He hesitated and looked down at her, and then an amused smile crossed his face. "It's a boundary rune. I had to go set a couple of others."
She furrowed her brow. "A boundary… for what?"
This time he chuckled a little bit. "You'll see."
He stepped past them and out to the edge of the foliage and stared out at the sight before. They had come to the perfect place. A location a few dozen feet above sea level and on a slightly risen root of a massive tree. Their location gave them a fantastic view of the scenic beach in front of them, and a perfect vantage point for the descending droid army. "There's the main invasion force," Shaak Ti had stated quietly, watching the lights descend.
"They have to know there's no way the Republic won't respond to this," Aayla had said quietly. "No matter how entrenched they get here the Republic has to respond to this attack on the Wookiees."
"The question is whether or not we have the resources to if they get a significant foothold," Shaak Ti responded quietly.
Aayla had no response to that. She knew the Republic couldn't just come in and do an aerial bombardment if they controlled enough of the planet. They'd devastate Kashyyyk's ecology. And if the Separatists got enough of a foothold then the loss to Republic forces to take back the planet would be astronomical.
Ahsoka was watching him, now she wasn't feeling his conflux of emotions. She had no idea what he was up to or what he had planned. She was just feeling his steely determination to follow through on whatever he had decided to do.
However, despite his silence and unmoving form, first Shaak Ti, then Aayla, then finally Ahsoka felt it.
A build up of the Force.
It was slow, like a steadily rising pressure. At the same time a warm wind began to pick up as an unexpected storm front blew through the area. It was a crosswind, totally contrary to the gentle cool winds that carried the salty scent of the sea, that had reached them when they first arrived. They felt it all around them, as if the Force was starting to get excited, to bristle with anticipation.
He ignored the conversation Aayla and Shaak Ti were having, and only Ahsoka had made the attempt to speak directly to him. When she asked him what he was doing he had turned to her and stared intensely for a few moments before he had simply replied, "Something I swore to myself that I would never do again."
"They really intend to take this planet. That has to be the largest occupying force I've seen yet in this war," Aayla spoke quietly amongst the three women when she finally realized that Harry was not going to get drawn into an explanation. "If they control Kashyyyk then they'll control the trade routes used by the Wookiees," Shaak Ti replied. "The Republic needs those routes too much to not counterattack as soon as they are able."
A voice cut in, one that hadn't spoken much in the past half hour, despite all of their attempts to coerce a response from the individual. "I doubt the trade routes are a motivating factor. They're merely a benefit."
All three turned to look at Harry sharply by his sudden entrance into the conversation. His look of intensity hadn't changed, though his brow had furrowed in a scowl as it looked to the distant horizon line where they knew the bulk of the enemy was even now on final approach to disgorge their troops. "We fought off a slave culling when we arrived. Now the entire planet is under assault," Harry stated his voice flat, even as the line of droid ships became visible on the horizon
Their enemies were now definitely on the move towards the city. A twinge of concern rose in all Aayla's stomachs. They had no true cover, and the Wookiees would not have been able to marshal their forces in the city to repel this attack.
The anxiousness of not knowing Harry's plan here was beginning to boil over.
He continued to speak though, as if discussing the weather, "Now, we have an adversary present in orbit who has brought enough firepower to put down any resistance on the planet by firing at the main capitals." "Instead though, they're positioning themselves in order to capture everything intact," Harry's voice was soft, and there was a decidedly dangerous quality to it now.
More and more of the landing ships began to fill the vista in front of them like a blot on the landscape. Harry stepped forward past the three women and they felt the wind pick up, as well as the sense of pressure building from the Force.
"Tell me, what is the true natural resource of Kashyyyk?" When none of them immediately responded, he answered his own question. "It isn't plants that can kill you… or the animals that live in the dark... that can also kill you…"
"It's too harsh of a world to farm anything that wouldn't be more commercially viable farmed anywhere else in the Republic." He continued to explain, as he took several steps out of the cover of the plants around them. "Any regime that wants to take over trade-routes that center on the planet merely needs to occupy the space the planet takes up, after wiping out all the inhabitants that would resist."
"That would create an outcry in many of the worlds currently aligned with the Separatists," Aayla interjected. "They would have a revolt in their own ranks if they did that."
"You're probably right. Maybe. Depending on how it was spun in propaganda," Harry conceded, "But that's not their goal either. The true natural resource of Kashyyyk lies in its people. The Wookiees themselves." Aayla sucked in a breath of horror as it clicked with her first, the other two just stared at the back of Harry's head as he continued to move forward. Slavery was always something at the forefront of her mind, after the Order itself had been the one to extract her from the life of a concubine and pleasure servant at the age of four, just hours after her own parents had sold her into that life.
The wind began to pick up even further, even as the droid army continued to descend slowly from the heavens, beginning to land more and more craft on the beach in the miles in front of their area. Despite the fact that the army appeared completely unaware of their presence, the way it currently looked gave the appearance that the entire army was preparing to march directly at them. Unsurprising given their current location between the beach and the city.
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