Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original Star Wars characters. I do own the OCs, though. I do not make a £ from this.

This comes from an idea I had after watching the Clone Wars S3 episode ARC Commandos depicting the Separatist Assault on Kamino, in which there is the infamous scene in which Asajj Ventress rejects Grievous' offer of help.
My boyfriend saw it and was like: "Poor general, that was the worst flirt attempt ever."

It got me thinking about why would the Grievousl flirt with Ventress, apart from the obvious (I mean, look at her!)
Then I was idling my time away on wookieepedia and read that before he became a cyborg, Grievous had had a very tight relationship with a female battle-buddy/lover/wife, Ronderu lij Kummar, which was as kickass as him and very much an independent woman.
It made sense that he would be drawn to the one female character which shared the same sort of characteristics.

It also made sense that he would feel lonely and isolated and ever more angry because of this.
If you think about it, apart from Sidious and Dooku, which are without excuses, most of the Darksiders are traumatized, isolated and abandoned and become evil to get revenge/grow stronger than their persecutors/etc...
Maybe, I thought, if you take away the isolation and give them positive personal relationships, they will behave in a different way: show more empathy, be more responsible for the people they lead. This is also where my OCs, the Gunners, come into play.

I suppose the whole point of this fic, apart from some shits and giggles, is that isolation destroys empathy and makes people worse than they would be.

I am going with the comic-verse version of the first time the two main characters met, namely when Dooku lured Asajj Ventress and Durge onto a space station where Grievous was waiting with orders to PWN anyone who got in. It didn't end well for Asajj and Durge.
I am assuming the assault on Kamino was not the first time they had to collaborate and that Dooku enjoys seeing them go at each other's throat.

I am also taking a plot point from an alternate version of why did Grievous end up as a cyborg, which said that he had been rejected from Jedi training (possibly after trying as a youngling). I am going with the "blown up with all his comrades in a spaceship explosion" explanation from Labirynth of Evil and the comic Eyes of the Revolution, but I'm keeping the nearly-Forceful angle. It explains neatly how him and Ronderu were able to fight "as one" during the Huk wars. It might seem a lazy solution to some issues, but hey, things are hard enough like this.

Finally, I know a lot of people loathe this pairing, but I can't care less.

Flame all you want. I am fireproof.

Enjoy!

The tri-wing shuttle glided silently through space.
Even on the inside, the spaceship was eerily quiet, the gloomy silence broken only by the laboured breathing of the white-armoured cyborg sitting in the pilot's seat.
At the back of the shuttle, a few of his Magna Guards huddled in standby mode, but they made no sound and didn't interact with him in any way.
Usually, Grievous was pleased about this state of affairs: he didn't particularly like talking to droids outside of work, before people missed the difference, and, in any case, it wasn't as if droids had actually something interesting to say.
As a result, the fact that whoever had assembled and programmed his Magna Guards had failed to enable them to talk was usually welcome, but in that particular moment it felt... wrong.

There should be voices at the back of his ship: idle chatter, laughter, even songs.
If he just closed his eyes he could almost hear them, like a sound at the edge of his hearing range.

A golden voice singing a love song, accompanied by a string instrument, and another, darker and deeper, trying to sing over it, transforming the song into a rowdy, bawdy shanty.
Other voices laughing and someone complaining about how he was driving and he replied that he was driving like that because they had wanted to get there fast, and if he had to drive like the other wanted, they'd get there in a month...

He could almost recognise the voices and the faces to which they belonged, but as soon as he tried to concentrate on them, they slipped between his fingers like so much sand.
Grievous cursed and thumped his fist against the controls, feeling an acute sense of loss fill him. Loss of what, he could not say, but it hurt and he was thoroughly fed up with hurting.
He gunned his ship to full speed and veered towards an asteroid field nearby, zipping between the first few floating boulders without even pausing for thought.
All his concentration and his cybernetic-enhanced reflexes were required just to pick the best course in a series of split-second decisions. He had no time to delve on the past, no time to feel anything but the adrenalin pumping frantically through what was left of his veins, and the glorious, heady sensation of living in the moment.

He was supposed to return to base on Raxus Secundus after his earlier meeting with Count Dooku, but he really wanted to see who would have the nerve to begrudge him a bit of free time.
It was not like he had a life, outside his service in the Separatist army, he thought wistfully, traversing a relatively free section of the field.
Blessedly, the asteroids clustered again on his path, packed like trees in a forest, and he didn't have any more time to think, only to react, turning left and right, climbing or dropping in fractions of a second to avoid collisions and once even going straight through a gap in an asteroid which was barely large enough to let the shuttle through. It wasn't like flying on the Soulless One, but it was still good.
The sheer frustration of living an artificial life didn't have any space in those blessed moments when he could just be, break the leash and burn through life like there was no tomorrow. He could even forget for a moment the metal body that was both unescapable prison and weapon to him.

Obviously enough, his commlink started to beep, dragging him back to the real world.
Sighing, he veered out of the field and tapped the controls to allow the holo-call through. A bluish, translucent rendition of Count Dooku's aquiline profile materialised over the control panel.
Grievous sighed again. What did the old man want from him already? He had just left his private residence on Serenno after a thorough debriefing and an equally thorough beating on the training arena, and, to be perfectly honest, he had had enough of the human aristocrat to last him for at least a few weeks.
"General. - Dooku greeted with a sketchy nod - I have just received news from commander Tok Ashel. It looks like we have a situation on Naqdaa."
"A situation?" Grievous inquired. The only thing he knew about the planet was that the Neimoidian had been sent there with an expeditionary corps to occupy it and appropriate its useful, if unspecified, natural resources.
Dooku limited himself to a nod by way of explanation. "I want you to get there promptly, relieve commander Ashel and complete the mission." he instructed in that haughty, high-handed tone of his that was often enough to nearly send him flying off the handle.
Grievous held tight to his fraying self-control and nodded obediently because he had no other choice. It had been the Separatists who had payed to put him back together after the Jedi had blown him to pieces, and it was still them who were sending money and relief to his kin, down on Kalee.
He had a debt of honour and otherwise with them, so he had to obey and endure whatever humiliation, small or not so small, they decided to heap on him.
"Yes, my lord." he managed to rasp.
Dooku nodded again, looking pleased with his obedience. "I am sending you the coordinates for the hyperspace jump and some briefing material. I expect you to be there in under a standard hour." he declared and, just like that, he cut the communication.

Grievous allowed himself to curse loudly in frustration and cut the communication from his side as well.
Promptly another electronic beep informed him that there was an incoming data transfer. He sighed and accepted it. The files pinged in his terminal in a handful of seconds.
Grievous copied the stellar coordinates file to the shuttle's navigation system and watched it calculate the route. It would take him a bit before he had to jump straight into the upper atmosphere of Naqdaa.
Sighing again, he activated the autopilot, letting it take the ship to his ingress in the lane. Meanwhile, he opened the other, decidedly bigger, file and started poring over his quite detailed contents.
Whoever had done the reconaissance for that particular mission had done a thorough and commendable job. The forested terrain had been carefully assessed, the defence systems accounted for, and the buildings and infrastructures that would constitute primary and secondary targets of the expedition clearly identified on the map. There were even static holos of several key features of the operations area.

The planet was inhabited by a technologically advanced, man-sized, insectoid race, which could field high numbers of troops from the warrior and drone castes, armed with their natural pincers and spikes and with blasters. There was a holo of one of the Naqdaan footsoldiers enclosed in the briefing: they looked like Huk enough to make his metaphorical hackles rise, and make him itch to squash the blasted buggers to a paste.
The material was clear enough and the task looked straightforward, but leave it to a greedy Neimoidian to make everything go tits up...
He would bet that the idiot had let himself be distracted by secondary objectives to plunder, instead of ploughing straight to the palace and getting rid of the leadership and the nests.
And, obviously, the idiotic commander had not fully reported on the current situation on the ground, in a pathetic attempt to cover his incompetence, so he would have to go in blind...
Grievous tried to calm himself by taking deep breaths, but that only triggered the cough that lurked in his chest ever since the accident, making him feel even more frustrated. He repressed the impulse to scream or break something. There would be plenty of targets for his anger on Naqdaa.

Fifty-two standards minutes later, Grievous' shuttle decanted from hyperspace near the outer fringe of the atmosphere of Naqdaa. He could discern a ring-shaped Neimoidian battleship stationed nearby in blockade position, supported by a couple of frigates.
Everything seemed calm in that sector at the moment, but it was evident that the ships had seen some heavy action. Repair droids were swarming on one of the frigates , the Hidden Stinger, busily sealing shut a sizable gap in its outer cladding. The battleship was in a remarkably similar predicament.
The other frigate, an older model whimsically named Auntie Fist, appeared to be minus one of her hyperspace engines. She could still jump, probably, but he wouldn't want to try himself.
Grievous switched on the comm and tapped in the main operations frequency, sending a holocall request to the flagship.
A Neimoidian officer promptly answered, looking sick with worry.
"What an unexpected pleasure, General... - he said, looking and sounding anything but pleased - Do you require any assistance?" he added, nervously wringing his bony hands.
"Are you commander Tok Ashel?" Grievous asked curtly, pleased and irritated at the same time by the Neimoidian's reaction to his call.
"No, sir." he quickly replied, shaking his head. His silly and pretentious flowerbud headdress wobbled and nearly fell. "I'm..."
"I don't care who you are. - Grievous interrupted, glaring daggers at the Neimodian - Where is your commanding officer?"
The Neimodian squeaked before he could fully control himself. "H-he's gone planetside with the troops. - he managed to reply - He should be at the airstrip now. I can give you his coordinates..." he offered.
Grievous nodded and the file promptly pinged on his dashboard. Not too far from his current position, he noted with satisfaction.
"You can find him on frequency 4.7 MHz. Do you want me to alert him that you are looking for him?" the officer proposed timidly.
"You will do nothing of that sort. - Grievous barked - And if I discover you have disobeyed my orders, once I'm finished down there, I'll personally come looking for you, understood?"
The Neimoidian started seriously hyperventilating and nodded, muttering a compilation of "Yessir... Nosir... I would never... I assure you..."
Nauseated by his cowardice, Grievous cut the communication and locked the navigation system to Tok Ashel's supposed coordinates.
The shuttle started the descent through the atmosphere.

Down there it was early afternoon, and the system's bright yellow sun was shining merrily over the forested canopy of the equator of the planet, where the action was concentrated around the capital.
Soon he could make out a strip of bare land wedged between what looked like plantations interspersed with factories and a strip of sandy beaches lining a bay at the end of which a big port was situated.
Grievous deactivated the autopilot and took command once again, activating the cloaking.
The ship descended fast and circled the area once.
What looked like a bitterly contested fight was still going on in the few square miles comprised between the airstrip, the port and the first factory, a warren of tropical vegetation, marshland and sand, and it looked like the droids under Tok Ashel's command had been cut off from their landing, and were currently trying to break the Naqdaan defences back towards the airstrip.
The small rearguard stationed at the airstrip was huddled among the hangars and under heavy fire from the air, where clusters of winged insectoids were hovering and firing extralarge blaster. A ring of blaster-armed footsoldiers was trying to encircle their position.
The Naqdaan had let the males out of the hive, it seemed.
According to the reconnaissance, the males would be hungry and frenzied, and they would fight like demons for all their short lifespan, before dropping down dead in a few days. They were also big enough to carry away a Neimoidian or a battle droid. It would surely make things more interesting, so to speak...

Grievous sent the ship in a nosedive, then veered at the last moment to careen through the pack of winged assailants. The smacks and thuds of their chitinous bodies against the ship's cladding sent a ripple of satisfaction through him.
Down on the airstrip, the Naqdaan seemed confused by the fact that their males had been smashed off the sky by an invisibile force.
The droid troopers didn't react, probably their programming didn't know how to deal with the unexpected occurrence, but a few organic troopers, a bit more spirited, jumped out of their covers and promptly dispatched those of the males that were still moving, before the Naqdaan could form a coherent reaction.
Grievous thought he had seen a glimpse of red among the confusion. There must be one of Dooku's wannabe Sith on the field.
He veered again and deactivated the cloaking, circling low over the defenders and strafing the Naqdaans once before landing as close as possible to the cover of the buildings.
"Prepare to deploy! We're under enemy fire!" he commanded the Magna Guards. The droids reactivated from standby mode, red photoreceptors blinking and stabilising on a ruby glow.
He didn't actually need to speak to them to command them, he could just use the wireless antennas the Geonosians had implanted on him to communicate soundlessly with his troops, but he was reluctant to do it, unless the situation strictly required it.
Talking to his droid bodyguards helped him keep up the illusion that those were actually his best, most loyal warriors, the men who would willingly follow him to Hell and back, and not just some stupid, soulless contraptions programmed to do his bidding.
Sometimes he thought that these small deceptions were the only things keeping him even remotely sane.

When he jumped off the ship, Magna Guards in tow, the small rearguard had reorganised itself enough to give them cover with suppressing fire from a mounted blaster cannon, still a couple of blaster bolts managed to chip the cyborg's white armour.
"Who is in charge here?" Grievous asked, taking in the handful of still operational droids and the group of battered and tired Neimoidian Gunners. Tok Ashel must think highly of himself to have requisitioned so many of Neimoidia's finest, such as they were. These ones looked even more scrawny and pathetic than usual, but at least they were holding their own.
"I am." a husky, female voice answered.
His least unfavourite Dark Acolyte slinked out of the shadows, twilrling her twin ruby sabers before deactivating them.
Asajj Ventress' fine-featured face was drawn and tired, and her white skin stained with blue-ish insect blood. As usual, she was wearing as little as she could get away with: a blue crop top that left her back uncovered, a long dark skirt and some wrappings around her arms and midriff. She stalked towards him with an irritated expression, her skirt twirling around her legs and her bare feet.
Grievous couldn't help but let his eyes wander and was rewarded with a glimpse of a slender and shapely ankle.
She was as beautiful as she was deadly, and as deadly as she was insolent. The damned witch could always make him feel extremely confused and frustrated, so much that most of the time he didn't know whether he hated her, or wanted her, or both at the same time.

"What are you doing here, witch? And where is Tok Ashel?" he asked, trying to set aside his personal concerns, and to consider the situation dispassionately.
Did Dooku send her in as well in another attempt to pit them against each other? For all his wisdom and Dark Side knowledge, the human aristocrat didn't seem able to grasp the fact that a divided command could only result in failure.
Asajj Ventress shrugged her slim shoulders. "Who knows where the idiot is at the moment? - she replied, among the silent grimaces of the Gunners - He is trapped in the port, or dead, as far as I know."
"What possessed him to attack the blasted port in the first place?!" Grievous exclaimed, already exasperated.
The witch shrugged her shoulders again. "Durasteel ore. There was a large shipment of it lying in port." she replied. Grimacing in disgust, she wiped a splatter of blue-ish ichor from her face. "Blasted bugs..." she muttered.
"It was a trap." Grievous stated without doubt.
"Anyone but a greedy idiot would have figured that out." Asajj replied, nodding curtly.
"And Tok Ashel is a greedy idiot." Grievous concluded, taking out his blaster and briefly emerging from the cover of the hangar to add a few bolts of his own to the storm that was raging on both sides. It wasn't as satisfying as spraying pieces of bug around in a radius of few feet with a high-caliber slugthrower rifle, but it was still effective.
The witch nodded again, picking up a rifle from a fallen Gunner lying on the ground dead and shrivelled and chipping in with a few shots of her own.
"This still does not explain what you are doing here." Grievous insisted, flattening himself against the cover of the building once again. It wasn't the tightest corner he had ever found himself in, but it was quite bad.
"I was in the area and overheard the emergency comms. - she explained - After all the effort I put into this blasted mission, I couldn't let that grub ruin it without doing anything."
"The reconnaissance! It was you..." Grievous commented, not too surprised to tell the truth.
She was a perceptive and capable witch, after all. There were few other CIS officers he would have thought of as possible authors of the briefing material.
In fact, if she was not such an insolent bitch, he could even enjoy her company: she was a competent officer, could hold her own in a battle and had enough devious imagination to outwit the Republicans. It wouldn't be too bad working with her, if not for her lack of respect.

"Ah, so someone has actually read my report..." she purred, spraying the Naqdaan with more blaster fire.
"Well, obviously! Who would go into an operations theatre without having read the intelligence?" Grievous retorted, rather piqued. The witch gave him a sidelong glance, which told him everything he needed to know.
"Ah, why did I ask?" he lamented, rolling his eyes.
"So, how long has Dooku been keeping you in reserve for this mission?" she asked, looking at him with interest.
After more than a year living like that, Grievous had got to know all the kinds of looks people gave him: the disdainful glance of those who thought that his mostly mechanical nature made him less than they were, the complete avoidance to look in his direction, the quick side-glances of those who didn't want to look but were unable to repress their morbid fascination. Only few people truly looked at him, and even less truly saw him. The witch was one of those few and he didn't know whether to be pleased or disquieted by the intensity of her regard.

Setting these thoughts aside, Grievous took aim down the barrel of his blaster and exploded the head of a Naqdaan with a shot through a composite eye. "About an hour. I was going back to base on Raxus Secundus when he commed me about this mess." he rasped. She considered him for a moment but did not comment.
Something hissed in the distance and they dove for the ground just in time before an RPG shell took out a chunk of the wall behind which they had been hiding.

"Fucking bugs!" Asajj cursed, nearly facedown among the rubble.

"Trade your gun with mine, witch." Grievous proposed, offering his blaster pistol to the woman.
She readily handed him the unwieldy Neimoidian rifle and took the proffered pistol, settling down to shoot with much more gusto than before.
Grievous shouldered the big gun and crept to the edge of the cover, scanning the crowd of Naqdaans in search of the commanding officers.
"The thinner one with the green headdress." the Dark Jedi suggested.
Grievous nodded and raised the gun, sighting the bug.
He took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. The bolt went straight through the bug-in-chief's head and it fell to the ground.
Grievous shot five more times and five more bugs died, including the one carrying the RPG.
It felt so natural to shoot like that, with the stock of the rifle pressed against his shoulder and his mask. He couldn't for the life of him remember when he had learned to do that, it felt like he had always known. The gun didn't recoil in his hands and all the way into his shoulder as he squeezed the trigger like a slughthrower would do, but the feeing was close enough. It made him feel ages younger.
"That's some impressive shooting..." the witch commented appreciatively, and for a moment he felt inordinately proud of himself, like a fifteen-year-old, just awarded his warrior's mask, who had managed to impress a girl from his village.
"It is a pity they don't program this sort of aim into all battle droids..." she added with a knowing smirk and a wink.
All his good humor disappeared in a moment, dissolved by a red-hot wash of rage and indignation. Grievous took a menacing step towards her, but her smirk didn't disappear.
He should kill her... He would kill her...

Another RPG shell came whistling in and they both ducked for cover, their enmity momentarily forgotten.
Fired in hasty retaliation, the shell went high and wide...
High and wide enough that it hit one of the engines of Grievous' shuttle. The fuel ignited and the explosion was big enough to send all that were not already kissing the permacrete sprawling to the ground, and to deafen everyone.
Grievous shook his head to try and clear it. "I liked that shuttle, you buggers!" he yelled, popping up long enough to shoot and drop the Naqdaan holding the RPG.
A few shots whizzed his way, but he was already behind cover.
"You on the roof! - he shouted to the few Gunners posted there with their rifles - Drop any bug that so much breathes near that bloody RPG, understood?"
"Yes, Sir!" someone yelled in response and the blaster bolts started whizzing back and forth with renewed purpose.
"Everyone else, I want suppressing fire on those buggers! Don't let them pop their heads from the grass! This includes you with that cannon! Don't spare any shots, but make them count!" he instructed, ignoring the pointed looks the witch was giving him. There would be time to deal with her later, after he had gotten them all out of this mess.
A mixed chorus of "Roger, roger!" and "Yessir!" responded to his orders.
Grievous nodded with a hint of satisfaction: that would give him a bit of time to invent something.
"What's in the hangars?" he asked the witch, without even turning to look at her.
"Sorry?" she replied. Her voice sounded confused.
Grievous turned towards her frowning face. "What. Is. In. The. Bloody. Hangars?" he repeated, nice and slow, so that even a stupid bitch like her could understand.
She shot him a hateful glance, but replied anyway. "Just some cargo landspeeders."
"Big?" he asked.
"Big." she confirmed even though she kept on frowning.
"And armoured?" he insisted.
"Lightly, but what...?" she protested, then her icy eyes widened in realisation. "Ah! I think I know what you mean to do, clanker boy..." she almost purred, dark lips curved in a predatory smile.
Grievous decided to ignore the nickname, he could always add it to her tally and set the account right at a later time.
"Then jury rig as many as you can. You have about twenty standard minutes." he instructed.
The witch nodded. "I'll see if I can find some flammable material as well."
Grievous felt a twinge of fierce satisfaction at that exchange. It had been a while since someone went along with his plans without him even having to fully explain them. It looked like him and the witch were on the same page. It was a rare boon.
"Take Three and Four with you, in case there is heavy lifting to do. - he instructed, gesturing to two of his bodyguards - I don't want your physical weakness to interfere with the success of the mission." he added, as neutrally as he could, even though he was secretly pleased to be able to get back at her. He just couldn't help himself.
The witch grimaced but took the insult with apparent good grace.
"Be back in twenty." she confirmed, slinking away into the shadows between the buildings. The two Magna Guards tailed her, softly clanking as they moved.
Grievous forced himself to get his thought back on track and set aside his problems with the witch. First things first, he told himself, and in this case it was evacuating whatever troops he had left to regroup and mount a new assault later.

"Who's the comm officer here?" he shouted.
A Gunner crawled away from his piece of cover, low on the ground but with the rifle tight in his hands. Maybe this lot had received better training than most, Grievous mused.
"Comm's dead, sir! - the Gunner said, jerking his head towards the shrivelled corpse from which Asajj had taken the rifle - Down on first assault, poor sod. I've got the comm apparatus for now." he added, shaking his head mournfully. Maybe that had been a friend.
"Get it on 4.7 MHz and get whoever is left in command at the port, as quick as you can!" Grievous ordered, turning back to the fight and selecting a target.
One of the buggers was inching towards the RPG, low enough in the grass to be barely visible.
Grievous sighted it, waited for the right moment... and someone from the roof stole his kill.
"Ha! Eat this, bloody buggers!" a young voice shouted in triumph.
Slightly miffed, but still pleased that the Gunners were actually following his orders, Grievous switched target and let fly, dropping another grenadier wannabee.
"Whoever made that shot, you'll get double rations once we're back to base!" he shouted.
For some reason, food was always a powerful motivator and reward for Neimoidians. His proclaim was saluted by a chorus of yells of joy and envy. Now they would all be trying harder.
Grievous sighed. It was much easier and more satisfying to lead organic troops in battle. They had purpose, motivation, and most important, talent. With the right command, they could succeed in spite of numerical odds, out of superior training, enthusiasm and sheer faith in their own success. The Republican troops kept on pulling that sort of stunts, much to his chagrin.

"I've got him, sir!" the newly minted comm officer announced, looking at him with pride for a job well done. He seemed completely unfazed by the bolts whizzing and ricocheting around.
Grievous thought he must have happened on a weird bunch of Neimoidians.
"Put him through." he ordered.
The Gunner nodded and flipped the holo-switch. A translucent Neimoidian figure with a stupid headdress appeared.
"General Grievous, I'm Commander Den Lotok." he said, looking quite harried.
"Where is Tok Ashel?" Grievous barked.
The Neimoidian cringed visibly. "He is... indisposed at the moment." he replied, wringing his hands so much that it must have hurt.
The idiot was either dead or too scared to bother answering the comm, Grievous deduced.
"I'm taking command of this circus from now, Commander Lotok. - he announced - I don't know what Ashel might have told you, but this mission has failed. The position is untenable."
Lotok looked like he might have protested, but Grievous didn't leave him the opportunity to do so.
"Listen to me, you greedy idiot! - he bellowed - We're split in half and nearly surrounded, and there is no aerial support. Be ready to leave your positions at my signal. We'll break the encirclement and regroup here at the airstrip. I'll arrange for pickup with the flagship." he ordered.
The Neimoidian cringed and mumbled something generally affirmative.
Irritated, Grievous signalled to the comm officer to cut the call, which he promptly did.
"Creep up to your mates, officer, and tell them to be ready for action. - he instructed as quietly as he could - I want the best snipers to stay on the roof whatever happens. Everyone else, wait for my orders. Go! Head down and be quiet! I don't want the buggers to overhear." he added.
The Gunner nodded affirmatively, did a sketchy salute and crawled back to his comrades. Grievous saw them start to chat with those weird Neimoidian hand-signs, then one of them broke away from the group and crept quietly to the next pocket of Gunners. How oddly competent...

Grievous used his own comm to call the unnamed officer from the flagship. The poor sod looked even less happy to see him than before.
"The mission is being aborted, commander. - he announced as quietly as the vocabulator allowed - I want all troop-carrier craft you can spare at the airstrip in 45 standard minutes. Aerial support would be nice too."
The Neimoidian could only nod. "But, General... We lost many gunships in the landing and in the hauling of the ore."
Grievous would have ground his teeth in irritation if he had been able to.
"I surmised so. Send what you can, anything that can hold troops, and be on time." he ordered, glowering at the hologram.
With a sketchy bow, the officer cut the communication.
Grievous turned back to the fight and unleashed his frustration on the Naqdaan. Soon he would be able to tear them apart close and personal, but, for the moment, punching them full of holes would suffice.

The twenty standard minutes he had given the witch were nearly over when she slinked back to his position to report.
"We've got four trucks ready to roll." she announced, smirking and cleaning her grease-stained hands on her skirt.
"Any payload?" Grievous asked, crouching next to her.
"Only few gallons each, but it's spacecraft fuel." she replied with a certain satisfaction.
"Can't ask for better." he approved, with what would have been a smirk of his own, if he'd had a mouth to smirk with still.
He gestured to the comm officer and the Neimoidian crawled back to them.
"Time to make that call, officer." he announced. The lad nodded eagerly and set out to work, coding the frequency a bit clumsily but fast enough. With a bit of training, he'd make a pretty good officer.
"Who's driving them?" the witch asked, jerking her head towards the rigged trucks.
Grievous glanced at the handful of B1 droids he had at his disposal, considering, then discarded that thought. They would need all the firepower they could use.
"We'll rig the steering. - he replied - They only need to go straight."
"Can you do that?" she doubted, quirking an eyebrow and pouting slightly.
"A kid could do that. Let's go." he replied, darting out of cover and towards the hangars. The witch, Three and Four followed him in single file.
As expected, the cargo speeders were a fairly common model, used by enterprises all over the Galaxy.
Grievous ripped a section of steel pipe from the wall of the hangar and jammed it between the spokes of the steering wheel, bending at the ends so that it would not dislodge.
"Is this it?" the witch asked disdainfully.
Grievous shrugged and moved to the next truck. "It's not hyperspace science. It only needs to work for a short while. - he replied - Assmble everyone here except the snipers and the droid operating the cannon."
The witch nodded and ran out.

By the time he had finished with the trucks, all his troops, minus the ones on sniper or artillery detail, were assembled in the hangar.
It was probably high time for a rousing speech. He hadn't given any speech to his troops in what felt like forever. What is the point of making the effort, when one's command is made entirely out of droids, who don't actually have a morale?
But now there were the Gunners and the witch and it felt as good an occasion as any to give it a try.
Grievous cleared his non-existent throat in a reflexive gesture for which he mentally berated himself straight afterwards.
Everyone was looking at him expectantly, but none more than the witch, who, judging from her amused little smirk, seemed to be intentioned to see him make a fool of himself.
"Soldiers! - he started in an almost conversational tone, linking his hands behind his back to prevent himself from gesticulating - The situation is quite bad, I won't hide it. You have seen it for yourselves: the troops in the port are isolated and we are outnumbered. We need to find a way of reconnecting with the main body of the expedition for evacuation, before we're overrun." he explained and he could see that his words did nothing to kindle the enthusiasm of the troops.
What was he supposed to say to a bunch of people and droids he barely knew? How was he supposed to bridge the gulf between them?
"You've all been very brave in the face of danger and kept this position despite numerical odds. You've worked hard, and now I'm going to have to ask you another big effort, but I'm doing this because I know you can can make it. - he continued, making it up as he went along - We need to break the front and help our comrades from the port through. I know we're few, but if you follow me, we'll make it through. Do you know what are these?" he asked in a fit of inspiration, pointing to the trucks.
Among the troops there was a moment of confusion.
"Ermmm... Trucks, sir?" one of the Gunners tentatively answered.
"No, soldier. - Grievous retorted - These are traps. You see, Commander Ventress here has kindly stuffed them full of fuel." he explained, nodding politely in the witch's direction. Better if the troops saw a united command.
The witch nodded back, looking pleased about the acknowledgement. "We'll send them forth, - he continued - the buggers will concentrate their fire on them and... Kaboom! as they say..."
His troops started to giggle and snort in anxiety-fueled battlefield hilarity.
"We'll only have to march in after them to mop up the survivors. - Grievous reassured - Commander Ventress and I will go out and play a bit and you will give us cover. How do you like this plan?" he asked genially.
For some reason the Gunners roared their approval and he couldn't help but feel a little bit proud, not just of himself, but also of them.
"Then let's go, lads! - he exhorted - Skirmish formation! Light on your feet and look out for incoming fliers! And get ready to do an about-face when we contact the others!"
There was another chorus of yells as the troops formed up behind the trucks.
"Three, Seven, open the doors!" Grievous ordered, dashing to the first truck, ready to switch it on.
The hangar doors started creaking on their hinges and opened painfully slow. As soon as the outside light could filter in, blaster bolts started zipping in their direction. The doors were too slow!
"Topside! Fire at will!" Asajj yelled, unleashing enough Force to bend the metal door outwards.
Grievous switched on the first truck, toggled the acceleration dial to full speed and broke it with a punch. He had barely time to leap off, before the vehicle shot away at full steam.
"Witch! Hold it!" he yelled, seeing Ventress move to the next truck. He mentally counted to twenty, factoring in the speed if the truck, the distance of the Naqdaan infantry and the radius of the blast.
"Now!" he ordered, then. The second truck shot past him as the first explosion made itself heard.
"Third ready!" yelled one of the Gunners, balancing on the step of the cabin.
Grievous counted again, raising a hand to still the eager trooper.
"Now!" he yelled at the count of fifteen and the lad did a quick job of the switch, disable and tumble off routine.
"Four ready!" another of the lads announced, full of vim and enthusiasm. He hadn't even needed to give the order to those two.
They just... followed the flow, just connected in a way that had not happened to him in years.
In that moment, that mixed bag of Gunners and B1s were really his, more than any command he had had in the CIS.

Grievous made him hold as well, peeking around the wrecked door to assess the situation.
The witch dashed closer to him and took a look herself.
The buggers had stopped firing at the trucks, but their formation was in disarray. Some troopers were trying to steer the surviving track away, while the snipers on the roof were happily taking pot shots at them.
"Now!" he ordered out loud, while he transmitted to the droid operating the cannon an order to fire at the trucks as they approached the line.
The first shot sid nothing more than a dent in the bodywork. The Naqdaan tried to move away from it quickly then, but the B1 corrected its aim, or maybe just got lucky, and the following shot took out the fuel tank.
The truck went up in a fireball, just as the following one swerved in on a dodgy propulsor, mowing down a few more Naqdaans, before the droid blew that up as well.
The grass between the hangars and the beach was now littered with pieces of bugs and smoking wrecks, shining bright in the General's heat-sense.

"Time to join the party..." the witch commented. She ripped off her long, flowing skirt in a decisive and almost careless movement.
Grievous couldn't help but stare at her: she was now wearing the shortest pair of shorts he had ever seen on a grown woman and more wrappings, but nothing else. Her legs were long and shapely and the curve of her hips...
He wasn't supposed to notice that! She wasn't even from the same species as him and he was only formally male, as it were, thanks to the accident, and yet he could not help looking and liking what he saw.
To be honest, he had realised that he liked her that particular way months before, and that was one of the reasons why working with her was so frustrating.
It took a certain effort for him to steer his thoughts back on track and, judging from the knowing wink she gave him, she had noticed his appreciation, and for some reason it didn't squick her.
Embarrassed and confused, he pointedly ignored her pleased little smirk and turned to the troops.
"How do you like your bugs, soldiers?" he yelled, drawing one of his sabers.
"Crispy!" the Gunners roared, raising their guns.
"Then let's go! For the CIS!" Grievous bellowed, breaking into a run, towardw the enemy lines.
"For the CIS!" his troops replied.
He could hear them follow him at a trot, bronze armour clinking and mechanical parts whirring.
The sense of connectedness, of belonging, returned, lifting his spirits even higher.

The witch dashed to his side, ruby sabers out and a broad grin on her face. Grievous took note of her position, then they both contacted the enemy.
He hadn't bothered drawing his other sabers and simply barreled into his first few targets, relying on his mass and speed to topple them.
His left fist smashed the exoskeleton of a riflebug and he felt the impact all the way into his arm. It felt extremely satisfying.
The bugs ganged up on him and soon he found himself at the center of a maelstrom of carnage and mayhem. He kicked and punched, kneed and elbowed, pushed and tore at anything that came close, activating his lightsaber only occasionally to impale or behead a particularly pesky foe. He was aware of everything that happened around him: every sound, every image, every minute vibration of the air around him or the ground under his feet was sharp and crystal clear. He sensed, assessed and reacted so fast that his enemies seemed to move in slow motion.
These were the moments when he truly felt alive.

"Having fun, General?" the witch yelled over the din of the battle. The broad grin plastered on her pale face told him how much she was feeling the rush of the fight herself.
"Aren't you, witch?" he yelled in response and she grinned again, dispatching another Naqdaan with a precise jab to the neck, before leaping to her next targets.
Between them, they had mowed the Naqdaan down like grass in the fields.
All around them, Gunners and B1s were doing a decent job of picking off the bugs one by one.
Disheartened and badly mangled, the Naqdaan contingeny was retreating. Down the beach the main body of troops from the port was advancing steadily, held off by more bugs. Between his troops and the beach was a patch of thick brush. The defenders on the beach didn't seem to have caught on to their counterattack.
Grievous exchanged a brief glance with the witch, who nodded.
"Let the cowards go, lads!" he yelled to his troops, while he and the witch moved to the cover of a low wall that followed part of the course of a brackish canal that sneaked into the brush.
"Regroup here and take a breather. We're not done yet. We need to help the rest break through on the beach!"
"But the bugs that escaped! They're going to get reinforcements!" one of the Gunners protested, as he crouched behind the new cover.
"We'll be gone before the reinforcements arrive." Asajj reassured. Grievous nodded in approval.
The Gunner quieted and settled down with his comrades to get a quick break.

"Any bright ideas now, clanker boy?" the witch whispered.
They were packed tight enough in that rut that she was nearly touching him and that he felt the warmth of her breath as she spoke and could smell the scent of her skin: blood, sweat and something sweet and inhebriating that was just her.
After having grown unused to any proximity, it unsettled him.
In general, he couldn't figure out if he wanted it, or if it would be better for him to be left alone. With her, however, the balance always shifted towards wanting it.
He could still remember how smooth and warm her skin had felt when he grasped her arm during the attack on Kamino, how her hand had nearly seared him as she touched his mask. Her words of rejection had stung even more for that.
She kept on allowing him close enough to hope, only to reject him if he tried to be nice with her. It was maddening, and she knew it, he was sure.
That must be the reason why she kept pushing the boundaries. It looked like aggressive flirting, but it was just another form of humiliation.
It couldn't be anything else.
Not with him.
And yet he couldn't stop wanting her.

"We need to attract some fire on us to allow the troops from the port through." he replied, feeling weary.
sense of belonging he had felt during the charge was dissipating quickly, leaving him stranded and isolated as usual.
"Hit and run?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow.
"Naturally. Hit hard, run fast, and do it again is the secret of success in situations like this." he retorted sharply.
The witch nodded and smirked again. "I like your approach to things." she said almost sweetly.
"Stop mocking me." he hissed, getting closer to the end of his tether again.
"I am not mocking you, general." she replied softly and placidly, looking straight at him with eyes like the sky just before dawn.
"It would be easier to work with you if you weren't so quick to take offence, you know?" she added with a small sigh.
"Same here, if you were more respectful." he retorted, unwilling to let her have the last word.
Asajj Ventress shook her bald, tattooed head. "I'm not being disrespectful, I'm teasing you. It happens between people, sometimes, especially between colleagues." she argued.
Grievous didn't quite know how to reply to that. Pointing out that they were not strictly colleagues sounded lame and childish even in his head, and would miss the poiny quite spectacularly.
Was she saying that even as she called him clanker and cracked jokes about droids, she was implicitly recognising that he was a person, an equal?
He looked at her intently for long moments and she didn't break eye contact. Her look was alert and considering, cautious but almost accepting...

"Sirs..." a young, accented voice interrupted them. Both turned swiftly towards one of the Gunners, who had crawled to them with a bunch of purplish-black oblong things. "We've found some fruit, if you want a break." he added and pushed the objects towards them. He even cracked a confident smile.
Grievous gave him an incredulous look.
When did he get that fruit, and, more importantly, what on the Galaxy was happening that a Neimoidian was being generous?
"Where did you find them, soldier?" he asked, trying not to sound menacing.
The Gunner shrugged. "Crawled a bit in that plantation over there. There is plenty more. - he replied, jerking his helmeted head towards the field to their left - Have a bite, Commander, it's good eating. It's safe, I promise. Leth looked up Naqdaan food on the Net before we came here." he entreated, pushing the fruit again towards the witch.
Asajj Ventress nodded politely and accepted two of the four-inch long fruits.
"What is your name, soldier?" she asked, as she tried to find a way into the fruits.
"I'm private Garu Cato, sir." the Gunner replied. She smiled sweetly at him and Grievous could perceive two bright spots of heat appear on the lad's greenish face.
Asajj found a way into the fruits and the purple skin peeled off in strips, revealing some sort of translucent reddish jelly.
The food Neimoidians preferred was almost proverbially disgusting, but this smelled very nice, so nice that Grievous regretted being unable to comsume food. He would have liked to try that.
The witch scooped up a pinch of jelly and brought it to her mouth. Her eyes widened in pleasure and she quickly got another scoop.
"It is really good!" she commented.
Private Cato nodded enthusiastically. "Top-class, galactic export quality, madam! You wouldn't want to know how much this costs on the Core Worlds... - he extolled, all proud of himself - We might die in the next half an hour, but at least we'd have eaten like Viceroys first!"
Grievous couldn't help but snigger a bit. "If you and your comrades can sneak so well even when food is not involved, I'll make sure you all have double rations like your sniper friend." he proposed.
The Gunner's eyes widened in awe. "Really, sir? I mean... Sneaking is what we do best, you'll see." he declared, puffing up his thin chest.
"We shall see, indeed. - Grievous acquiesced - Go back to your comrades and tell them we're moving. We're going through this brush to get the buggers from the flank. Tell the B1s and the Guards to stay here and cover our retreat, instead." he instructed. They would be too noisy and slow for what he had in mind.
"Yessir! Right away!" Private Cato exclaimed, then turned tail and returned to his position. Leftover fruit was either stuffed in various pockets or quickly gulped down and the Gunners were ready to roll.
"I would ask what is wrong with these Neimoidians, but I have the feeling there is something wrong with all the others except these ones." the witch commented, licking away the rest of the fruit from her hands.
Grievous nodded. "My thoughts, exactly." he confirmed.
"I suppose we can investigate further after we get out of this mess..." Asajj proposed.
Grievous nodded. "Let's have another dance with the buggers first."
"Yes, let's." she agreed eagerly, and for some reason it sent a pang of longing through him.
Ignoring it, Grievous crept out of the trench and among the bushes, signalling to his men to follow him.

True to Private Cato's word, the Gunners moved quickly and silently, crawling and creeping over, under and between the vegetation like consummated poachers and foragers, which they probably had been before finding their way into the regiment.
They arrived at the other end of the brush without problems, swiftly and silently.
They were now less than fifteen yards away from the rear of the Naqdaan formation.
Grievous made them pause, then signalled fire at will. The Gunners started raining blaster bolts nearly point-blank into the blasted buggers.
Grievous and the witch readily contributed to the chaos, until a loud explosion was heard.
They both turned towards the sound, ready to pounce. One of the Gunners had appropriated a Naqdaan RPG and was happily firing it against the buggers, who were in disarray, harried from the front and the side.
"This is..." Asajj said, astonished.
"Yes, it is..." Grievous agreed.
It was mental and brilliant at the same time, in a way that was achingly familiar. If the Gunners survived the mission, he was definitely pinching them from Tok Ashel and keeping them under his command.
"Let's move, shall we?" Asajj proposed, readying her sabers.
"By all means... - he replied, taking two of his sabers out of his cloak - Gunners, charge!" he shouted, leaping out of the bushes. The witch ran out alongside him and they contacted the disarrayed Naqdaan lines together.

She danced the dance of death like it was the sweetest thing in her life, and he had to admit that it was a thing of beauty to behold.
It stirred something in him, something he had almost forgotten. It felt right to have a companion fighting beside him, and a bunch of crazy, hungry, overenthusiastic soldiers at his back.
This was how it was supposed to be, he told himself.
He was enjoying this mission much more than he had though possible.

"Incoming!" the witch shouted. Grievous concentrated and distinguished a buzzing sound coming closer.
A shadow was moving on the ground.
He let it come closer, dispatching his current targets as if he hadn't realised the new threat.
The male Naqdaan dove in for the kill, wings buzzing. Grievous side-stepped from its trajectory and swiped with his saber, cutting the bugger in half. The top half writhed on the sand, wings fluttering and antennae twitching.
Grievous deliberately stepped on the poor bastard's head, crushing it and ending its suffering.
He turned towards the witch and, as if by prearranged agreement, they moved closer to each other and towards the center of the enemy formation, wading in this last diaphragm of buggers that divided them from the troops from the port.
Grievous smashed into the line, sowing chaos and creating a space, and the witch flowed in, dancing her deathly dance and despatching anyone trying to get him from the back or sides.
The Gunners picked off more enemies from a distance, giving cover.
It worked like a wonder, like they had never done anything else in the world.
He basked in the sheer joy of battle, letting himself be absorbed by the flow.
He felt so finely attuned with his surroundings that he could feel the presence of the witch and of his soldiers without having to see where they were, that he knew what she was going to do, how she was going to move, almost before she did, and he knew that it was the same for her, that she was feeling like that too.
Somewhere during the fight, they had stopped fighting alone, and now they were dancing to the same tune, fighting in harmony.
It was glorious.

It was perfect, until Grievous felt a small vibration under his feet, accompanied by a shrill noise. It broke the magic and sent him to high alert. The noise and the vibration repeated themselves again and again, closer and closer to each other.
Grievous disengaged from his current foes. "Landmines! The beach is rigged!" he bellowed.
The witch turned even paler than usual and backed away as well shouting "Gunners! Retreat!"
The lads didn't wait to be told twice and started running as much as their long, thin legs would allow. The Gunners had barely managed to reach the edge of the brush and relative safety when the first mine went off at their backs. Grievous and Asajj, who had been sucked in much farther in the fight, were still running side by side. In the split-second before the concussive blast washed on them, Grievous split his left arm, grabbed her by her top and tossed her as far as he could, away from the chain of explosions, then the blast hit him, powerful enough to send him flying like a rag doll.
Briefly enveloped by a nimbus of fire and deafening sound, he was thrown sideways, impacting hard against someting.
He felt like his chest had caved in, he couldn't breath, and the air was so hot that it almost hurt to breath anyway, and for a moment he blacked out.
It should hurt, was the first thing he though as he came to, lying on the sand in a heap, gasping for breath.
The air smelled of overheated metal, sea salt and charred meat and his hearing was taken over by a deafening roar.
For a moment he couldn't open his eyes, couldn't see, and his mind was assaulted by a torrent of images and sensations.

Pain.
The world was reduced to pain, a pain so horrible that he couldn't stop screaming in spite of his ruined face and burned throat.
There was something terribly wrong with him. He couldn't feel anything but pain below his waist, couldn't move, couldn't breathe.
He was dying.
He should be dying.
He wanted to die, if only to end that pain.
Please, please, gods, let me die!
He'd never walk away from that beach. Let the sea wash him away to rejoin her forever. Please...
And for a moment there was darkness, there was peace and consolation.
And then something dragged him back to that beach, to his grotesquely mutilated body.
What more did the gods want from him?!

A female voice was screaming in pain and terror.
Yes, there was still something he had to do. Grievous struggled to move, shaking and trembling all over.

The beach was strewn with Huk corpses, but they kept coming, kept attacking, and he could not break through, could not rush to her side.
She screamed and fought, but claws sank in her flesh, spraying the sand with the rich red of her lifeblood.
She screamed and screamed as they dragged her into the water, still stabbing and tearing and clawing, until her screams died in the frothy water.
He couldn't save her.

"No! I can save her yet! She is still alive!" he told himself, forcing the images away from his head and trying to get his breathing under control.
He couldn't be weak now, he could not panic.
Ignoring the pain in his chest, he struggled to his hands and knees.
He was still alive. He could still move. He could still fight.

Blinking sand and blood out of his eyes, he looked up to the beach. It was a chaos of smoldering corpses and wreckage.
He saw her for a moment, a flash of white and red among the bugs.
They were heaping on her, dragging her towards the sea and she fought, she thrashed and screamed...
The phantom images in his mind superimposed on the scene, hinting at a foregone conclusion.

"No! It it not going to end like that! Not this time!" he told himself, rising to his feet.
His arms split as if by their own free will and he found himself holding a saber in each hand.
The world became quiet and sharply focused.
He could see... everything.
The quiet was shattered by a savage battlecry.
He was already charging down the beach before he realised that it had come from him, and then the next moment he was upon the bugs, slicing and stabbing and pounding his way through to her, savage as only a desperate, wounded beast can be.
His breath came in short, painful gasps, but he ignored the pain, ignored the dizziness, and kept going, until he was beside her, semi-submerged by the salty water.
Blood spiraled copiously in the water and she was barely conscious, barely able to keep her head above the water.
Snow-white skin and terrified, dawn-silver eyes.
She did not look like the red-skinned, dark-haired warrior from his vision, but he realised that it did not matter: she was the woman who fought at his side now, the one who danced with him the dance of death, and she was still alive.
Nothing else really mattered.
Grievous de-activated two of his sabers and picked her up from the water, folding her semi-conscious form over his shoulder.
Between him and salvation, the bugs stood vengeful. He ignited his sabers and yelled a battlecry, determined to open his way through them and carry her to safety no matter what.
An explosion blasted through the ranks of the bugs, scattering them away, then blaster fire rained in.

Soldiers were approaching, rifles in hand and noseless, grey-green faces grim and determined.
One of them shouted something at him, but he could barely hear them above the ringing in his ears.
It didn't matter.
They were his men, his soldiers, and it was his duty to guide them all to safety.
He ran towards them trusting that they would give him cover from anything coming in behind him, and shifted his hold on her to a more comfortable position. She had passed out completely.
Back into the brush, the men guided him towards the other side, where the rest of his command was waiting.
They didn't have much time before the bugs came buzzing on their trail.
"We need... to retreat... towards the airstrip..." he wheezed, remembering a flash of what had happened before. His voice sounded distorted to his own ears, but at least his hearing was coming back.
They had been sitting in that trench yonder, chatting and eating fruit not fifteen minutes past...
It did not matter now, he told himself, struggling to focus.

The troops started trotting towards one of the hangars and he followed them in a daze.
The snipers on the roof and the droid at the cannon rushed to help them.
Grievous set her down on the floor between the buildings and propped himself against a wall to prevent himself from folding to the ground.
If he stopped now, he was not sure he would be able to get back to action.
"We... we need... to hold out... Pickup is... coming soon..." he panted.
The Gunners nodded grimly, stationing themselves to shoot at any incoming target with more than two legs..
"Does anyone know... first-aid?" he asked then, glancing at the witch's still form. Blood was staining the permacrete.
"I do, sir!" a shortish Gunner replied.
Grievous nodded. "Give me... your gun... and stabilise her." he ordered.
The Gunner bowed stiffly and handed over his rifle, then knelt next to the witch and started rummaging in one of the bags attached to his waist.
Grievous forced himself to take his eyes away from the pair and look out for targets. His vision tunneled and nearly blacked out from moment to moment, but he tried as hard as he could to keep going.

A group of two-legged figures came running towards their position.
Grievous managed to distinguish some B1 droids and at least a Neimoidian.
"Hold your fire!" he yelled, even as a stray bolt sailed in their direction, fired from an overly nervous Gunner.
The stragglers looked battered and smoke-stained and gratefully sank to the ground once behind cover.
"They are hot on our trail." said the Neimoidian, a roughly-dressed, lowly technician with goggles and a flat cap.
"How many of you... are still... out there?" Grievous asked.
The Neimoidian shook his head. "Just us, as far as I know."
"Where is... Commander Den?" Grievous insisted.
"Fuck I know, with all due respect, sir! - the technician exclaimed - Blown halfway to the atmosphere, probably." he added, shrugging fatalistically.
"Grab a gun... and get ready to shoot. We have... ten minutes... before pickup." Grievous instructed.
The Neimoidian grumbled but did as told, grimly picking up a discarded blaster and cowering behind a low section of wall.
Grievous closed his eyes for a moment, trying to figure out what to do next. The ships still in the airstrip were little more than wrecks, useless for flight, and the hangars were empty.
Their only hope of escape at the moment, was whatever ship the flagship would send. Only a few minutes more...
A pained sound distracted him from his considerations. He opened his eyes and turned towards the source.
The Gunner on first-aid detail nearly startled. "She is regaining consciousness, sir!" he announced.
"What are... her conditions?" Grievous inquired.
"The wound in her leg's bone-deep and she has lost a lot of blood. - the Gunner explained - I stopped the blood flow, but she is not combat fit at the moment."
Grievous nodded grimly. She would need to be carried.

"Incoming!" Private Cato shouted. Several males carrying what looked like bombs were flying towards them.
"Cannon! Snipers! Drop them!" Grievous shouted.
The pain in his chest intensified and he clutched uselessly at his side. He could feel a sort of depression in his lower chest, like an indentation. There was something wrong with him that went beyond a simple panic attack, but it was not the moment to figure out what.
Blaster bolts started zooming around again, as the best shooters attempted to stave off the threat.
Between Grievous, the cannon and the Neimoidian snipers, most of the males were accounted for, however some escaped thanks to their sheer numbers.
Fire started raining on the airstrip.
Most of the shells fell on the permacrete or on unoccupied buildings with resounding booms but little harm, one however looked like it was flying straight for the space between buildings where all the troops were huddled.
Grievous looked up impotently and braced for the second explosion of the day, but suddenly the shell was blown off-course, as if by a sudden, localised, gust of gale-force wind.

He turned back to where the witch was lying, except that she was not.
A tight grimace distorted her pale face as she stood propped against the first-aider's shoulder, and her power roiled around her like the shimmer of heat over the sand in summer.
"We need to find better cover! I can't deflect them all!" she said between gritted teeth.
Grievous nodded and started thinking furiously.
They needed a solid building with enough nests for snipers and enough protection, but still enough space around for a ship to land, and it needed to be close. The maps from the reconnaissance file popped back into his tired mind.
"The juice factory!" both him and the witch exclaimed at the same time.
It was perfect, with the back to the cliff and the front to the road connecting it to the capital, and it was less than half a mile away.
"What?!" the tech protested, but Grievous ignored him, trying to make up a viable plan as fast as he could, before the Naqdaans could send in another squadron of bombers.
"Soldiers! The building to North-East! As fast as you can! Grab as much gear... as you can carry... and run!" he started ordering with the short, painful bursts of breath he could manage, slinging a rifle around his shoulders himself.

They needed cover.
He needed to sacrifice someone to keep the airstrip a bit longer as the rest of them made their escape. He looked around just for a moment.
The choice was easy. "MagnaGuards! Man the cannon! Hold out... as long as you can! No retreat! No surrender!" he ordered.
They were supposed to be his bodyguards, and they were quite effective, usually, but in fact they were just pieces of metal.
They would never have the gall to forage for fruit during a mission, or have a stroke of genius, or connect with someone instinctively, and they were also crap marksdroids, even worse than the B1s.
Leaving them behind felt almost good, in a way.
"B1s, with us!" he added, almost as an afterthought.

The Gunners had already started stripping anything useful from the airstrip and the first ones were already running to the factory.
The first-aider was hobbling away with the witch, but Grievous stopped him.
"Leave her to me... soldier." he ordered.
The Gunner frowned, perplexed, and hesitated, looking up at the witch.
"I can carry her... and run... You can't." Grievous added, impatiently.
The witch nodded grimly. "He's right, Nyto. I'll be fine." she assented and the Gunner nodded.
"As you wish, Commander. " he acquiesced.
The witch let herself be lifted up in the cyborg's lower arms without protest, which was in itself a good indicator of how weak and tired she felt.
Her skin was cool and clammy from pain and exhaustion, but it still felt warmer than the perennial chill Grievous was forced to endure. Her warmth was soothing, in a way that he couldn't even begin to describe.
"Let's go, then!" he ordered again, and set out at a jog, trying to jostle her as little as possible, but, as careful as he could be, he could still hear her whimper quietly under her breath.

She had nearly passed out again, and he was feeling very near collapse when they reached the new building.
Collapsing, however, was a luxury he couldn't afford yet.
The front room on the ground floor had to be protected.
"RPG! - he called out, recognising the crazy soldier from before, unloading some crates from a couple of B1s - Choose three people... and guard this floor. Keep these two with you."
"Yessir!" the Gunner exclaimed with a large smile.
"How many shells... left?" Grievous asked.
"Two cratesful and five, sir! - the lad replied proudly - I found some in the hangar."
"Make them count." Grievous instructed.
"Yessir!" the Gunner exclaimed, and turned back to his work, laying down the shells in an orderly fashion on the floor.
Grievous nodded and crawled up the stairs.
He stopped at landing of the first floor, where Private Cato seemed to be coordinating some of his comrades into clearing up the front room of anything useless to the building's defence.
Definitely officer material, he thought distantly.
The first-aider appeared at his side, ushering him towards a back-room.
Grievous followed him in a sort of storeroom.
The Gunner hastily threw together a few bits of tarpaulin into a makeshift pallet and motioned at him to set the witch down.
Grievous knelt on the floor and laid her down as instructed.
For a moment he allowed himself to look at her. She looked fragile, lying there half-conscious and bloodstained, but her strength was still there, hidden behind the soft surface. She was a strange woman, but he was starting to think that he liked her strangeness much more than he should, in spite of how infuriating and rebellious she was. Possibly even more because of that.
"Hey... Thanks for the ride." she slurred, silver eyes slitting open.
She reached out and lay a hand on his forearm.
Grievous didn't know whether he wanted to yank his arm away from her touch, or allow himself to savour it.
No living, organic being had wanted to touch him except in a fight since the accident, and yet she made it seem so casual, so natural...
"Don't... don't mention it." Grievous managed to wheeze.
He felt more tired than ever, but hoisted himself to his feet once more.
"Look after... Commander Ventress. I'll be... next door... with the lads." he told the first-aider.
The lad nodded decisively and saluted smartly.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Grievous staggered to the room Private Cato and the others had been clearing out.
Boxes and crates had been brought in as cover, desks overturned and ammunition handed out.
Cato himself was posted at one of the windows while the others were manned by other Gunners or B1s.
It looked like the lad knew his business.
"What's... the situation?" Grievous asked.
"Van's dug in downstairs, sir. The tech is with him. They might have found more boom. - he reported, saluting almost automatically - I've taken the liberty to send Auray and the other snipers one floor up. Everyone else is here."
"Losses?" Grievous asked, sinking to his knees behind the cover.
Private Cato grimaced. "Of the forces we had at the airstrip, we lost Mynak, Tuuk, Ruul and two B1s."
Grievous nodded.
"We were lucky. It could have been much worse if you had not alerted us about the landmines. We beat it just in time. Thanks, sir, from all the squad. Also for not leaving us behind." the Gunner added earnestly.
"It's my duty... as your CO... to look after you." Grievous replied almost automatically.
Ever since taking command of droid-only troops however, he had neglected that duty.
What was the point, if droids could be re-built in batches to the exact same specifications? He used them ruthlessly, like the objects they were, but he had never been so callous with his compatriots, back home during the Huk war.
Private Cato shrugged. "Many wouldn't have cared. Flesh is cheap on Neimoidia. Droids are expensive." he said dispassionately.
That comment stopped Grievous in his tracks, but debates on ethics were best left aside for a moment.

"Where is... the comm officer?" he asked instead.
Private Cato jerked his head to one side. "Dyoc! Get your arse here!" he yelled.
The comm officer crawled from his cover to theirs. "Private Dyoc Koru reporting for duty, sir!" the comm officer called out, giving a dirty but amused look at his comrade.
"Call the officer... on the frigate... We need to send him our new position." Grievous ordered.
Dyoc nodded and started coding the frequency, much faster than the last time.
"Can't find them, sir." he announced finally, flustered and perplexed.
"What?!" Grievous and Private Cato both exclaimed.
"There is no one listening on that frequency." Dyoc clarified, shaking his head.
"Try again... Frequency 77.52." Grievous ordered.
Dyoc nodded and carefully punched in all the codes required. From the other side there was only static.
"They must have seen what happened on the beach and beaten it." Private Cato commented grimly after a moment of silence.
"Without checking... for survivors?!" Grievous protested, angry and incredulous.
Private Cato shrugged. "As I said, on Neimoidia flesh is cheap, but only as long as it is someone else's. - he commented with a fatalistic shrug - And to be perfectly honest, I don't think any of the Feds actually like you and Commander Ventress, sir."
For a moment, Grievous felt a wave if despair engulf him and drag him down.
He was damaged and stranded on a hostile planet with few troops, limited gear and a seriously wounded officer.
Luckily anger quickly came to his rescue.
He couldn't just roll over and die. He had not worked so hard to save the witch and the lads just to stop now, and he also had to survive to rip the head off the shoulders of the bastard who had abandoned them.

"Private Koru... do yo know... how to do a frequency sweep... on that?" Grievous asked, pointing towards the comm apparatus.
"In theory yes, sir. I've never actually done it before, though." the Gunner admitted ruefully.
"This will be your... first time, then... Search all the frequencies... Find me a CIS ship in the area... Even just a cargo... There must be... at least one..." Grievous ordered.
"Yessir! Right away!" Private Koru replied, settling down to work furiously on the dials and switches of the apparatus.
"Don't worry, lad... I'll get you... and your mates... home." Grievous told Private Cato.
The Gunner grimaced and then laughed. "No, please, sir... Anywhere but home." he mock-pleaded.
Grievous frowned, uncomprehending.
"Any CIS base would be fine, sir." Private Cato added, more seriously.
Before he could ask for explanations, Private Koru exploded in a victorious exclamation. "Got one!" he yelled.
"Put them through!" Grievous ordered.
The comm officer nodded sharply and threw the switch. The translucent rendition of a stern-faced Neimoidian appeared over the receiver.
Grievous felt a pang of relief at the sight. This was a person who deserved his post and who would not panic when in a difficult situation. T
hat and he had a Lucrehulk-class battleship. Plenty of firepower to get them out of that shithole.
"Commander Lushros Dofine..." he greeted.
"General Grievous! To what do I owe the honour?" the aristocratic starship captain asked, bowing stiffly.
"I need... your help, Commander. - Grievous replied - I'm stranded with some troops... on Naqdaa... We lost contact with... with the fleet."
"On Naqdaa? - Dofine repeated, quirking an eyebrow and smoothing his long fingers on his chin - Wasn't it Tok Ashel's target?"
"It was. - Grievous confirmed - He's MIA... probably dead. It was bad... very bad, Commander. We need out... as soon as possible." he declared.
Dofine nodded gravely and checked his terminal. "I'm quite a few parsecs from your position at the moment, but I'll have a clear jump in a couple of hours. All in all, the ETA should be in 4 hours. Can you hold out for so long?" he asked.
"We'll have to." Grievous said, nodding grimly.
"Four hours? Piece of cake, innit, boys?" Private Cato yelled and was answered by a chorus of yells and catcalls.
Dofine frowned. "Who is with you, sir?"
"Some lads... Neimoidian Gunnery Batallion." Grievous replied, shrugging his shoulders and promptly regretting it.
The impulse to cough started tickling his lungs, but something told him that it wouldn't be wise to follow it.
"Fifteenth squadron, the Unclaimed!" Private Garu chimed in proudly.
Dofine grimaced, unimpressed.
"Commander Ventress... she is here as well... she needs... medical attention." Grievous added, pausing every few words more to repress the impulse to cough than to breathe properly.
"I'll tell my medical detail to be ready. - Dofine assented - Rendez-vous in four hours at your coordinates, then."
"Agreed. See you... in four hours." Grievous wheezed.
Dofine bowed again and cut the communication.

Grievous felt so relieved about having secured a pick-up that it seemed as if all energy had drained from him.
He was not sure if he would be able to stand up at the moment.
He felt oddly weak and lethargic, bone-weary indeed, as if he was running low on battery, but a quick, nearly subconscious, diagnostic check told him that the battery was working fine. Still, he felt like the only thing he wanted at the moment was to sleep, just to shut down for a while.
"Are you alright, sir?" Private Cato asked.
Grievous was startled to find the Neimoidian hovering at the edge of his personal space. The lad hadn't been so close a moment ago. He must have closed his eyes for a moment without even realising.
The truthful answer was that he was not, but he couldn't admit it to his soldier. The morale of the lads would plummett if they were left with both their commanding officers out of commission.
"I... I'll manage." he replied weakly.
Private Cato gave him a considering look, seeing through his rather transparent lie. The lad was too bright for his own good.
"With all due respect, sir, you look like shit. - he whispered, softly but firmly - It won't do anyone any good if you collapse."
Grievous didn't reply, concentrating on breathing instead.
He couldn't cough until he figured out exactly what was pressing against his chest.
The engineers had given him quite a few briefings about his condition and what could go wrong with him, so he knew that if the pressurised cocoon enveloping his organic bits tore open and lost pressure, he would die a quick but very unpleasant death unless someone patched him up immediately.
"Why don't you go take a breather next door, sir? - Private Cato proposed - We can handle it for a while, I'm sure."
Grievous thought about it for a moment.
What would make him look weaker, accepting the lad's offer and leaving his men alone to face the enemy or passing out in front of them?
"You will call me... if anything happens." he ordered finally, trying to sound stern instead of just worn out. If he went to ground for a moment now, he could try to figure out how to fix himself.
"Of course, sir!" Private Cato acquiesced, nodding vigorously.
"Do you want me to send Nyto to have a look at you?" he added quietly as an afterthought.
Grievous shook his head. He didn't really want anyone poking around and he had the feeling he needed the help of a mechanic rather than of a doctor.
Now that he thought of it, the integrity circuits were firing up in his chest. It was definitely mechanical damage, then.
"I'll be fine." he rasped, then promptly contradicted his words, cursing under his breath as a sharp pain lanced through his chest.
"If you say so, sir..." Private Cato commented, unconvinced.
"I do indeed. - Grievous confirmed, starting to become irritated - Stop fussing... about me... and look out for... for those buggers. I'll be back... shortly." he barked.
The lad saluted sharply, looking chastised.

Grievous turned and staggered out of the front room and into the improvised infirmary. He didn't go very far into it before he had to shore himself up against the wall as his knees folded under him.
He seconded the movement, sitting down with his back against the wall and his arms wrapped protectively around his chest.
If he inclined himself just right the pressure eased a bit, allowing him to breathe more easily. Life was full of little satisfactions like that, but he still felt moments from passing out.
"General... Are you alright?" a soft, female voice asked.
Grievous hadn't realised he had closed his eyes until they shot open at the sound.
Commander Ventress looked much better than she had when he left not long before. She was sitting up, fully conscious and alert, and, from the looks of it had been tending to her minor cuts and grazes.

Now her dawn-silver eyes were trained on to him with a certain apprehension. For a moment he was assaulted by the absurd wish that she would worry about him, that she would care enough to be really concerned for his safety.
A spasm of longing ran through him, but he repressed it. This was only an after effect of the panic attack and the visions he had had on the beach.
The truth was that he was nothing to her.

Despite the connection he had felt with her during the battle, she didn't care and wouldn't have any reason to care. She had made that abundantly clear during their earlier collaborations.
He was alone, as always.
Grievous looked wearily at the witch and wished it wasn't so.