Nerdy at the bottom of the world

Tooka Lovers:

The plane comes on the seventh day.

Zylon is a mining planet. Barren, stripped to the core, and abandoned until satellites in orbit around a nearby planet had picked up distortions in seismic data. Preliminary investigations had uncovered a renewed Separatist presence on the deserted ground. The 212th-- scheduled leave and the accompanying resupply having been suspended once again-- had been deployed to investigate.

A scouting mission. Determine and destroy. Fine. But the suspended resupply had been desperately needed. They had no air support. No surveillance drones. Why send them on a reconnaissance mission without reconnaissance equipment?

But their protests go unheard by the Senate. Surveillance drones-- from the Senate's point of view, the 212th had plenty. What else was a clone, really, if not a drone with legs?

So. Zylon it is.

Cody knows this is going to be a shitshow from the beginning. He knows it when the orders come in. He knows it when the leave gets cancelled. He knows it when their resupply is cancelled next-- because oh, he knows what "suspended" means when it comes to the 212th, even barely two months in; if he didn't know better, he'd think the Chancellor's trying to kill them off.

But he really knows it when General Kenobi's expression empties out as soon he jumps down from the gunship.

Kenobi's face is never empty. Quiet, sure. Calm. Controlled. But there's always something dancing behind his eyes, even when the rest of his expression is wholly and utterly motionless. He smiles easily, too, for all of them (and the treacherous little voice in the back of his mind that keeps count notes that he smiles for you most of all), and the fierce brightness in his face that Cody glimpses in the thick of battle makes his blood sing. But this awful emptiness...

He dares to touch a hand to Kenobi's arm-- the palm against the elbow, fingers curled against his forearm. A gentle pressure, because Kenobi is set apart, but Cody has begun to notice the way he sways into every absent-minded touch.

"Sir?"

There. A blink. A resettling. The blank eyes clear; the thin-lipped emptiness twists into a rueful grin. "Dead earth," Kenobi says, and scuffs a heel against the dusty ground. "Apologies, Commander. It's starving."

Cody does not like the sound of that, and says so.

Kenobi laughs. Cody preens.

"Hungry in the Force, I mean," he says. "It wants energy. Poor thing. It's been drained completely."

Only his General, Cody thinks helplessly, would call an entire planet poor thing.

But. Nothing to be done about it.

The ground is scarred with narrow canyons as far as the eye can see. They split into groups and trudge single file along the remains of the strip-mining operations, searching in vain for any indication of activity. They traverse the cramped and dim tunnels that intersect the gorges, empty apart from metal scaffolding that's free from rust and gleaming brightly enough to make the hair on the back of Cody's neck rise.

The dust gets everywhere.

No rain has fallen here in decades, and in the absence of living roots, erosion has taken its toll. Every step sends up a puff of dried dirt. Every man's armor soon becomes indistinguishable, coated in the same dull and rusty brown. It sneaks through the seals and itches under their blacks. It gets in hair and under nails and between teeth. The sky above remains a clear and disorienting blue, and Cody watches for smoke-- pollution or presence, he would take either-- to no avail.

For six days, no one fires a shot. There's not another living soul to be found.

On the sixth night, the battalion regathers. Tents are pitched on a wide stretch of open plateau; one of the rare spaces left where more than two men can walk abreast. The vast stretch of space sets Cody's teeth on edge-- visibility goes both ways, after all-- but it's either here or in a valley, and the only thing worse than an ambush is an ambush from above. The canyons around them have already been cleared; a retreat, if necessary, can be managed quickly. At least here, they will meet their enemies on an even footing.

No campfires burn. There is no wood to be found. But Terror and his perpetually terrified rotation of secondaries can work wonders, and they have warm food for latemeal. Cody eats next to Kenobi, the two of them bumping knees on the crowded ground around one of their solar-powered burners amid the low and cheerful chattering of their men.

He tumbles into his cot with a smile on his face and is asleep in an instant.

Waking comes suddenly.

Cody squints into his pillow, rolls over, blinks at the ceiling-- then sits up abruptly, staring into the darkness of the tent.

What is it?

Where?

Were it time for him to be up, he would hear quiet churning outside, and see the shadows of footsteps crossing in front of the flap-- but there is nothing so obvious that draws his attention, and for a long moment he cannot identify what had drawn him so abruptly out of sleep.

Then he glances to his left, and realizes that Kenobi's cot is still neatly made.

Not only are the blankets tucked and folded-- Kenobi is the type of man to take that time, after all-- but they do not appear the slightest bit wrinkled.

Had he ever returned to the tent, after latemeal?

Cody has gotten used to the noise of breathing other than his own. The quiet pricks at his spine, and with a sigh, he swings his legs over the edge of the cot and stands.

It's not that he doesn't trust Kenobi. He does. It's just--

(He walks among them like he is one of them. He knows their names before he learns their ranks. His hands have been blood-soaked since the day they'd met. He is not careless with anyone's lives but his own. He is not just someone Cody likes, he is someone Cody does not want to lose--)

He forgets he has people watching his back sometimes, that's all. Cody occasionally needs to remind him.

He finds Kenobi seated cross-legged about a hundred feet past the troopers on watch.

Cody stands behind him for a long moment. Watching him watching the dark.

Then he clears his throat. He's under no illusion that he'd approached undetected, but Kenobi does him the favor of waiting to acknowledge him until Cody announces himself.

"Sir."

"Commander," Kenobi says. His head tilts back, his eyes meet Cody's-- and then he smiles, a flash of white teeth against the encroaching night, and pats the ground next to him. "Couldn't sleep?"

"Not when a superior office was missing, sir," Cody says drily, and settles next to him.

The camp behind them is full of the crowded silence that emerges alongside a mass of sleeping people. Burps, snores, snorts, murmurs, jabbed elbows, the occasional muffled laugh-- none loud enough to be heard on their own, but all together accumulate into a snow-like layer draped across the tents. Wholly comforting, in its own way.

But beyond them, in the dark, the silence is absolute.

Dead and vast and hungry.

(It's starving, he'd said. Poor thing.)

"I don't like this much," Cody confesses quietly.

Again, a sudden flash of a smile--

"No," Kenobi agrees. "Me neither."

"What's the objective?"

Kenobi sucks at his teeth, drums his fingers against the ground--

"We're pulling out when it's light."

That is not what Cody had expected him to say.

"New orders from the Senate?"

"No. There is something deeply wrong with this place. I thought at first my sight was just obscured, but I went down into the tunnels earlier--"

"Sir," Cody says, exasperated, but Kenobi waves him off--

"-- and there was no activity stirring the earth. None. Only all of you, breathing above me. Whatever that report said, right now we are on an empty planet. If the Senate wants more details, then they can equip us with proper aerial support. We're too vulnerable to bombardment as it is. I'll take whatever lashing they see fit to hand out."

Above them, the sky begins to lighten. The deep, uninterrupted black yields to the very deepest purple at the edge of the horizon.

Cody considers going back to bed. By his estimate, he has another hour and a half until he well and truly must be up-- to coordinate departure, and he swallows back the bubbling relief-- and he should know better than to waste an opportunity for sleep. But the thought of returning to an empty, silent tent makes his stomach twist uncomfortably, and he's sat in less comfortable places.

Not many. But still.

The sky is... kind of pretty, he guesses. Kenobi's watching it too, bright eyes narrowed.

Then Cody hears it, and lurches to his feet.

The low, distant drone of an incoming plane.

Sound precedes appearance. It takes a few moments more for the plane to become visible, streaking just ahead of the lightening horizon. Cody jams his bucket on, watches the visual interface light up; the targeting software locks on, centers the plane for a closer view--

One, two, three seconds for him to notice the peculiarly rounded belly.

Four, five, six seconds for him to realize what it means.

The neutron bomb had been outlawed over two centuries ago. It used the molecular make-up of a planet's atmosphere as raw matter to generate a self-replicating reaction. Once triggered, the detonation would multiply at an exponential rate until it had consumed all organic matter available to it, at which point it would neatly self-extinguish. All organic lifeforms would be reduced to steaming puddles- if not evaporated completely- and all non-organic infrastructure would be left intact. Give it a few centuries for the radiation to die down to treatable levels, and the neutron bomb became a perfect tool for aspiring planetary empires who wanted a tidy little solution to the people in the way.

Detonation was tricky. Portable fusion reactors were famously unstable. The longer it ran, the riskier it was. Wire it too early, and you risked the reaction igniting while still within your planetary orbit. Standard operating prasctice dictated that the bomb be wired en route. The drop bay of the porting plane would be built out with a mechanical rig that could conduct the operation for the pilot, providing the distinctive bulging exterior.

So high above them, the plane appears deceptively slow. Thousands of miles an hour turn into a lazy drift across the brightening sky.

A shout goes up behind them. The watch has caught it. The slow quiet of the camp behind them sharpens in response-- voices rise, waking, calling out.

Cody wishes they hadn't seen it.

In the crystalline silence of his own mind, the truth has sharp edges.

They have no air support. The transports that brought them down are still aboard the Negotiator, and are not designed to chase down a bomber. They have no artillery capabilities; their re-armaments are stocked aboard the resupply tug still waiting in Helva-3's orbit. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a half dozen blue blaster bolts streak upwards; they fizzle out before they get close.

But his brothers don't die easy. Cody loves them for it.

"Commander."

A jump, a jolt-- his throat is very dry--

"Sir?"

"It's all just energy, you know."

Cody dares a glance sideways. Kenobi's on his feet, watching him. His eyes are very bright and very blue.

"Not sure that's very comforting at the moment, sir," he admits.

They have less than a minute until the plane arrives above them. The detonation will trigger approximately five hundred meters above them. The flash will blind them first. Then the radiation will cascade in all directions, consuming the atmosphere and all organic matter until there is nothing left to use.

It will, at least, be a quick death.

What is wrong with him? Shouldn't he be panicking? Grieving? At the very least, reaching for his blaster, so he can die with a weapon in his hand?

(Is this why his brothers never fought, on Kamino? Is this what it does to you, knowing there's no escape?)

Kenobi laughs. Dry and quiet, almost resigned, and Cody is struck with the sudden and absurd urge to take his hand.

The plane is almost directly overhead.

"My old master had a particular affinity for the Living Force," Kenobi says conversationally. He kneels, and starts-- digging, methodically, with one hand. Flexing his fingers into the dry and dusty dirt. "He always said that. It's all just energy. Sometimes destructive, sometimes constructive, but energy all the same."

His free hand presses firmly over the other, half-buried in the dead earth, and scrapes the dirt back into place.

"You cannot destroy it, only dissipate it."

Dust puffs up with every motion. His hands, his sleeves, the bridge of his nose: all stained with burnished red.

"You cannot conjure it, only channel it."

Something's wrong with Cody's visual interface; the color grading is out of whack. The blue of Kenobi's eyes is fading, washing out into something pale and bright.

Above them, the belly of the plane swings open. The bomb falls like a shadow, a little blot of black against the night.

Kenobi extends an arm-- reaching out, reaching up, palm open, as if beckoning the explosion towards him. From sky to soil: a straight line. A stretch. A conduit.

"Brace yourself," he says, his words soft and slurred around the edges. He looks up at Cody with strange and shining eyes. "And don't call home about this, please."

The bomb detonates.

This is the last thing Cody sees, before instinct throws up an arm and twists him into a bracing crouch equal parts desperate and futile:

The dark and deadly metal cracking open, the ignition within, the spark.

Obi-Wan, his face turned upwards, reaching and holding.

The flood of white light, moving wrongly, not outwards in an instant but spinning downwards into a funnel, snapping and crackling, tumbling over itself in a hungry rush towards the outstretched hand--