The sound of blaster fire echoed around them, but none of it was aimed at the combatants.
Most of the ranged firefights were happening on the lower decks.
Ahsoka would have liked to know what was happening outside, but she didn't dare break her concentration to check.
Three invisible soldiers attacked Jaden Korr, who was fighting in the second line alongside the stormtroopers.
He managed to wound one, but the second damaged his lightsaber and slashed his leg at the thigh, severing the tendons.
Mace Windu's apprentice was hanging by a thread.
"Maul!" Ahsoka Force-threw the attackers aside, but immediately found herself locked in combat with several other "cloakers."
If she pulled back, she'd expose the flank of Deimos, who was fighting a massive droid armed with enormous front limbs.
The zabrak had already destroyed one — and it had cost him several broken ribs and a leg injury, forcing him to fall back for quick repairs.
Darth Maul was the best option for rear support.
The zabrak, turning into a blur, carved a path through the invisible enemies behind her, giving those hideous creatures not the slightest chance to fight back.
Four more attacked the wounded Jaden Korr, who had stood up for the injured stormtroopers — troopers who had barely survived the first wave of the small, short-legged spider droids.
Ahsoka was about to rush to his aid, but the zabrak was already there, changing position with a single flip and tearing the "cloakers" apart like a deadly nexu among a herd of banthas.
"I'll cover the retreat!" he shouted, smashing another "cloaker" into bloody pulp.
"Got it!" Ahsoka replied, twisting her body aside, dodging the razor-sharp claws of a "cloaker" and delivering a kick with her armored boot to the back of its head.
The enemy soldier pecked at the floor with its mask — one that reminded her of General Grievous — but instantly sprang up and vanished under concealment.
Though that didn't save it from a classic Sith trick — Ahsoka grabbed its neck with telekinesis and began to squeeze.
"Anakin would be proud of me," she hissed, moving forward and extending a graceful knee.
The Force yanked the enemy downward.
Its spine wasn't that strong after all.
Honestly, aside from surprise, these fighters had little to offer against powerful Force users.
"One wrong move and you're dead," Ahsoka said in surprise, seeing how easily she had destroyed the enemy that had been terrorizing ordinary soldiers.
She had to assume that whoever created these bastards hadn't accounted for enemies like her, Maul, or Fode... sorry, Darth Deimos.
And then there was that Starkiller through the wall.
Tano could clearly feel full-scale massacres unfolding in the side corridors around her.
To the left — the former Jedi Shadow Meilis; to the right — the clone of Galen Marek...
And suspiciously many enemies were dying near them.
What, did they have industrial disintegrators or something?
Though the answer was quite simple.
Only those who could interact with the Force at the highest level available in the Dominion were on the front lines.
Masters of battle and assassination.
The Shadow Guard.
Ahsoka split into a stretch on the floor, thinking that Ventress would appreciate her split right now.
But not for beauty's sake — Darth Deimos, knocked off his feet, flew right over her head.
"You alive?" the togruta asked with concern.
The young man struggled to his feet.
His left arm hung limp — the Force told her the humerus was broken.
Poodoo-poodoo-poodoo!
Who was walking banthas around here?!
"There's some kind of new creature!" her apprentice warned, pointing at a massive shadow illuminated only by a few indicator lights. "A droid. Not a cyborg."
Well, shit.
Weren't those little bastard sappers enough — the ones that had impaled half the stormtroopers on their legs and blown up the other half?!
Now there was some enormous droid that had managed to wound Deimos?!
With the emergency lighting and smoke, it was hard to make out the tunnel they were fighting in, let alone a black mechanical murder-beast capable of hurting a strong Guard member.
Ahsoka adjusted her grip on her blades, noting that as soon as things got "hot," she switched to her preferred reverse grip.
Habit was second nature.
But if you looked at Starkiller — he worked exactly the same way.
Vader had taught him that approach.
Just like all of Galen Marek's clones.
And the son of Kento Marek himself.
She'd like to think the cybernetic bastard had done it in memory of his apprentice, but you couldn't ask a dead Sith...
Though, actually, you could...
But was it necessary?!
He'd been dead for years now, and he hadn't even deigned to reach out to her through the Force with some advice.
Like, don't follow my path, Snips, don't go on a cute child-slashing spree in the Jedi Temple.
And by the way, I have a son, good thing you're not from Ryloth, teach the brat everything you know — but not about relationships and all that...
Thoughts kept flooding her mind, relieving the tension of battle and the feeling of nearby deaths, which for a Force-sensitive person is always stronger than for ordinary beings.
The Dark Side insidiously crept into her mind, demanding she put an end to all this horror by losing control.
Ahsoka recognized the negative emotions rising inside her and reminded herself where they could lead.
Darth Vectivus had spent a lot of time strengthening her control, making her overcome the impulsiveness inherent in the nature of Darth Vader's former apprentice.
He didn't want her to become another tool of the Dark Side, and on that — teacher and student — were in agreement.
"Falling to the Dark Side alienates you from those close to you, from your family, from those you love. You perceive them as your shackles, your weakness, as flaws that hold you back. By rejecting love and empathy for the weak, you turn into a monster that destroys itself from within."
To defeat the Dark Side, control was required.
Unceasing, constant.
That thirst for death needed to be calmed, to find oneself, to move confidently in any direction — but not toward one's own destruction.
It slowed her down for less than a second.
The four "cloakers" that had stood between her and the one who had hurt Darth Deimos fell, sparking and whimpering, and she stepped over them, putting them out of their misery, to face her main enemy.
Thick smoke concealed the scene of the massacre, but she could smell death in the air.
Wreckage of small walkers, blown up by spider droids, burned in several places; the bodies of stormtroopers torn apart by the same droids smoldered.
Bodies everywhere, most in Dominion stormtrooper uniforms.
She stepped over them, mourning their loss just as she had mourned fallen soldiers she'd served alongside during the Clone Wars.
She pushed toward the problem on the left flank, sowing death among the spider droids and "cloakers" that stood in her way.
Deimos covered the rear, wielding one blade and Force lightning, while Darth Maul held the right flank firmly.
She felt that Jaden Korr had lost his strength — the young man was badly injured, holding himself within the bounds of the Light Side of the Force.
The wounded stormtroopers were preparing him for transport to the surface using a cable system, prioritizing the evacuation of a Force user.
Ahsoka felt that these troopers were much older than the vast majority of the 501st Legion clones.
Maybe they were those clones of Jango Fett she had fought alongside during the Clone War.
But none of them revealed themselves, said they knew her, or tried to reminisce about "the old days."
They were soldiers in an endless war, returning from a leave they had never planned to take.
And now they were following the principle of priority evacuation, saving a valuable fighter.
Had old programming kicked in, where clone soldiers were supposed to evacuate a Jedi commander by any means necessary?
Possible.
But that was for later.
Ahsoka sharpened her vision with the Force, peering into the blackness of the tunnel ahead.
With a Force Wave, she flung the spider droids away from her, breaking them like toys unworthy of her attention.
Some "cloakers" got caught in it too.
But right now, she didn't care.
She had cleared the battlefield for herself, with no intention of holding back against the enemy that had crippled her apprentice.
The togruta advanced, filled with grim and terrible resolve.
Her control over the Force was unshakable.
The Dark Side, which had tried to sink its tendrils into her mind for subjugation, found itself caught in the beskar-like grip of her will.
Ahsoka would use the darkness within herself to preserve the lives of those standing or lying behind her.
It seemed the massive machine sensed this, because it began to retreat, luring her deeper into the tunnel.
Tano smiled.
Raising her left hand to the side and up, she channeled the pain radiating from the wounded and dead in the Force, materializing it as lightning.
A web of white-blue electricity illuminated the tunnel, a chain charge arcing through dozens of "cloakers" lurking to her left.
They would undoubtedly have attacked the togruta the moment she engaged the large droid in battle.
Now her flanks were clear.
The massive cyborg with General Grievous's face that tried to attack her, Tano cut to pieces with her lightsabers, then crushed the remains into a metal ball and hurled it at the enormous droid trying to hide in the shadows.
It locked laser beams onto the projectile, and a dozen rockets blasted the remains into scrap metal.
The togruta shielded herself from the shrapnel with the Force, just as Darth Vectivus had shown her.
He always taught her — when the shield drops, raise the barrier.
You can't be relaxed in battle.
This wasn't a walk.
Ahsoka moved forward, meter by meter, claiming space for the coming inquisition.
The Force howled with familiar, long-forgotten sensations of clone presences coming from literally every direction.
That very feeling that had been haunting her ever since she approached the base, like an echo of the Clone Wars.
And now it was intensifying.
It seemed the 501st Legion was preparing for a new attack.
And she was at the tip of the spear.
Memories flooded back of how they had done this dozens of times nearly thirty years ago.
History had come full circle, putting everything back in its place.
Ahead — enemies of metal; behind — clones.
Red lines had been drawn.
And now, the former apprentice of the future Darth Vader would break this front in her signature style.
The droid seemed to realize that too.
It stopped backing away and drove its massive limbs into the floor, aiming its laser targeting sights at her.
"Care to dance?" Tano offered with grim playfulness, twirling her blades in her hands.
The droid ignored her.
It attacked.
"Well, I think I know where to stick a Snips in you," Ahsoka grinned, hurling herself at the murder-machine charging at her.
* * *
"The fourth and final known specimen is the terror walker," I said, bringing up another — hopefully the last — hologram.
The Terror Walker. A screenshot from the game everyone knows.
The machine was developed by the Imperial Department of Military Research for overcoming obstacles and navigating destruction.
I had to assume Darth Vader, with his love for mechanics and intuitive understanding of technology, had a hand in this.
It was no coincidence that the Imperial engineers included this battle droid in the terror program.
On its own, it was capable of destroying a small army — and it had all the means to do so.
Short-range missiles designed to target personnel, armored vehicles, and even maneuverable low-flying craft, structures, and fortifications.
For precise targeting, it came equipped with laser sights, but these were also a weakness — they gave away the direction of the missile attack.
Fett's notes indicated that the droid was armed with simple missiles as the cheapest medium-range weapon option — hence the laser guidance.
Destroying them meant depriving the droid of the ability to attack anything outside the field of view of its optical sensors.
It was also armed with high-power lasers capable of cutting through metal and construction material.
Human flesh and armor, even heavy armor, were no obstacle — it cut right through them without even noticing.
The biggest problem was its shield, which protected it from damage.
A large-caliber ground cannon would take it out, of course, but we didn't have an AT-AT handy in those tunnels to destroy it.
The fact that the hull was made of armor resistant to energy weapons wasn't even worth mentioning — the spider droids, the terror bio-droids, and these walkers were all cast from the same metal.
And its support limbs were just as dangerous in terms of kinetic penetration of any obstacle.
Probably the walls and gates of a fortress were the only things they couldn't breach.
At least — not immediately.
I didn't know why Darth Vader had developed this weapon, using it only once in all of history and locking it away on this planet, but it certainly wasn't for fighting rebels.
Perhaps for capturing Luke Skywalker, but in the traditional manner of the Imperial war machine, he abandoned the project's intended use.
While Cain, Jurgen, and Tierce analyzed the IDMR's combat machine, I figured that all Imperial superweapons — or projects as close to that designation as possible — largely shared the same fate.
The algorithm was extremely simple.
1. Production of a weapon with no counterpart in the enemy's arsenal.
2. Use of the produced "unparalleled" weapon against an enemy that is as ill-suited as possible to the development's specifications.
In other words — maximally inconvenient.
Like deploying a tank not against infantry, but for clearing obstacles or anti-tank artillery.
3. Loss of the "unparalleled" weapon.
4. Punishment of the developers for failing to account for the possibility of the project being destroyed by a stronger or better-adapted enemy.
5. Filing the project documentation away.
6. Repeat the required number of times with any project that has no counterpart in the enemy's arsenal.
No one in their right mind, assessing the Empire's military potential, could imagine that such a state could lose to a bunch of ragged rebels and regime dissidents.
Even if they had the support of influential lobbyists close to power.
And Palpatine was a pragmatic being.
At least, he was until he met Master Windu.
After losing one "Death Star," he made efforts to eliminate the flaw, taking the enemy's tactics into account.
And if he hadn't "leaked" the data on the construction of the second battle station to the Rebel Alliance, he would have had a finished superweapon, free of the "childhood diseases" of the first prototype.
But he didn't do that.
It seemed as if he was playing "capture the flag."
Failed to create a superweapon on the first try?
Okay, we're putting this one aside and moving on to something else. What's the point of refining it and fixing the problems?
The only project that could even be mentioned in the "Lessons Learned" section is the Death Star, but trouble came at it from a different angle.
A phrase I saw quoted from a video game comes to mind: "Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is? Insanity is doing the exact same fucking thing over and over again, expecting shit to change. That is insanity... Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is?"
The more you assess the Emperor and the Empire — everything they've done to fight their enemies over the last few years, from Order 66 all the way to Endor — the more it all seems like a parody of dealing with real threats.
A soap bubble consumed by contradictions, fighting itself from within, but utterly unfit to battle another soap bubble.
Power used for terror, for seizing and holding authority, but not for combat.
Empires rise brilliantly to the peak of Olympus, perhaps even remain there for a long time, but self-adoration blinds them.
Disunity is lethal.
Internal struggle for a place at the trough weakens everything.
Palpatine, who dreamed of ruling for a thousand years and sought a path to immortality, had no intention of changing anything.
He pitted internal opponents against each other, turned a blind eye to the Empire's accelerating internal rot, replaying the Old Republic's decline on fast-forward.
Having abandoned evolutionary development, the Emperor tried to encapsulate his dictatorship, ignoring the voice of the people.
Where power doesn't improve society from above, the regime is replaced from below.
Divide the elites, promote idiots who lick your boots and hypocritically seek to enrich themselves at others' expense while hiding behind good intentions and concern for the Empire — and you'll get a popular revolt.
It's hard to tear an empire apart from outside — a common enemy unites the divided, forces enemies to shake hands, and eliminates outright saboteurs and traitors.
Social mechanics naturally purge weak elements when survival is the goal.
Empires are destroyed from within.
In effect, Palpatine and his lackeys did it all themselves — they divided the Empire and its armed forces.
The Rebel Alliance simply exploited the resulting circumstances and struck where and when it was most painful for the enemy.
The project we encountered on Egon-IX wasn't designed to destroy enemies on the battlefield.
It was made for intimidation and terror — they didn't even try to hide that in its name.
Palpatine and his inner circle acted according to the simplest and most disadvantageous method of fighting rebellion and insurrection.
Hunting opinion leaders and instigators — especially when unsuccessful — is meant to intimidate ordinary members.
But that's not how it works.
A failed assassination is a piece of propaganda, proof of the organizer's weakness.
A social uprising isn't like killing a fish.
Cutting off the head doesn't destroy the root cause.
Fighting symptoms doesn't cure the disease.
It only delays the inevitable and worsens the overall condition, turning a harmless illness into a fatal one.
This is one of the reasons why the Dominion, possessing all the resources and capabilities of a militaristic society, doesn't pour its budget into building thousands of the latest ships of various types.
Yes, eventually that will have to be done — scientific and technological progress doesn't stand still.
But at the same time, we currently have everything we need to defend and attack reliably.
The Dominion Security Bureau regularly reports on small groups of "anti-regime fighters" trying to destabilize society from within.
The vast majority are either provocateurs who weren't eliminated immediately, agents of the New Republic or the Empire, or those acting on their orders.
But there are also those who are genuinely dissatisfied with the state of affairs, closed borders, and so on.
They're watched, controlled, tracked, monitored — and "slapped on the wrist" when necessary.
And it's all presented in the "right light," used for propaganda purposes.
Funny enough, only twenty percent of the Dominion's expenditure budget goes to military needs — everything else is invested in state development, population support, expanding spheres of influence, and providing everything necessary for a comfortable life.
That's why it's easy for us to "strangle" uprisings in the cradle — we have something to counter their populism.
Instead of just words, we offer deeds accompanied by the most accessible explanations.
In an era when anyone can access the "Dominion HoloNet" from any comlink (and with sufficiently skilled specialists, even connect to enemy information networks), you can't consider sentients, your own people, as a herd that will believe you simply because you're the authority.
Prove it, tell them, explain, listen to criticism, justify your position — why you act this way and not otherwise.
Finally, gather positive ideas from the people's mouths and implement them, inviting the originator into the working group for project development.
It's probably easy to talk about such things when you've lived one life experiencing crises.
The grass is always greener on the other side, as they say.
But that's also the government's responsibility to its people — to see problems and solve them, not to profit.
Turning the security apparatus from a tool for fighting lawlessness into a tool of oppression is a one-way street.
And, strangely enough, it's precisely military action that allows for drastic reforms that would cause bewilderment, condemnation, pickets, protests, and so on in peacetime.
Palpatine understood this when he usurped power during the Clone Wars — he saw perfectly that during wartime, all roads are open.
Everything would be permitted in the name of security.
Well, almost everything.
The other point is that he made these transformations exclusively for his own benefit, to achieve his own goals.
If they had been for the population, as was claimed (but words didn't match deeds), the Rebel Alliance would never have found support among the populations of the outer regions, where local officials simply spat on the people, enriching themselves at their expense.
That's why such an order was established in the Dominion's government — clones loyal to the cause and spirit of the state are used.
When a government chosen by the population (legally or not) fails, it's deposed by Dominion law enforcement, state administration is introduced, and problems are solved.
This happens simultaneously with the search, selection, and training of personnel from the local population.
When the Clone-Moffs are confident that honest officials and leaders will replace them, they step down, and they're replaced by a proper, functional, and open government elected according to local traditions.
In the first sectors that joined the Dominion, there's almost no local government left where Grand Moff Ferrus's clone appointees sit — a year and a half of effective work is enough to cultivate the necessary cadres for local self-governance.
Little by little, we'll reach the point where local authorities across the Dominion will act as they should, in strict accordance with the letter of the law, without any local oversteps.
"Sir," Grodin Tierce addressed me. "A report from the stormtroopers that Ahsoka Tano has engaged the Terror Walker in combat."
"Alone?" I clarified.
"Yes, sir. Darth Deimos, Darth Maul, and Jaden Korr have sustained serious injuries and are holding the evacuation zone in the central tunnel."
"Any word from Starkiller and Delta Squad?"
"No, sir. But Darth Maul reports sensing in the Force that they're alive," added Major General Cain. "Jaden Korr has been stabilized and evacuated off the planet. He and his ship are currently in the quarantine zone in the planet's orbit, along with the other shuttles. His life, like the lives of all the wounded stormtroopers, is not in danger."
"Lady Meilis?"
"She's advancing forward. We're deploying droid units to press the advantage," reported Major General Jurgen. "Over a hundred J-1 proton cannons have been evacuated, in varying states of completeness and technical condition. Several decommissioned planetary turbolasers and laser installations have been dismantled."
Well.
If Atonias Stormayer were here, he'd have stripped this place down to the last screw, already starting to excavate the base to rip it out of the planet whole, attach the necessary equipment, and send it to the Dominion for study.
First and foremost, I'm interested in the alloy used for the walls and gates of this base.
I doubt we can replicate it (since it's based on beskar, which currently only Fenn Shysa has access to on Mandalore), but at the very least, we can use what's already here.
And at the same time, we can develop new tactics for storming similar enemy fortifications.
After all, where we found one, there could be another, a third, a fifth, and so on ad infinitum.
Currently, the most obvious option for storming such a base is using the "diggers" we used to attack New Republic and other enemy ships last year.
But proper testing is necessary, because experience with landing shuttles using similar hull-cutting technologies showed that standard power plants are clearly insufficient to penetrate this specific grade of permacrete.
Its creator clearly improved the material's qualities and its ability to absorb energy fluctuations, which is what necessitated the massive orbital bombardment.
"Inform me immediately of any changes," I ordered, glancing at Captain Pellaeon, who had just received another operational report through fleet channels. "Anything to report, Captain?"
"The technicians are making progress dismantling the equipment on both hyperspeed cannons, sir," he reported. "That's just the surface components, though. The power plants are harder to extract; they're presumably located deep within the base, where they're serviced."
You don't need to be Darth Vader to grasp the basic engineering principles of this galaxy.
Powering installations like these requires energy sources of an extreme level.
And those are at the disposal of the base's central computer…
In other words — if the computer is programmed for self-destruction in the event of capture, we'll be left with nothing.
And on top of that, we'd lose not only a huge number of troops, equipment, and droids, but also Ahsoka Tano, Aurelia Meilis, Starkiller, Darth Maul, and Darth Deimos.
The stakes in the fight for Darth Vader's secret laboratory are rising with every second.
"General," I turned to Maximilian Jurgen. "Arrange for all possible safety measures to be taken. Remove samples of the upgraded B2 droids, rocket droids, Terror Troopers, parts of the Terror Biodroids, and spider droids from the battlefield. All the technology we've been able to capture, in any condition, must be evacuated from the planet after careful deactivation and disarmament."
"It will be done, sir."
I don't know exactly what we'll find in the heart of this base, but I take comfort in the thought that there won't be any Deathly Hallows here.
Probably not.
But their "D&D analogs"…
I don't even want to think about it.
First we capture it, then we count our chickens.
As it is, this "easy trip for frozen clone commandos" has turned into a full-scale siege and assault operation with a large number of unplanned casualties and adjustments to other plans.
But backing down now would mean proving that everything done before, all the sacrifices, were in vain.
And the Dominion doesn't do anything in vain.
Neither does the Dominion, nor I.
And if that's the case, I need to figure out exactly what to do to prevent the base's central computer from blowing it all up…
A good puzzle for the mind.
With variables unknown.
* * *
It's just a droid.
Big, stupid, and incapable of improvisation.
But that knowledge didn't help, because the giant raised its front legs and tried to impale her with four powerful lasers.
She leaped, and the orange beams followed her, leaving glowing trails in their wake.
Under the relentless assault of the giant droid, the tunnel filled with the smell of burning and a caustic bouquet of scents that made her eyes water.
But her lightsaber blades were already doing their work, slicing chunks of armor off the enemy's hull.
Though she intended to disarm it, not just scratch it.
"Cutting a bantha into pieces," Ahsoka decided, jumping to evade the giant droid's line of attack.
She dodged into a corner and stood facing the droid, her lightsabers crossed behind her back.
The droid aimed its lasers at her, preparing to attack with rockets…
And the next moment, she barely reacted in time.
The converging beams struck both lightsaber blades thrust forward and reflected back towards their source.
The droid's matte black coating deflected them straight back at itself, doubling the number of attacks it had to deal with.
Instead of retreating, she changed the angle of her blades relative to the attack.
The four laser beams she deflected carved a chunk out of the permacrete floor and walls, drawing black, smoking arcs through the tunnel.
A second such attack was reflected into the ceiling.
But it didn't harm the specific Togruta in question.
Then the droid changed tactics, stepping back.
But her montrals picked up changes in the sound level ahead of her…
Many, many sounds of metal and permacrete scraping together, just like when the Dominion troops had come under specific attacks…
The patter of tiny feet reached a crescendo.
Ahsoka, who had already lunged toward the large droid, managed to change her trajectory, but it barely helped.
Five miniature versions of the giant droid emerged from a hole in the ceiling on four legs tipped with sharp points.
The first two leaped at her, and Ahsoka cut them to pieces in midair with a couple of swings of her lightsaber blades.
Two others split up and attacked the Togruta from opposite sides, intending to catch her off guard.
She met both attacks with a lightsaber extended in each hand, using the Force to guide her strikes.
At the same moment, the large droid attacked her with its energy lasers, clearly intending to exploit gaps in her defense and the impossibility of repelling multiple attacks at once.
The thing was, the large droid first used its lasers as targeting tools and launched its rockets.
Then it changed the laser's functional mode and attacked her with energy beams.
But it wasn't shooting at her directly anymore.
It was cutting off her obvious escape routes to make her panic and look for cover.
And, of course, get hit by the rockets.
A damn clever piece of iron.
Too clever, even!
Because that wasn't a programmed attack anymore!
It was a learning process, based on assessing her abilities and developing countermeasures.
Meanwhile, the small droids had already reached her.
Ahsoka changed her grip and threw one small "spider" back with a Force Push, then simply cut the second one to pieces.
Tiny shards of metal rained across the entire bay with an almost musical sound.
And then she did the only thing that could actually counter the attack against her.
When laser beams are coming from your left and right, and rockets are flying at your face, unwilling to maneuver, you just go back.
So she did, performing two consecutive backflips.
Upon landing, she shielded herself with the Force, protecting herself from the shrapnel, explosion, shockwave, and chunks of permacrete.
Then she lunged forward, intending to catch her massive opponent off guard.
But the droid had the same idea.
Evading a direct collision with the cutters, Ahsoka worked her lightsaber blades vigorously, slipping under the droid's belly.
Once behind it, the Togruta pushed off the floor, not giving the droid time to recover, and jumped onto its back.
And again, a flurry of fast thrusts, slashes, and chops rained down on its tough armor.
The enemy desperately tried to get rid of her, adjusting its shield's power, which prevented her from carving up this metal animal like a carcass in a slaughterhouse.
Ahsoka wasn't as knowledgeable about technology as her former teacher, but she could identify the equipment.
Concentrating, she tore the shield projectors from the hull, but couldn't hold on to the droid's back and jumped back, evading a terrible blow from its metal limbs.
The giant spun around rapidly to face her.
Numerous gaping wounds were carved across its lower belly and back, but it remained a formidable opponent.
She made a feint to the left.
The droid moved to the right to block her possible line of attack and minimize damage to itself.
Ah, so it is analyzing, is it? Good. How about this?!
She made a feint in the opposite direction.
The droid reacted in a perfect mirror image.
Behind it, Ahsoka could see Darth Maul and Darth Deimos tirelessly and ruthlessly carving through the spider droids and invisible ones that were coming through the ventilation panels in the ceiling that the large droid had destroyed.
So, none of those attacks were random.
The droid had calculated everything.
Through the Force, she could feel that her comrades were beginning to tire.
And honestly, she was getting tired herself.
The droid's internal mechanisms pounded dully against its nearly impenetrable shell.
The mechanical creature crouched low, ready to pounce, and emitted a sound like an ancient boiler hissing its last.
The droid tracked her feint and attacked.
Ahsoka ducked, as she had many times before, and shoved the droid hard as it flew over her head.
Its lasers flashed around the Togruta's body, carving another hieroglyphic pattern deep into the permacrete floor.
Its innards whined as it turned to reorient, intending to stop its trajectory against the wall on the right and then attack the Togruta anew.
She remained still just long enough to give the machine the impression that this time, unlike all the others, its plan might work.
A barrage of laser fire slashed and singed the Togruta's skin with its nearby heat.
Now there was only one possible outcome.
The droid charged at her, just as she had anticipated.
The Togruta met it with a blast of Force Lightning from both hands, almost dropping her lightsabers.
At first, it seemed like nothing would work and the enemy would simply absorb her energy.
But no matter how tough it was, it no longer had a deflector shield to absorb all that energy.
And metal is metal.
Even at the Jedi Temple, they'd covered basic physics.
And quite in-depth, too — even a slacker padawan like Ahsoka had absorbed a lot from the preparatory program.
For example, that practically any metal is an excellent conductor of electricity.
And by her age, she understood perfectly well that Force Lightning essentially was electricity.
No, she probably wouldn't have had enough Force or concentration to fry this metal blockhead with just Lightning alone.
But to make its electronics collapse…
The giant froze, unable to resist the fundamental laws of the universe, shuddering from the discharges ravaging its electronic insides and burning out many critical circuit boards.
Ahsoka also understood the reason for her initial failure when she'd thrown her lightsabers.
It wasn't just about the Force, but also force, strangely enough.
Her effort was sufficient for the blades to fly.
But it was completely insufficient to cut through this refractory metal.
Now, without releasing her weapons, the Togruta struck with all her might at the front limbs of the metal freak shaking from the electricity coursing through it.
The lightsaber blades sank into the metal viscously, as if they weren't made of pure energy that could cut through anything.
As a result, she expended all her forward momentum in that single burst, and when the droid's head and front section began to topple onto her, the Togruta had no choice but to leap aside.
She had to adjust her attack plan, which wasn't good for her personally, but she also didn't want to be crushed.
The electrical discharges stopped raging through the droid's body, but Ahsoka, now fully aware of the droid's animosity toward physics, gave it another jolt.
Not as powerful or prolonged, but still!
She needed just a moment.
And that short burst, paralyzing the massive droid, was exactly the edge she needed.
Not bothering with her opponent, Ahsoka vaulted onto its wounded back, found the marks of her previous attacks, and using her lightsabers like simple daggers, began piercing the armor.
After several attempts, the lightsaber blades sank into the innards of the crippled giant droid, burning through its more-than-standard internals, fusing wiring, circuits, aggregates, and components into a deadly cocktail.
The smell of burnt insulation and lubricants hit her nostrils, along with the acrid mist of coolant that made her eyes tear up.
Ahsoka coughed but continued her merciless work, turning the chassis into mangled scrap that was no longer as strong as before…
Finally, when the droid was choking on its own screeches and hums, she ripped out a piece of its perforated armor, placed her hand on some molten circuit, and channeled a charge of electricity through the battle machine's internals.
The Force warned her she shouldn't have done that, even though she had finished the giant off.
Diving to the side, the Togruta accelerated and cloaked herself in a veil of the Force an instant before the crippled machine exploded.
And even though Togruta don't have ears, they do have montrals…
Which also don't like explosions in enclosed spaces.
She felt like she was seared all over.
Her concentration vanished instantly; it felt like someone was ringing an alarm bell in her head, and her vision swam…
The Togruta stumbled, collapsing weakly to the floor, realizing that even with all her dismissive attitude toward one particular science, she couldn't have been that wrong.
The Force barrier should have protected her…
When she recoiled, slumping back against the tunnel wall, she saw a figure in front of her materialize out of thin air — one of the invisible droids, who froze for a moment, staring at her.
Then it unceremoniously stepped forward, grabbing her chin with a clawed hand.
Three things stared back into her eyes.
A grotesque parody of General Grievous's mask.
A stun blaster, which, not the concussion, was the cause of her current malaise.
And a tactical yellow flashlight, shining directly in her face.
She strained with all her might to regain control of the Force, but her muscles, her thoughts, tangled and refused to obey.
It was as if she'd been fitted with shock restraints, designed specifically against Jedi...
A clawed hand-paw unceremoniously turned her head first to the right, then to the left.
A thumb slowly traced across the markings on her face, as if checking whether they were fake...
The clawed paw released its grip and the Togruta collapsed helplessly to the floor.
At that same moment, a second stealthed soldier appeared next to the first.
They looked at each other.
The second raised his weapon, Ahsoka looked into the barrel, and flame splashed into her face.