CloneWarsClub Challenge 2: ‘Rock Band’

Anakin had no idea what the strange Mandalorian named Lae Ruusaan Fett was thinking when she commed him to travel to Arca Company Barracks – the home of Special Operations – with a plea to arrive quickly. Ahsoka and Obi-Wan had received similar invitations, and Lae’s impromptu apprentice, Sena, was missing. So the Jedi trio began making their way for the barracks.

“I think I know what she’s up to,” Ahsoka pondered as Anakin flew through the towers of Coruscant, thoughtfully fingering one of her headtails. “’Cause I could swear I heard some weird sounds comin’ out of Lae’s room for a few days….”

“You were probably hearing things,” Anakin grumbled, trying not to let on the fact that Lae’s disappearance had scared him; ever since their little spat on Bespin, Anakin had been trying to get her to relax around him again. Ahsoka rolled her eyes, even as Obi-Wan leaned forward.

“Anakin.”

“Yes, Master?”

“You overshot the barracks. They’re now a megablock behind us.”

Anakin squeezed his eyes shut in frustration, even as Ahsoka snickered wildly and he just knew Obi-Wan was grinning.

“It’s a shortcut, Master. Stop worrying.”

“Anakin, the last time you said something was a shortcut, you ended up jumping out of the speeder,” Obi-Wan quipped, getting Anakin’s temper further worn. What was the phrase Lae had thrown out once? Munit tome’tayl, skotah iisa: long memory, short fuse. Maybe it was more accurate than he thought.

“Fine, I’ll get turned around,” he groaned, turning the speeder back around for the barracks and, this time, landing perfectly right outside the hangar. Of course, Ahsoka leaped out first, and went bolting almost immediately for the mousy-haired Jedi waiting for them: Sena. Obi-Wan stepped out second, and Anakin managed to pause a few moments to say to himself, only a couple times, “There is no emotion, there is peace...there is no emotion, there is peace...”

He eventually stepped out, and found that he’d been abandoned, save for one other person on the platform: a tall, willowy woman in her mind-twenties, brown hair curling smartly around her ears and amber eyes sparkling as she watched him approach. Lae Ruusaan Fett was the sort of girl that he’d thought Padme was: enigmatic, intriguing, always interesting to be around. Ever since those few weeks before Geonosis, however, Lae’s appearance in his life – despite its strange irregularity – had turned his preconceptions about Padme upside down.

Besides, he reminded himself as Lae shot him one of those smiles that he couldn’t help but shoot back. She was the one who’d helped him rescue his mother from the Tuskens. She’d held his hand when the technicians installed the prosthetic over his stump of a left hand. Not Padme.

“Long time, no see, An’ika,” she greeted him, eyes glimmering cheerily. At least, more cheerily than he’d seen in a long time. “C’mon, I’ve already got Kenobi and Ahsoka settled, Sena’s running the lights and speakers, so it should work out –“

“Maybe you tell me what’s going on first,” Anakin tried to press, even as Lae started herding him into the installation and starting to earn shocked stares from the wandering Special Ops troopers walking around. She just grinned at him infuriatingly.

“Not yet! You’ll see when we get there!” Lae hissed, and she eventually managed to chove him into a courtyard. Anakin paused, looking around and slightly confounded. There was a long, low stage set up, with some basic lighting, and Anakin spotted other clones dashing around, both on and off the set. Lae managed to set him down on a bench with Obi-Wan and two older, Mandalorian men. Obi-Wan, Anakin noted rather smugly, was looking the tiniest hint uncomfortable as he eyed the black-armored Mandalorian out of the corner of his eye.

“I hope you know what she’s planning, Anakin,” his former Master warned him, but all Anakin could do was shrug rather helplessly. The farther-seated Mandalorian, wearing sand-gold armor that reminded Anakin of the Dune Sea, sorted faintly as he grinned.

“Oh, knowin’ ner b’ad, it’s gonna be good,” he laughed. Anakin managed his own smile, while Obi-Wan seemed to stifle a sigh just as the faint lights went down. When the black curtains drew back, though, Anakin’s mind was whirling. There, perfectly arranged, was what looked like a glimmik band of some sort. He spotted Lae standing in front of a microphone, her mother, a blue-and-back-plated ARC he only knew as Stick, at the opposite end in a similar arrangement. A third singer Anakin recognized immediately: Bardan Jusik, a stringy-haired Jedi Knight who had attached himself very closely to the troopers. Behind them were three clones, two at the guitars and one behind a drum set. He noted, with a hint of trepidation, that the drummer had a large, smarmy grin on his face as he spun the sticks lightly between his fingers.

“Hello, hello, check mike,” Lae spoke, voice echoing around the courtyard. Anakin glanced around, noticing that there were a good handful of clones starting to appear. “All right, so, what we got today is somethin’ of a garage effort, just hope this works out smooth. Scorch, if you’ll kick us off, gedet’ye?”

“Since you asked!” the drummer, Scorch, laughed, and he expertly rapped the sticks together in a steady beat, grin never leaving her face. The commando with blood-smeared armor began strumming on the bass, and then the acoustic, managed by an equally-widely grinning commando in black armor, joined. Anakin felt the distinct sensation of a far-off drumming before Jusik stepped up to start:

“I heard the voices
Call over the sand and rocks.
Blood smeared my hands
And fear tore my thoughts.”

With a firm, soaring alto over Jusik’s baritone, Stick took up the thread:

“Run like madmen
Save our brothers and ourselves
Time against us since day one
And we’re not gonna lose this for the others.”

And then, Lae’s haunting voice soared above her mother’s, her amber eyes gleaming with the phantom pain Anakin had gotten to know very well.

“And I stand
Above the roar and the fires
I see my way before me
Yet the shadows beckon from the faraway places.”

If Anakin’s breath hadn’t been taken away by the sheer time and effort the whole thing had to have taken, it sure was when the three voices joined into one:

“This is our time
This is our place
This is the time
To come into the world
And lay claim to our place within.”

He stole a brief glance around as the bass rumbled in a small gap between the first and second verse. More clones had gathered, and were edging closer to where he, Obi-Wan, and the two Mandalorians were. Anakin swallowed as he returned his gaze to the stage, entranced by the words.

Lae was the one who began the second verse:

“Out of time and place
Face the past to return to where I belong.
And yet I see
The changes wrought with every move.”

Jusik and Stick edged closer to her, their voices roiling as Lae took a beautiful, longing descant over them:

“Our war, our battle
Ready for the tide together
But put us apart, tear to pieces
We will only become stronger for it.”

Then all three joined together for the next stanza, Scorch having a rather good time on the drum set in the background:

“Here we are
Facing the universe together
With heart and mind and soul
Always shall we be one!”

Anakin was startled when this last got a rousing cry to fire up from the sudden crowd of clones around them, a roar of “Vode an! Oya manda!” Of course, what better timing for the black-armored soldier to break into a solo, the crowd bursting out with the occasional mando’a phrase from time to time. But, slowly, the music itself began to die, and Lae took center stage, and, once all of the resounding echoes were dead, her voice cried out:

“Vode cuyi darasuum
Manda cuyi darasuum
Ca’ra cuyi darasuum
Bal aliit ori’shya tal’din!”

As the crowd roared in agreement, and the band bowed, Anakin found himself on his feet, suddenly realizing what was going on. This song, this whole group...they’d done it so the civilians could understand their side of the war. So everyone could realize the horrors they’d seen, were still seeing. As the group jumped down to accept congratulations and cheers, Anakin found himself smiling as he hooked his thumbs into his belt.

If anything, this would be a chart-topper. If it got outside the barracks.