Archive of Our Own ^beta

What is the signature sound of the Clone Wars? TV historians are going to have a debate about it in about twenty years, once people need simplistic touchstone media harking back to it. People will say different things, depending on where they were and when they were. Some will say the Republic Anthem, if they were a Coruscant civilian. Some will say the repetitive robotic response of the rebel droids, “Roger roger” in a flat annunciator voice before alloy feet kick doors in. Some will say the opening of a Separatist subspace propaganda broadcast, before clone communication techs close down the intrusion. Or the hammering vibrations of a LAAT/i, close in for an insert or an extraction; maybe the clatter of plastoid plates as clones hurriedly tumble out of bay doors and into the nearest cover. Or the roar of a Predator popping out from behind a ridgeline, cameras grasping for targets. Or the crump of ion bombs falling. All of those would do; they featured heavily in the brief snippets of the war the Republic publicised. They weren’t heard before the Separatist Crisis got hot and sandy on Geonosis. Not quite in all of history, but they were never heard for the duration of the Great Peace. Some, crazy or loyal, would lobby for the soothing tones of Chancellor Palpatine, offering a structured, solid pathway out of the storm. There’s arguments for that, but Limit doesn’t agree. That voice’s been around since the Republic was formed, in some shape or form.

No. Limit knows the sound of the Clone Wars. He knows its leitmotif, and it’s not what people think. It’s the silence of deep space from inside the thick steel plate of a battlecruiser. That silence was heard above Geonosis, and Coruscant, and Kamino, and Mandalore, and again and again above Umbara and Saleucami and Christophsis. It’s a brutal sound, the sound of reeking biological fear- a smell yes, but so pungent it spans the senses- the sound of mechanical death about to happen on a huge scale. It speaks of a huge, overspanning force- a massive, overwhelming advantage in power. And it shouts of remote, impersonal indifference, projected from a tiny room in orbit onto the planetary surface far below. A Venator, from the right spot, cruises silently through vacuum, easing forwards like scissors parting paper. The very lack of noise tells you it can’t be stopped. Then the hangar opens, and the blast doors on ventral bays peel back, and LAAT/is swarm out surrounded by a swarm of fighters and bombers, and the tiny speck inside one of those steel matchboxes gets hot and anger replaces fear and eagerness to get stuck in and break shit pushes up between everything. The orchestra that is Kuat Drive Yard plays a symphony and the very first notes tell you you’re weak and powerless and flesh doesn’t count for much when it comes to stopping a kilometre of steel and glass and electricity. That’s the real sound of the Clone Wars.

Limit hears the Task Force 2-1 ships a long time before he sees them- Coruscant is clear and balmy as usual, but they have a long way to descend even without the ATC hell of graveyard orbits and LEO transfer windows. He hears the whine of sublight thrusters, and whine of gravity generators on idle. When they get lower, the hum of reactors makes fast shivers run through his jawbone and sternum. When the RNS Kur touches down, gently as humanity can conceive, he feels the hollow mass of Coruscant struggle to reconcile the huge mass with stillness.

It looms at him. It towers above him in the docking pen, and it plunges below him as well. The escort vessels of TF2-1 pitch a little as their gantries accept them, staying level, engines bellowing. Behind a Consular class cruiser, 138 metres long, there’s an Arquitens class cruiser, 325 metres long and wider than the Consular is long. Behind that is visible another Venator’s conning towers, pennant number V-608 painted on the side. It’s almost two kilometres away, but Limit’s eyesight can tell that without a struggle- even a non-clone could. Line ahead, like an armada from hell. It’s a magnificent sight. The Venator-class star destroyer is like a nexu, or a Krayt. Evolved in R&D laboratories and design offices to the absolute point of military perfection. It is the home favourite, the MVP and the defending champion and the high-flying allrounder golden boy all in one, locked in that defending bout against the Separatist Subjugator-class. It’s a good match to watch. The Venator is wrapped in an outer cocoon of armour made of rolled high quality durasteel sandwiching pressed doonium. Dense and impregnable- and that’s when the shields are down. Turbolaser rounds and kinetic impactors and missiles bounce right off. But its main trick is to stand off, endure the irritations of ground attack and swat away the space forces. It sits there and watches its invincible shields stop munitions dead in their tracks while it deploys its troops, infantry and armour and logistics and artillery and special forces. It looms just as large in low earth orbit as in a docking pen, then its ventral hangar doors open and dropships come out and fly away, and twelve hours later and three thousand miles away on a planet its enemy’s bases blow up and burn. It is the ultimate unfair advantage, to have a Venator Task Force in orbit.

Limit tramps down the gangplank with his spacebag on one shoulder and his dittybag on the other, and the Venator rolls up the gangplank towards him. Five hundred and forty seven metres wide, one thousand one hundred thirty-seven metres long, two hundred sixty-eight tall. Anywhere between twenty five and fifty million tonnes. The gangplank has a tractor beam gap five centimetres wide so the vibrations from the ship don’t start to hammer away the berth. Not even an Acclamator merits such respect. They just rest on their own legs; the Venator has to maintain a delicate balance on tractor beams and cradles. The Task Force takes up five capital berths and four non-capital: It would need more if it were full strength, and it would take Limit as much time as his duties require to walk the combined length of the squadron, ignoring the regular CG checkpoints. The noise of just three Venator power plants in close atmospheric proximity batters the air- there’s an exclusion zone with PPE required around the engineering spaces in dock. The turbolaser barrels dip and sway and bounce with the vibrations- they need disassembly if the ship stays put too long. Exhaust fumes would render the sector unlivable within a day if not for an extraction system bigger even than a single Venator.

Limit reaches the hull and passes into a cave. He is now within the machine; it will be swept with the storms of vacuum when in space, or not if the forcefields are activated for more space. The cave swallows him, blots out the sun but not the view of the durasteel expanse of TF2-1 or the masonry cliffs that it rests in.