Anakin Skywalker and the 501st were folding up the Karpatcha Aid Station. Intelligence suggested that a Separatist airstrike was coming, soon to be followed by several waves of droids. The aid evac was almost finished with the civilians being safely ferried out on the LAAT/i transports, leaving Anakin, Captain Rex, and a few others to finish up and leave.
Moving past a speeder, the engine of which was half torn apart - it would have to be left like so many other things that couldn't be easily packed - Anakin found his trusted clone commander. "Rex, make sure you get everyone onto the transports. We only have two left and you and the men will be able to fit into one. I'll take the smaller one and be right with you." Anakin didn't care for evacs, they were messy and complicated, and no matter how good you were you always forgot something you needed.
"Ah, Sir?" Rex didn't much care for evacs either. "Do you want us to take the senator with us?" The radar screen showed the early approach of the enemy bombers, and as of yet the dignitary hadn't been evacuated like the other civilians. He had insisted on helping with the tear down, and had actually managed to be helpful getting the civilians organized while the clones took care of the packing up the gear.
Anakin had temporarily forgotten about the senator. In all the fun of organizing the evac he had lost track of their most important guest. He was actually a little surprised that the senator hadn't fled immediately once the evac started. He had to hand it to the senator, he had guts, for a politician. Gritting his teeth, Anakin decided to take one for the team. "I'll take care of the senator, you and the men get out of here, now!"
Senator Bail Organa had unexpectedly gotten caught up in all the action. He had been at the aid station as a representative of the senate to fill out a fact-finding report concerning the displacement of civilians due to the war. It was a fairly standard report, and it wasn' t the first time he had done this, but it was the first time that the aid station had become a target while he was there.
Anakin raced up to him as the remaining clones made for their ship. The Separatist ships were coming in fast now, they needed to be gone. "Senator, we need to be gone ten minutes ago." There was a loud roar as the clone transport lifted off, dust and debris swirled around them as the ship accelerated towards the rendezvous point. Shielding his face with one hand Anakin grabbed Bail's arm and started pulling him towards the much smaller remaining ship. "Let's go before company gets here."
Bail half ran along with Anakin, he trusted the Jedi would have no problem getting him to safety. Glancing over his shoulder to the lone building that had made up the aid station he asked, "How soon will the Separatists be here?" There was a faint whine in the distance as the enemy ships drew close enough to strike.
Throwing a glance over his shoulder Anakin caught sight of the approaching aircraft. "I'd say about three seconds." A laser blast exploded nearby throwing a spray of rocks and dirt everywhere. Anakin flung himself to the ground dragging Bail with him as another laser bolt pounded into the ground nearby. Springing to his feet and igniting his lightsaber Anakin stood over Bail, hoping that this wouldn't be his valiant last stand.
The ships flew over, blasting everything that had been the aid station just a few hours ago into so much rubble. With a resounding boom, the ship Anakin and Bail had been heading towards exploded. Sharp hunks of hull, and fiery chunks of shrapnel rained down on the two men. Anakin cried out as he was hit by burning debris from the ship. Staggering back he fell to the ground as he tripped over Bail.
The noise of the ships engines faded into the distance, the airstrike was over and the ground assault was on its way. Bail scrambled to his feet and rushed to Anakin's side. Anakin was likewise scrambling to his feet, his hand over his eyes. "Are you alright?" Bail's voice was louder than normal, his ears were still ringing from the recent onslaught of noise.
"Senator, I hate to break this to you, but I can't see anything. Now, please tell me that I didn't see the last thing I saw."
Bail suddenly felt like their chances of survival were dropping rapidly. "You mean our ship being destroyed and raining down on us in an ominous storm? Yes, you did see that."
"Damn." Anakin sighed. This evac suddenly got a lot harder.
"Isn't there a ground assault coming?" Bail was more than a little worried right now.
Anakin felt for the call button and punched his wrist comm, if he could call Rex, the clones could come and pick them up. He didn't hear the usual beep from the comm as the button was pressed. He jabbed the button again, still nothing. "Senator, is my wrist comm intact?" Even before Bail spoke Anakin already knew the answer.
"No, there a wires sticking out and it appears to have been speared by some shrapnel from your ship." Bail really didn't like the odds of surviving this.
Anakin gingerly probed his eyes, the scarlet pain that lanced through him as his fingers touched them told him that this was not something a field medic could handle. "It seems like I'm blind for now. It must have been the heated particles from the ship's insulation or something." Anakin gulped, this meant he'd have to trust the senator a lot more than he normally would have.
Bail was trying to stay calm, but he was a peaceful man from a peaceful planet, war was not his business. "We need to get out of here, there's a ground assault coming and the rendezvous point is over seventy kilometers away." His heart was racing, he was pretty sure that unless a miracle happened they were doomed.
"I know, I know." Anakin only tried a little to not be snappish with the senator. The Jedi were always supposed to be polite to representatives of the Senate. Remembering the speeder from earlier he had a sudden thrill of hope, they may yet make it out of this alive. "Senator, is there a speeder nearby where the structure was? Please, tell me it's not been turned into rubble."
Bail scanned the area, indeed, in the shadow of the remains of the structure was a speeder. It's hood was open and a mass of wires had been pulled out. Bail thought it rather looked as though it were being gutted. "Yes, there is a speeder there, but I don't think it works. It's got all of it's wires pulled out."
"It'll have to do," Anakin grimaced. "Guide me over there, I'll need you to help me get it working again."
Bail took Anakin's arm and guided him over to the beleaguered speeder. "What do you mean I'll need to help you, how can I possibly help you?" Bail had a bad feeling about this.
Standing in front of the speeder, Anakin felt around for a moment, familiarizing himself with the interior by touch. "It's okay, I know this model. Fives said that it was an electrical problem, so all we need to do is solve that and we're golden. Since I can't see what's what, you'll have to do the hot wiring for me. I'll walk you though it, and we'll be out of here in just a few."
Bail stared at Anakin. He hardly believed he had heard what he'd heard. "You can't be serious! I'm not a mechanic, I know nothing about electronics in speeders. This is insane."
"Sometimes, insanity is called for in a war. Now, find a red wire, there should be two visible, you need to find the one attached to the alternator."
Bail couldn't believe he was doing this, he faced the open hood of the speeder and began searching for the wires he was supposed to be doing something with. Searching through the tangle he located the two red wires. His eyes darted from one wire to the other, for the life of him he couldn't tell which one was attached to the alternator. "Is it the scarlet one, or the crimson?"
"What?" Anakin had been going through the hot-wire in his mind's eye, Bail's question didn't even make sense. "Scarlet or crimson what?"
"The wires, is it the scarlet one, or the crimson one that is attached to the alternator?" Bail was nervous enough to begin with, he didn't want his death report to read that he'd electrocuted himself in a failed attempt to evacuate.
"It's the red one attached to the alternator, aren't scarlet and crimson both red? The alternator should be a block, around the size of a brick. It's black and has three rows of wiring coming from the side nearest the driver's side of the speeder." Anakin heard the senator scrabbling around in the engine, it was more than a little nerve-racking to leave this to an unknown quantity. "Senator, once you've found it, you need to detach the wire at the base. Just pull it out, it should come away easy. Next, take a blue wire from the peripheral circuit board and attach it to where the red wire was. That should override the secondary power supply."
Bail was sweating now, even though the climate on this planet could hardly be described as hot. He found the peripheral circuit board and gaped at the array of blue wires. "Did you mean the caerulean, the azure, or the cobalt?"
"The what?" Anakin couldn't believe this. "It's the blue one, take the blue one and attach it where the red used to be." How much more simple could he make this? What he wouldn't give to have Rex or Obi-Wan here right now.
"There is more than one blue one. Is it the caerulean, the azure, or the cobalt?" Bail was getting a little testy, what was so hard to understand about him wanting to know the correct wire before he started ripping and tearing?
"It's the blue, it's just the blue one, it doesn't matter what it is as long as it's blue." Anakin was getting tense about this now.
"Does that mean the azure is okay?" Bail could feel his stomach flip-flopping.
"Is it blue?"
"Well, yes-"
"Then it's fine! Pull it out and jam it into the spot where the red was!" He didn't know if it was just his imagination or not, but he thought he heard the distant clank of marching battle droids.
Bail hurriedly chose a wire, prayed that it wouldn't be the death of him and pulled it from it's original position to rewire it into it's new one. Nothing exploded or sparked, Bail let out a breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
"Now, find the central circuit, it should be near the back of the engine block so you'll have to reach for it. When you're reaching don't lean on the coolant valves, this model's can't handle much pressure."
Bail took a few minutes to figure out where the coolant valves were then made sure not to squish them while he reached for the central circuit. Anakin continued, "Find the side with the fuses on it and take the one that controls the tertiary electrical and detach it."
Bail found the aforementioned components, it was practically a rainbow of different coloured wires and matching fuses. "What now?"
Anakin wasn't sure how much clearer he could have been, "What part don't you understand, Senator? There is a fuse that controls the tertiary electrical. Detach it."
"There are lots of fuses here, Jedi. Which one controls the tertiary electrical?" Bail was none too pleased with Anakin's unhelpful behavior.
Anakin felt like his own fuse was getting short. Dragging his hand through his hair, he thought for a minute on how to describe it to someone who was apparently electrically incompetent. "It's the yellow one." He said finally. There was no way the senator could be confused by that.
"There is no yellow one."
"Then it's green." These speeders sometimes had slight variations depending on which factory they came from.
"Hunter, or olive drab?" Bail was starting to get annoyed with Anakin. For saying he would walk him through this, Skywalker was being particularly unhelpful.
"You've got to be kidding me." More than the irritation with the senator's highly colourful vocabulary, Anakin was also not expecting more than one green fuse on that circuit. Thinking for a minute he finally said, "Whichever one is next to a pink fuse."
"There is no pink fuse."
"There has to be a pink fuse. It controls the primary power." Even with some manufacturing variance, there was always a pink fuse for the primary power. That had been standardized over a century ago.
"I'm telling you, there is no pink fuse." Bail was beginning to think that he could hear the distant clanking of the oncoming battle droids. He hoped that it was his overactive imagination.
"And I'm telling you that there has to be a pink fuse. This speeder wouldn't exist without a pink fuse. Every speeder has one, and I know this one has one to. Fives said the electrical problem concerned the alternator and the secondary and tertiary power supplies. The primary power supply is fine and in working order, which means that there has to be a pink fuse!" Anakin was sure that it wasn't his imagination anymore, he could definitely hear the battle droids coming.
Bail was looking wildly at the row of fuses, there wasn't even the slightest hint of pink on the circuit. Somewhere in the back of his brain, in the part that wasn't panicking, he had an epiphany. "Do you mean the lilac fuse?"
"What the hell is lilac?" Anakin couldn't believe he was asking that question when they were literally minutes away from being captured or killed.
"It's a kind of light purple that some people mistake for pink." Without waiting for confirmation, Bail yanked the fuse from the circuit. "I've detached the green one you wanted, now there is a red light blinking on the panel."
Anakin was beside himself with this infuriating senator, but he needed to get out of here, and the red blinking light was a good thing. "Take the fuse, and place it in the peripheral circuit under the manufacturer's logo."
Bail did as he was instructed, mercifully without turning it into a colour quiz. The engine roared to life. Bail sprang back as Anakin yelled over the noise, "Now shut the hood and let's get out of here!"
Slamming the hood, Bail scrambled into the driver's seat. Anakin fumbled for a second, then swung into the passenger seat, and Bail jammed his foot on the accelerator. They jolted forward, almost dislodging them both, then sped out of the former aid station. Glancing behind, Bail saw the clear and menacing lines of droid troops. They were going not a minute to soon.
Sitting back in his seat, Anakin turned to Bail. "Senator, never, ever, do that to me again."