "I heard they suffered a lot at the hands of Count Dooku."
"Their pride suffered more than they did. Skywalker will need a prosthetic arm," Shaak Ti replied.
"My former padawan has become strong. I felt the dark side of the Force in him," Yoda said, closing his eyes.
Turning her gaze to Yoda, Shaak Ti asked:
"There's one Jedi I'm interested in. He survived the fight in the arena, but was seriously injured. Mikore Vict. To my shame, I hadn't seen him before."
"Hmm," Yoda thought about it. "This is a young Jedi from the Balance Corps. A disciple of the knight of Nhon. What's your interest in, mm?"
"He's not very strong, but somehow he attracted me. Interested."
Magister Yoda was silent for a while, immersed in meditation.
"He walked along the edge of life. Doubts torment him."
"Just like all of us now," Shaak Ti bowed her head.
***
I woke up about two hours before the ships came out of hyper. My wounds were back to normal, but I wasn't going to take off my bandages yet. From sin.
After thinking about yesterday's events with a fresh mind, I finally approved the action plan.
The first point in it was to find something... to devour. And what do you want, I haven't eaten or drunk anything for almost a day.
I slowly got up from my bunk. I was a little shaky, but nothing, I won't fall apart. Looking at Skywalker, who was snuffling in his sleep, he mentally asked for his forgiveness three times. You will never see Ahsoka Tano as a padawan, Skywalker. I'll keep this shot for myself. Having such a student, the Chosen One, although he taught her something, did not reveal her potential, in my opinion, and then completely missed her.
Having found out the way to the dining room from the nearest clone, he slowly hobbled along the wall in the indicated direction. Still, this "Endorser" is a hefty piece of crap - a kind of wedge seven hundred by four hundred meters. Sixteen thousand troops fit, after all. By the time I got to the canteen, at least twenty minutes had passed.
The room was full of people. That is, clones. Standing in a small queue, I received a tray with a snack and headed to the nearest empty seat. As I sat down, I felt the gaze of one of the clones on me.
I was surprised to realize that I recognized him. Well, of course, they all look the same, but somehow I could tell them apart. Another greeting from the Force, no other way.
"Hello, Lieutenant."
"Sir," he nodded, and after a short pause, asked: "And how did you recognize me?"
There was surprise in his voice. Some of the clones were listening to our conversation.
"I remember you, Lieutenant. We went into battle together."
"But how did you manage? We're all the same."
"No, Lieutenant. You are different. I'm telling you this as a Jedi," Then I started eating.
Throwing in a multicolored mess from a tray (I don't even want to know what it's made of), I mentally scrolled through the plan of action.
As I recall, the main clone forces are now arriving on Coruscant. From there, after Chancellor Palpatine approves the Jedi to the rank of generals, they will travel to all corners of the galaxy in a couple of days. Well, theoretically. Surely they won't wait for the KNS to come to its senses and strike at completely uncovered borders?
Although I don't particularly like Palpatine as a Sith, he was pretty good as a future Emperor. It's like with Stalin: he seems to have led repressions and won the Great War - you can dislike him, but you can't disrespect him.
If it hadn't been for the extraordinary powers Palpatine had clawed out of the Senate (I can't believe he managed to pull it off, apparently it cost a lot of money and nerves), the senators would have sat in their hutt speakership until the very moment when the battle droids would have stormed into the Senate building.
If I remember the plot of the animated series correctly and if it even slightly coincides with reality, then the first skirmishes and attacks will begin about three days after the battle of Geonosis, and by the end of the month the war will be raging across the Galaxy. That means I won't have much time. There's a maximum of seventy-two hours for everything. It's sparse.
First of all, you need to visit the Archives, if not look there, then at least download some information on the wars of antiquity. But how else? I'm a strategist and tactician, like a wolfhound from a toy terrier, and there's nothing like academies around, even in my recipient's memory. And so at least you can learn something from real examples. I hope...
Then you need to find Yunling Tano, and make her your padawan. I think she won't refuse. As far as I remember, she's almost fourteen now, although padawans are usually dismantled by the age of thirteen, but because of her bad temper and short temper, everyone somehow avoided her. That's why she was nervous. She should fall for my offer.
Oh, you shouldn't have done that, gentlemen of the Jedi, oh, you shouldn't. She has a huge talent. And I just want to try to keep her alive. Yes, and actually, she will help me in the same way. There's no guarantee that I won't run into Grievous or Ventress or some other dark acolyte during the war. And Ahsoka, at least, can compete with them in the art of swordsmanship. Well, potentially... someday. Although even now, I think she can show a couple of tricks, it seems that she met Ventress for the first time right after the Temple and survived.
***
The ships are finally out of hyper. Coruscant lies below us.
Well, what can I say. You have to see that. Coruscant is the capital of the Galactic Republic.
A planet is a city with a population exceeding one trillion inhabitants. A city that has been the political center of the galaxy for thousands of years. Looking at the view from the portholes, I realized only now that my life had changed dramatically. Well, fate, I accept your challenge.
***
Shortly after our arrival, we, that is, the Jedi and Senator Amidala, boarded a shuttle and went to the Jedi Temple....