Chapter 15
The transmission of the message was received by a ship cruising on the string dimension minutes later after it was broadcasted.
"Captain, a transmission on an unsecured network. It's coming from Geonosis." reported an officer to her captain.
"What does it say?" asked the captain to weigh whether this matter is important enough for him to report it back to the Imperium.
"It's a report regarding the missing Primarch, the Primarch of the Salamanders, Vulkan." reported back the officer as she send the contents of the report towards the desk of the captain.
"Uh-huh, transmit this to the Imperium. This is important. The data might have been transmitted already to the Imperium but as a sign of respect to our fallen comrade, transmit his message." commanded the Captain to the officer as he quickly skimmed through the contents of the message and deemed ir appropriate to transmit.
"Yes captain!"
This ship of the Imperium isn't the only one who managed to intercept the transmission. As the scavengers scrambled to leave the planet and sell the communication equipment and some other stuffs that they managed to discover and salvage. As they posted the communication equipment up for sale on the galactic black market, they immediately got a message of inquiry from someone anonymous.
"Sir you have to look at this! Looks like someone wanted to buy that equipment. He wants to meet on Tatooine to discuss the deal." reported a woman who's busy typing a reply on her computer.
"See everyone! We're going to get real rich because of this equipment! My gut feel doesn't lie to me!" declared the leader figure of the group which earned him a cheer from everyone except for one. The man who didn't cheered was the timid man as he feels something off on the incidents. He just can't point out what is this something off.
As everyone celebrated the man who contacted was arranging things for their meeting.
"An Imperium equipment managed to get salvaged by some scavengers. We'll have to take them out." said the man who as coincidentally a sleeper agent on Tatooine.
At this time, another man contacted the organization demanding a meeting from them. This man is part of an intelligence gathering organization. They sell info for money and gets a living off it. They have been made alert about this existence of the Imperium and their insignia. Any information about them are considered top of the shelf goods and can't easily be bought by money alone.
And with what they theorized as a communication module due to its design can give their whole organization a monopoly on this field and it would be gold mine.
Back to Geonosis, the battle is raging on! The separatists are doing everything to evacuate the higher ups and their fleet.
The clones and the droids engaged in as small as skirmishes to as big as a full on battles at the frontlines.
The heavy equipments of the separatists are beinf evacuated on transport vessels. But with the speed the clone army is moving the separatists can only throw much of this away to try and slow the clone army down so they can buy time for their fleet to evacuate.
The main goal of this campaign on the planet is to arrest the leadership of the insurgents, the higher ups of the Confederacy.
"Move move!Ensure everything is intact!"shouted a clone captain as the clones secured one of the many droid foundries on the planet. They can't use indiscriminate orbital bombing as it may cause unnecessary destruction to this foundries and the citizens. They must also preserve the foundries to unearth the conspiracies of the separatists.
The frontlines against the separatists' droid army can only be considered as bloody. Clone after clone died under the heavy fire of the droids. They're so badly outnumbered by the droids that a clone would be worth a squad of droids. They're too outnumbered. Luckily, with the preemptive bombing and disabling of the enemy's starfighter launch pods. Thanks to this, pressure on the ground army was lifted out by the Republic's own starfighters.
As the sounds of the starfighters whistled on the ears of the clones. The base in front of them has then shown explosions as if a cluster bomb was dropped in them directly.
"Move!" commanded a clone that has a shoulder pad with a different design.
The clones and with their armed transports slowly marched to the bombed out enemy base in the frontlines.
As the clone neared the destroyed base the sound of a starfighter was suddenly heard as they instinctively turned their heads to look at the sound.
There, they saw thousands of starfighters of Confederacy origin having an intense dogfight with the Republic's starfighters.
Laser fire after laser fire as starfighters from both side are getting shot down one after the other. The Confederacy's starfighters are doing its best on this attack as they needed to break the orbital lockdown by the republic's vessels which prevents the ground reinforcements from landing.
The gunship in which Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan was riding was redirected by the two men to attack the lightly armored transport vessels of the Techno Union.
The gunship in which Yoda and Mace Windu was using are currently travelling to the forward command center near the arena where Yoda will oversee absolute command over the whole battlefield.
While inside their gunship, Yoda decided to have Mace Windu continue with his narrative on what happened on the arena.
"Narrate it again you go Mace." said Yoda as he looked at Mace Windu waiting for him to start speaking.
" Yes master, this gigantic man with a dark colored skin introduced himself as Vulkan. He said that he's the Primarch of the 18th legion under the Emperor." started to narrate Mace as he told Yoda everything he managed to acquire from having a conversation with Vulkan.
"Hmmm yrsss, Primarch." said Yoda as he contemplated what this word means.
"Master, I theorize that this Primarch should be a high ranking general like a marshall of the army." said Mace Windu to contribute his ideas to Yoda.
"Important he must be. Wandering here, why is he?" asked Yoda which sent Mace into deep thought. Yoda's words really makes sense, if he's a high ranking official then why is he here? Could it be that he's exiled?
Countless different thoughts flooded the mind of Mace Windu as he struggled to come up with the most logical explanation as everything seem logical in a certain point of view and he don't know what to believe as the most logical.
"Master, I don't know what to answer..." said Mace dejectedly at Yoda.
"Fine it is Mace." said Yoda while nodding as he looked out of the window.
"Thank you master"
...
Inside the gunship that's being rode by Anakin and company...
As the battle as slowly came to an end and they retreated to resupply Anakin used this opportunity to ask something that's been bothering him since he saw his master looking at the gigantic man that helped them.
"Master, what's up with the black man earlier? Why do you look like you saw some ghost?" asked Anakin as he drank a water to calm his body down and release fatigue.
"Anakin, it's something you'll know if you're ready." said Obi-Wan to try and change the topic.
"Master I'm already old! I am more than ready!" insisted Anakin to his master. Obi-Wan just gave Padme a meaningful look which triggered something deep in the memories of Padme Amidala. The memory which she tried to seal for years not wanting to look back to it.
"Master? Padme? What are you doing?" asked Anakin as he immediately noticed the change of atmosphere inside the gunship.
"Anakin, that man should be part of the Imperium I told you years ago." said Padme with a very little voice which made it too hard to hear. But Anakin clearly heard everything as each word of Padme was like a hammer that hit his brain.
He have heard of this Imperium before on the mouths of padawans that he encountered when training. They said that a mysterious force so powerful that it puts even the whole republic to shame has saved Naboo. He asked those padawans before on what's the name of the mysterious force but they said that they don't know as they only heard it from the news and rumours.
This got Anakin pondering on whether to believe such an absurd claim. Putting the republic to shame? For Anakin before, it sounded too unrealistic. Who could put the mighty Jedi to shame? But that's until he got closer to Padme.
Padme told her everything she knew in one faithful night. From the moment they destroyed the fleet of the Trade Federation without batting an eye to the extermination of the Gungans as their "gift". She told him everything. At this time, Anakin really awaken from his delusions.
He knew in his heart that such a force really exists but he just didn't accepted it as believing it to be a conspiracy is better as humans tend to create conspiracies as their explanations for their fears no matter how illogical these conspiracies may sound.
Of course this faithful night wasn't without a spy from the Imperium. The spy was there all the time inside the room watching them do things on each other. The spy, as per their training, recorded everything as it may be used for blackmail or some other stuff.
Roboute Guilliman just told the spy to keep them in a close watch. Roboute followed his father's mindset of not minding leaks on to an individual as long as they're trustworthy.They have more than enough resources to watch over each of the people who knew about them all day long without rest if needed.
Back to the present, Anakin looked at the two people with him in horror and absolute shock.
"Y-you mean that gigantic man is part of them?" asked Anakin with a trembling voice.
"Yes Anakin, he's part of them, The Imperium." verified Obi-Wan as he nodded slightly and looked at the distant battle.
"Let's go, we still need to hel-" the words of Obi-Wan was cut off as he saw a speeder which was the Count riding trying to escape.
He immediately ordered the pilot of the gunship to chase after the count trying to shoot him down. Laser fires after laser fires from the gunship but all was naught as it didn't managed to hit Count Dooku. The escorts of the count, the starfighters turned around and intercepted the gunship.
A fierce firefight briefly happened as the starfighters managed to knock Padme and a clone trooper out of the gunship with a laser fire.
Padme and the clone free falled to the ground.
"Master we need to go back and save Padme!" insisted Anakin as he saw Padme's falling figure slowly disappear from his sight.
Despite the protests of Anakin, Obi-Wan didn't comply instead they continued to give chase and eventually they were dropped on a hangar with the count due to the gunship being heavily damaged and exploded later on.
A duel then ensured between the count and the master student duo. Anakin was impatient and charged directly without any plan. He was incapacitated quickly with a force lighting by the count.
Seeing this, Obi-Wan charged to Dooku and an intense swordfight happened between the two. As time slowly passed by Dooku gained the upper hand and slashed on the arm of Obi-Wan making him drop his lightsaber. He then slashed at his leg taking his capacity to move away. Count Dooku then prepared to finish Obi-Wan but Anakin managed to save his master on the nick of time.
The count was initially taken off guard by the aggressive attack of Anakin but eventually regained his composure.
Another swordfight went on. Sweat dripping from both the fighters as they didn't want to other to gain the upper hand. But due to experience, Count Dooku was a more formidable fighter than Anakin. The count mamaged to destroy the second lightsaber of Anakin by hitting it on the power hilt causing it to malfunction.
Even after losing his second weapon Anakin still didn't gave up as he once again engaged with the count on a long continual swordfight which the count just ended by hitting the forearm of Anakin making him shout in pain and agony.
As Anakin lost consciousness and the count manages to catch his breath. The jedi grand master entered the hangar to confront his student who he felt has how fallen to the dark side of The Force.
A brief duel happened between the master and former student as Count Dooku saw that he can't defeat Yoda and there's a reinforcements coming for the republic he force collasped a collumn of a hanger near the place where Anakin and Obi-Wan was lying unconscious.
Yoda was forces to break out of the as he telepathically catched the xollumn to prevent it crushing the two.
Count Dooku used this opportunity to escaoe on his starship.
Meanwhile, as Padme and the clone named "finn" was tumbling on the sand a tall gigantic man in robe with his face covered in hood was slowly walking towards the two. This man is named Vulkan. When he left the arena in a rush he was once again wandering aimlessly not wanting to be caught on the war between the two sides as he deemed it too troublesome. But that was seemingly broken as a group lead by a floating motorcycle like object as he saw it was speeding pass him.
As he observed from a distance he saw that another ship was chasing the convoy of the speeder. Then he saw the escorts of the speeder did a maneuver and moved at the tail of the gunship where they opened fire. He then saw someone falling and he immediately recognized her as a human as he rushed to save them for he values human life greatly.
"Hello, I'm Vulkan." said Vulkan as he waved his hands on the woman named Padme who just regained her consciousness. The clone also managed to stand up as he saw Vulkan there he immediately pulled his sidearm and opened fire.
Vulkan sensed the incoming blaster bolt and evaded it at the last possible time. The blaster bolt was nanometers away from grazing the face of Vulkan when he evaded it totally shocking the clone.He just saw someone move faster that his eyes can track as if the man in front of him suddenly teleported due to his sheer speed.
Before the clone can fire another shot, Vulkan already closed in the distance between them and knocked the clone unconscious with a light punch to the liver as he thought the clone might be a human. Vulkan then removed the clone's helmet to ascertain if he's human.
As this was all happening Padme on the sand rubbed her temples and slowly regained her consciousness as she slowly sat up to observe her surrounding. The first thing she saw frightened her to the very core.