EAST OF EDEN ( anakin s. ) ✔️

027 | Every Dark Thought..

━━━━━━ ༻ 🌄 ༺ ━━━━━━
" every dark thought "
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━━━ ༻ CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN ༺ ━━━

          "I NEED A FULL GROUND REPORT by the end of the day, Captain," Anakin ordered sternly, though his shuttle had barely just landed on Felucian soil mere minutes ago. The operation had required for the majority of his legion to be sent ahead of his arrival to secure a ground military base, however, the already landed and hostile Separatist forces have been smart enough to raid the chosen facility while their numbers were below five thousand. Anakin and his envoy arrived while the battle was still in progress and though that atmosphere arrival was hours ago, to secure the base again enough to land was tedious, long work.

"Your troops have held their groud remarkably for these three days," Anakin made sure to compliment, though momentarily busy with picking some of the last uncomfortable remnants of synthetic skin from his mechanic hand. It was often that he had to stick his leather glove to his belt and pluck out what remained of the esthetic addition he had taken a risk into getting all those years back. Experimental by nature, that implant turned painful the more he used his hand, almost immediately after he had it, but though the removal process was successful back in the day, he still found bits of that melted synthetic skin building up uncomfortable sensation when he strained movements with tension. He was obviously inclined to do this cleanup of his hand while away from Eden, on one of these missions, despite her constant and downright adorable reassurance that his arm never bothered her and, in fact, never will.

You could never hurt me, Anakin, he heard her voice as clear as his own, keeping him company even while separated, holding him wrapped in warmth sufficient to threaten a smile on his lips.

"But let's get that communication tower fixed immediately," Anakin continued, plucking the bit of synthetic skin bothering him from between some of the wires in the very middle of his palm, "so we can avoid having our line to possible back-up unavailable." He paused his talking to put his glove back on.

"We are already on it, sir," Captain Rex confirmed with a short nod, walking besides Anakin at a constant pace, somewhere in the comfortable middle between a job and a walk, where their hurry was obvious, but not alarming. "The tower will be back on in ten minutes at most."

"Add to that report a rundown of all our losses so far and a map with all the remaining Separatist targets."

"Do we have the authorization to launch the attacks from here on?" Rex inquired, rather hopeful. He saw good soldiers go down in the fires of the battle these past days... but then again, he's seen so many of his men die since the beginning of the war that he doubted he'd ever not dream of war during his nights, short as they may be.

"Our official orders are to secure Felucia," Anakin reiterated what was written in the battleplan. "How we do so is of no interest to the Senate, nor the Jedi Council. So yes, I am planning on mobilizing our forces and taking out the facilities of the Separatists, at least three at a time, quiet and fast. We'll do this clean, because the less time we spend on this spore filled planet, the better."

"Yes, sir," Captain Rex answered without hesitation. It was only once he noticed that one turn on the hallway had brought into view the door to Anakin's allocated room that he stopped walking abruptly. "General," he called, uneasiness in his voice meeting the perplexity of Anakin's frown as he stalled a step ahead and threw a glance back over his shoulder. There, Rex finally got trapped in a hesitation of reassessing his words before speaking.

"Look, I am tired and I would like to get at least a nap before I read over the reports," Anakin sighed, his patience far too short to wait for Rex to explain his odd behaviour. After a good time spent travelling to Felucia, that aerial backup for the ground raid exhausted him more than a small victory usually would have. He couldn't afford a clogged mind for handling the battle strategies once he was updated on all he needed to know of their current situation, so even a short amount of sleep -really he did not have an expectation at more than an hour- was not just beneficial, but rather desirable for his best performance and efficiency. Under test, Anakin knew he'd be able to go at least four days without sleep, but the person he'd be by the end of those four days would consider completely destroying Felucia in a big cleansing fire over actually preserving the Republican bases on it, as the Senate wished, tactically.