“Katara?” Spike asked, looking between Katara and Kavar, before back at Katara again. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m your new padawan,” Katara reiterated, glancing at Kavar.

“I thought you just said that the whole point of me being promoted was to stop Padawans being dragged into the grinder,” Spike looked at Kavar, before glancing at Katara.

“I did,” Kavar nodded. “Spike, I don’t overly like this idea, but Katara was insistent. She wouldn’t serve under anyone else in the order, even after she won her final trial. Can you think of anyone else who won their final trial?”

“You made your point Kavar,” Spike sighed as he turned around to face Katara, looking her up and down again, before finally opening his mouth to speak. I accept you, Padawan Katara. Now, if there is nothing else Kavar, we have a siege to go and crack.”

“May the force be with you, Spike,” Kavar nodded.

“Funny story,” Spike grimaced, before turning and heading from the room. “Katara, let’s move out.”

“It’s good to see you again, Spike,” Katara smiled as they walked. “I worried that you wouldn’t have me as your padawan when we were travelling to meet you. The reports said you had been hurt, but I never thought it was quite this…bad.”

“Reports eh?” Spike snorted. “From military intelligence? There’s an ironic statement if ever there was one. The war doesn’t wait Katara, and if you want to join I would be a bastard to say no. You have every right to hate the Mandalorians, same as me. You were there at the beginning of the war, same as me. I think it’s only fair that you allowed the opportunity to see the end of the war, same as me.”

“But,” he stopped by the airlock to Harmony, placing his arm across the door and barring access to Katara. “I want you to take a look at me Katara, a long, hard look. This is the face of war, this is what this war has turned us into, I just show it a little better than most. If you let it it will chew you up and spit you out faster than you can blink. I have lost more flesh than your entire body weight combined, and these are just the scars of yesterday, it’s only going to get worse. So I give you one more chance. Go back to Kavar, to the temple. I will meet you when this is all over and I would be proud to be your master. But you step onto Harmony, and I cannot guarantee your safety, but I will damn well try to.”

“No offense, Spike, but I’ve made up my mind,” Katara smiled, ducking beneath Spike’s arm.

“Good girl,” Spike nodded, keying in the airlock code as a ghost of Katara’s smile flickered across his own face.

***

Spike stood by the holoprojector on the bridge, waiting for the table to flare into life, Katara standing beside him, looking anxious as she starred off into the space beyond the front viewport. It didn’t take much longer before the table finally flared into life, Spike fiddling with a few controls until the signal finally cleared up.

“Knight Surik,” Spike smiled, the familiar woman appearing on the table.

“Knight Spike,” she nodded in return.

“Actually it’s Master now.”

“My congratulations then. And who is your friend?”

“Padawan Katara, meet Jedi Knight, General Surik. Surik, this is my new Padawan, Katara. She was the only survivor on a planet sacked by the Mandalorians before the war.”

“An all too common occurrence,” Surik nodded.

“Enough pleasantries. Revan tells me that you in need of assistance. I have twenty thousand men at my disposal, ready to turn the scales once more. Say the word Meetra and we can rain fire on them.”

“Good, we all the support we can get. It’s bad down here Spike, very bad,” Meetra sighed, before the projection shrank down, allowing a map to replace the majority of the table. “Now, my forces are currently advancing up this line here. We are penned in by mountains on one side, and a minefield on the other, as well as being hampered by the planets wildlife. The army is also being bombarded by a heavy artillery emplacement here,” a circle appeared on the map as she spoke, “which has forced us to dig in deep. These long guns are capable of taking out most of our army if left unchecked, and they have enough flak to keep our air power off them. I have already sent a ground force to tackle the guns but there are Mandalorian soldiers defending them, and they will fight to the death. We need these guns silenced, Spike, I don’t want to have to march men across the minefields to escape this.”

“I’ll put my men to it,” Spike nodded. “What is the rest of the enemy looking like?”

“As far as we can tell this is the largest concentration of Mandalorians outside of their main base. They’ve been pulling troops out slowly over the past few days, but it hasn’t made a blind bit of difference. At every turn we lose ten men to their one. It’s hard to believe we’re winning this war.”

“We are winning, it just takes time,” Spike shook his head. “We’ll get it done Meetra, don’t contact us again, I don’t want to risk the Mandalorians finding out about us before it’s too late.”

“The Force guide you, Spike.”

Spike cut off the holoprojector before turning back to Lowell. “Ensign, signal the rest of the Special Forces fleet to exit Hyperspace at coordinates 22-34-76-13-07 and to prep for high altitude insertion.”

“Aye sir, coordinates 22-34-76-13-07, locked and sent.”

“Good,” Spike turned back to Katara. “Come, we have some time before we get there, I believe it is best that we talk.”

Nodding, Katara followed Spike, heading towards Spike’s quarters and waiting till the door slid shut behind him. “Now, I expected to have a Padawan, so I didn’t plan for what I’d do if I ever got one. I’m flying blind here, so I guess I’ll just fall back on what I was taught. Sit down and get out your Lightsaber.”

Spike watched as Katara crossed her legs and sat on the floor, drawing her own Lightsaber and placing it on her lap. It was a beautiful piece of work, the metalwork smooth and flowing, with not a single sharp edge to be found. It reminded Spike of his first saber, rather than the utilitarian design he had now, but he digressed.

“Reach out with the Force, feel your Lightsaber,” Spike began, watching as the weapon floated upwards. “Feel its parts, each one, no matter how tiny, plays a crucial role in the working of your Lightsaber, just as each soldier, no matter how tiny they may seem, plays a role in the war. Disassemble the Lightsaber.”

The parts slowly began to unscrew, hidden seams coming apart, and allowing the crystal matrix to be seen, along with the power core and wiring that held it all together, all of which soon began to float around Katara in a slow orbit, the Padawan keeping her eyes closed as she focused.

“Now, I will recite the crystal code. As I do, repeat it back to me and reassemble your Lightsaber, you’ll know how to do it, the Force will guide you.”

"The Crystal is the heart of the blade."

"The Crystal is the heart of the blade."

"The heart is the crystal of the Jedi."

"The heart is the crystal of the Jedi."

"The Jedi is the crystal of the Force."

"The Jedi is the crystal of the Force."

"The Force is the blade of the heart."

"The Force is the blade of the heart."

"All are intertwined."

"All are intertwined."

"The crystal, the blade, the Jedi."

“The crystal, the blade, the Jedi."

"We are one."

"We are one."

“We’re ready Katara, make yourself ready. We’re going to be plunging into hell.”

“Side by side,” Katara nodded. “You pulled me out of the fire last time, don’t you worry about me.”

“Oh, easier said than done,” Spike turned to leave, before he felt Katara place a hand on his wing.

“Spike?”

“Yes Katara?”

“Why don’t the Mandalorians just quit? We’ve pushed them back to their home planets now, they can’t win. Why don’t they just…give up?”

“Would you?” Spike asked wearily, before walking towards the rooms holoprojector and pulling up a camera feed from one of the satellites orbiting the Eres system, zooming in on the still burning planet of Eres III. “Do you see that? That’s a whole planet on fire, the fire still burns. I started this war killing Mandalorians on Ranox, then Eres, then Taris, now I’m about to kill Mandalorians on Duxn. It will end. Soon. But before it does, a lot more people are going to have to die.”

Spike turned to leave, leaving Katara looking at the projection of Eres III. Before he turned down the corridor, Spike turned back to look at her, the smile that was on her face now replaced with a stony expression that even he couldn’t read. In a way he felt bad for having robbed her of that innocence, but he knew that he hadn’t lied, and sugar coating things was only going to make it worse when the inevitability finally hit home.

“War never ends quietly, Katara,” Spike all but whispered. “The last war I fought in ended with the burning of Yarvin IV. I hope this war doesn’t end as loudly as it’s raged.”

***

Spike was silent as he stood in the hanger of Harmony, his bionic eye linked into the cameras dotted around the ships hull. He could see the rest of the Special Forces fleet all around Harmony, their engines burning brightly as they streaked towards the planet. He knew that in every ship, dropships were being readied, weapons were being checked and rechecked, and the men and women under his command were preparing for the fight ahead.

Switching from the ships camera back to his own eye, Spike looked around the hanger. Wolf Squad and a clutch of other men sitting tightly in the rapid deployment pods, while the others, including Katara, were sitting in normal dropships. As for Spike, he had his own way of getting to the surface.

“All commanders, check in.”

“Black one, reporting in,” Tarhal replied.

“Black two, copy that Black Actual,” Cortez was quick to follow Tarhal’s lead.

A host of other voices quickly sounded over the coms, before finally finishing, the link going silent once again.

“Alright, listen in, operation ground and pound is underway. These guns are heavily defended and we’ll be going in hot. We’re not going to have backup on this, and unless we can take out the anti-air and surface to orbit cannons, we’ll not be getting help from there. We’ll be landing as close to the guns as we can, rapid deployment pods first. If we take out the flak then dropships can land closer. If not, it’s an uphill slog. Failure is not an option, we take out their artillery pieces, no matter the cost. Nothing else matters, repeat, nothing else matters.”

Looking up, Spike ran his hand over the metal beast he had liberated weeks ago from the Mandalorian supply convoy. The Basilisk had not been easy to repurpose, the droid brain inside was stubborn to say the least, but even it could not last forever. It’s intelligence was now slaved to Spikes mind, and while it was only a fraction of the power of a true Basilisk’s brain, its weapons remained true to purpose.

Climbing on top, Spike felt the war droid growl at his presence, before bringing itself in line with his own thoughts. This would be the first time Spike had ridden it, and if he still had a heartbeat, he was sure it would be racing by now. Instead, he simply sat motionless as the pressure doors closed. He felt the air being sucked out of the hanger around him, tiny flecks of vaporized oxygen floating around in the vacuum as the red light in the hanger blinked.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The light went green, and suddenly the ship around him seemed to shoot upwards as the floor beneath Spike fell away, he and the droid passing through the atmosphere shields as they plummeted towards the planet below. All around him were small pods, each one streaking down beside him on little tongues of fire.

The clouds rushed up to greet them, before they sped past, the ground coming into sight for the first time, the artillery battery spread out before them, with trenches crisscrossing this way and that, disappearing into the surrounding jungles. As Spike watched, the cannons fired a volley, each one firing a split second after the one before it had. He had only seen such massive guns on a few occasions, the last time being at Taris, and he shuddered to think of the devastation that the shells would cause.

“Rapid deployment pod chutes deploying in three, two, one,” a mechanical droid voice sounded over the com link. “Chute deployment underway.”

Spike watched as the pods slowed down, retro rockets firing as well as the chutes, before looking forward again. He was not in a pod, and with a roar, he unleashed the Basilisks weapons. Shots hammered down onto the unsuspecting Mandalorians below, sending them scurrying from the cover that they had thought would protect them, until the shots came from above.

Making sure the connection between him and the droid was still strong, Spike pitched himself from the seat, slamming into one of the trenches with a soft thump. In an instant his Lightsabers were ready and the cannon on his arm primed as he let out another roar, firing at the fleeing Mandalorians, before leaping from the trench once more.

Let me out, Spike, this is where I excel, Desolation whispered in Spike’s mind.

“Too much potential collateral,” Spike grunted back, swinging his cannon round and stabbing his Lightsaber through a Mandalorians chest, before firing a single shot, reducing his head to little more than a cauterised hole. “Besides, I thought you hated our new body.”

Before Desolation could answer, Spike primed his cannon once more, a crosshair appearing over one of the larger flak cannons. It only took Spike a second to link his arm to his eye, and he unleashed a flurry of shots, peppering the gun with lasers, until something finally gave and it exploded in an all-consuming fireball, the men who had been manning it being pitched aside like rag dolls as Spike calmly advanced through the fire and the flames.

Even as Spike advanced, he could feel his Basilisk doing battle with the Mandalorians above, reeling in shock that one of their own droids had turned on them, before more fireballs drew Spike’s attention as yet more flak cannons were disabled. By now, the dropships were coming into view, and hundreds of soldiers began to spew from their bellies, blaster firing leaping between them and the Mandalorian lines.

It wasn’t difficult to pick out Tarhal and Katara, the former leading his own unit forward against the main cannons, while Katara ran towards Spike, deflecting shots back at their owners as they came towards her, or flipping over their heads in a nimble display of combat acrobatics, before finally coming to a skidding halt beside Spike, the pair raising their Lightsabers to guard them from incoming shots as they exchanged words.

“Nice of you to finally join us,” Spike chuckled.

“Yeah, well, not all of us get fancy droids or pods,” Katara shot back.

“No, you just have a nice cosy dropship, sipping cocktails on the way down,” Spike smirked. “But now you’re in the valley of the damned kid, ready to play with the big boys?”

“Are you still talking master? I thought we had guns to take out,” Katara darted forward as she spoke, Spike laughing as he pounded after her, her tiny frame barely coming up to his chest as the pair leapt into the Mandalorian lines.

Mandalorians screamed in terror as the two Jedi cut through their ranks like a hot knife through butter, the trenches that had once protected them from gunfire now meaning they could not bring enough guns to bear on the two Jedi cutting their way towards the guns.

“Black five, charges set, preparing to blow the gun in five, four, three, two, one.”

A huge explosion nearly sent Spike tumbling from his feet, Katara falling forward, before springing up again, turning the fall into a neat downwards stroke and continuing on, finally leaping out of the trench and running to the base of the cannon.

“Setting charges!” she roared over the din of battle, before beginning to set a series of thermal detonators around the base of the cannon, Spike doing the same, before he scooped her up, and with a powerful flap of his wings, sent them both flying backwards away from the blast zone.

“Black Actual, blowing charges now.”

The blast was louder this time, the trench walls no longer being present to muffle the sound, but it seemed to signal a turn in the battle. More blast rolled around the valley as Mandalorians turned to try and flee, only to be cut down by advancing soldiers, many of whom were not Special Forces, and looked battered and bloodied in the extreme.

Spike could still see a fight raging in the distance, Republic soldiers fighting against Mandalorians that surrounded them, and it did not take a genius to see that without immediate support, there wouldn’t be anything left of them.

“All nearby Republic forces, form up on the dragon, we’ve still got work to do people.”

Breaking into a slow run, Spike headed towards the beset soldiers, Katara and a host of other soldiers running alongside him. They didn’t encounter much resistance at first, the Mandalorians too busy running to attack them, but eventually that changed, and they had to fight for every step forward they took.

With fire, blaster shot, Lightsabers and fists, Spike and his men slowly advanced through the Mandalorian lines, driving a wedge through them to allow yet more Republic soldiers to pour in. It was no longer a case of if they would win, that much had already been assured, it was now simply a case of how long it would take, and how many more would have to die before everyone finally realised that the battle was over.

Spike growled as he cut down one of the last Mandalorians, the body falling away in two halves, allowing Spike to step forward towards the few remaining soldiers that had been in the ring of Mandalorians.

“Corporal Hart sir, first second battalion, Alderonian Regulars,” the man was clearly weary, a blaster burn clearly visible on his left shoulder and a pistol clutched tightly in his right hand.

“Jedi Master Spike, general of the Special Forces,” Spike replied. “You’re the highest rank left?”

“Left standing sir,” Hart nodded. “General Thanos is wounded, but I believe…”

“Thanos?!” Spike demanded, the soldier taken aback by the sudden shout. “Which one?”

“I…I don’t follow, sir,” Hart stammered.

“Male or female,” Spike enunciated slowly. “Who is it!?”

“Female, sir,” Hart replied, before grunting as Spike pushed him aside and sprinted towards where a gaggle of soldiers were kneeling down, some treating the wounded, while others simply seemed like they were happy to be alive.

Spike didn’t care about any of them though, stepping over and around them as he focused on the only one not wearing standard, finally stopping as he looked down at Corinna.

“Please no,” Spike whispered softly, taking in her wounds.

Her torso looked like it had been shot at least a half dozen times, the thin armour that she was wearing warped and fused to her flesh probably being the only reason that she was still alive, if barely. Her right arm was twisted at an unnatural angle, and a large bone was sticking through the skin of her right leg. The least damaged part of her looked to be her head, and that was saying something, considering the fact that most of the right side was swollen up, forcing her eye closed.

“S-Spike?” she wheezed, looking up at Spike with the one eye that she could still open. “You’re a…sight for sore…eyes.”

“Corinna?” Spike shook his head as Corinna passed out. “You’re not meant to be here, what are you doing here?!”

His anger gave way to the onset of panic as he knelt beside her, turning to Katara. “Do you know any first aid?”

“N-Nothing that will help here,” Katara shook her head.

“Then stand back,” Spike ordered, before gently picking Corinna up and activating his coms. “This is Black Actual. We have a priority one casualty. I am taking her to a Republic field hospital for immediate treatment. Black One, you have command.”

With that, Spike flapped his wings hard, propelling himself into the sky, flying faster than he had in a long time, forcing himself to his limits. No matter what he may have thought of Corinna for her actions on Cathar, only one thought was on his mind.

Not this time.