Anakin's starfighter whizzes through the ruined Separatist defenses, blasting at any Vulture Droids that dare to come near him. "Boys, let's finish this," He says into the comm. A chorus of battle cries only encourages him as he speeds up. He and his V-19 Torrents are protecting the Y-Wing bombers coming in behind, and doing a very good job. The retaking of Kashyyyk as a whole is going equally well, and the last pockets of CIS resistance are crumbling.
His starfighter takes down a row of turrets on the closest Banking Clan Frigate, leaving it wide open for the Y-Wings to unleash heavy fire. The war has not gone on for long, but Anakin and Obi-Wan have already become well-known heroes. Kashyyyk is one of many battles, and it will soon come to an end. On the surface, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka should be leading the final assaults within the treetops. The three Venator Class cruisers are firing shots at the weak Separatist fleet, but they don't have to. Anakin and his squadrons have already destroyed 2 frigates.
Aboard the Separatist warship known as the Decimator, commander Rund Skurd surveys the battle. His army has lost. He knows it, his commanders know it, and Dooku also knows it. His remaining tactical droid, TR-86, is in charge of the only village not taken or under siege, and he calculates that the odds of their victory is 93 to 1. His fleet is wounded and crumbling, and his droids are few.
The 93-1 odds are before they lost a frigate. Suddenly, his ship lets loose a loud rumble and shakes. "What is it, have we been hit," he asks, to no one in particular. "No, sir," a droid says. "We collided with the remains of the other frigate. He looks out the viewport, and sees the remains of the second frigate. Their ship is all that is left. Another shake reverberates throughout the ship, and suddenly, he is floating in zero gravity.
"Gravity generators have been damaged, and shields are down," a droid says. If the battle wasn't hopeless before, it is certainly hopeless now. He could choose to die here, go down in battle. Or he could retreat, and get killed by Dooku. Or, perhaps he could retreat, but not go back to Dooku. He certainly wouldn't be the first Neimoidian to desert a lost cause.
"Prep my shuttle as soon as possible, and jump to hyperspace as soon as I jump," he says. They droids know he is deserting, but no one else can give them orders. So, they have no choice but follow his. "Roger, roger," they say, in unison. Admiral Skurd, not much of an admiral anymore, heads to his shuttle, walking faster than he ever has before. It takes less than a minute to arrive, and droids have already opened the boarding ramp, where two stand guard. He enters, and the droids start to follow him in. "No," he says. "I am going alone." They stop, unsure of what to do. He suddenly closes the doors, leaving the droids outside his shuttle. He detaches from the doomed ship, and jumps to hyperspace, off to a nearby system, where he can take the time to disable his ship's locator beacon.
The remaining frigate suddenly retreats into hyperspace. Over the comm, a pilot yells out, "That is why we Y-Wing pilots have the best ships around. You should try riding in a tibanna powered ship!"
Anakin sighs. "Of all the things, you give credit to your Y-Wings' fuel?" he asks, surprised.
"That's Burner for you," another pilot says. "His motto is..."
A chorus of the entire squadron rings out, "Take care of your ship, and it will take care of you!"
Ironically, Anakin is the first one to regain seriousness, and he switches to the frequency of their admiral. "Admiral Yularen, should we provide aid in the ground battle?" he asks. Aboard the bridge of the main flagship, Yularen briefly thinks it over. "It is probably unneeded, but I will contact General Kenobi."
"No need," Anakin says, "I can do it myself. Put me through, Artoo." Yularen subtly sighs. It's the little things that count, and these minor disobediences will grow someday. No, he corrects himself. They already have grown. Major disobediences are frequent, too, with Anakin. Though Yularen hopes against it, one day, Anakin will likely disobey a critical order, and it will be the end of him. And, if Yularen isn't careful, he will go down too, along with the rash young Jedi.
"Obi-Wan," Anakin says over the comm, "Do you need any help down there, in the form of an airstrike?"
"We are doing perfectly fine, and collateral damage isn't worth it. This battle is easy enough already. You and your squadron can go back to the hangar."
Anakin orders the starfighters back to the hangar, as told, but decides that he has no reason to go back. "Yularen, I am sending the starfighters back, but I am going down there to help." Yularen sighs. He heard the conversation between Anakin and Obi-Wan. "General Kenobi doesn't need help. He told you."
Anakin smiles. "Then why does he have Ahsoka?"
Yularen doesn't bother to sigh. He has already done enough of that today. "He needs Ahsoka, but no more than that."
"Fine," Anakin says. "If that's what you think, then I'll tell Snips to leave, and I will replace her."
Yularen decides to go with eye-rolling this time. "I am not going to bother anymore with such a minor decision. You may go join the battle."
Anakin smiles. "Now I don't have say that I disobeyed you. I was given permission." Before Yularen can respond, Anakin shuts off the comm.
Yularen decides that one more sigh can't hurt.
In the Kashyyyk treetops, Obi-Wan Kenobi is fighting droids in his usual way. Deadly, but with ease. Almost casually. Droids fall to their own deflected blaster fire, almost one per second, from Kenobi alone. He presses forward at a fast pace, but he and his squad of clones still destroy all the droids in their path. The CIS resistance had crumbled, but droids don't surrender. It's not in their programming. So the stupid droids fight, needlessly, to the last man. Or droid.
He senses a potentially fatal shot going toward Cody, but easily steps in front of it and deflects it. Then, he spins around and blocks another shot, this one goes back at the droid who shot it. As they enter another platform, he got a view of the other team, led by Ahsoka.
His team shoots a few more droids, securing the area, and he goes to approach Ahsoka. She smiles as they come up to her. "Obi-Wan! Is this the last of them? Have we won?" Obi-Wan shakes his head. "No. Another village is still occupied. It is a quarter kilometer north." Ahsoka nods her head. "Let's go. We'll take it together."
They arrive two minutes later. This one had a T-Series Tactical Droid in charge. "Get them. Kill the intruders," it says, in a deep, monotone, voice. With a casual flick of the wrist, Ahsoka sends the villainous droid off the edge of the platform. She does not bother to check if it survived. Obi-Wan activates his lightsaber and defends himself from the incoming fire.
Ahsoka leaps up through the blaster fire, activating her lightsaber mid-air. She lands on the droid, crushing it, before slicing through two more with her lightsaber. Still, about twelve more droids converge on her, and she deflects the incoming onslaught. For a time, at least.
Still, while the droids focus on her, the clones fire at them, bringing some down. As they turn, Ahsoka leaps at them, bringing another two down.
Above the battle, in his starfighter, Anakin watches, smiling. It is going well. To bad he didn't fight in the whole thing. His starfighter begins dipping down, towards the battle.
In the onslaught, Ahsoka, senses a well-known presence. It is Anakin, she looks up, and sees his starfighter. They are definitely going to win. Still, she has a battle to fight, and turns her attention to the droids. To late.
A shot hits her straight in the gut. She cries out in pain, and falls to the ground. The droids converge on her, and she is not ready to fight back. Obi-Wan tries to leap in, but he has no time. The clones can never take down all of the droids in time. The next shot is coming for her head. She is, for all intents and purposes, dead. All because she was distracted for a second. All because Anakin came into the battle.
Anakin saw it all unfold in his starfighter. He was already preparing to go into battle, when he distracted Ahsoka. Then, she took the shot in the gut. It would be survivable, but in the pain, she could not fight back. She would be helpless when they fire. Her lightsaber lay next to her, she had dropped it.
He acts on instinct. Instinct is all he has. He jumps downwards, pushing off the bottom of his starfighter, shooting off like a rocket, straight into the frenzy. The move is suicide. Not even his former master, Obi-Wan, a master of Soresu, could deflect eight shots fired at the same exact time.
Even if Anakin blocks the shots with his body, he cannot stop them all. It's pitiful. Ahsoka Tano, killed by eight battle droids. If Anakin goes down, too, these could be the first CIS droids to win a medal of honor. Anakin lands his jump, putting him on top of Ahsoka. The droids fire. Anakin will not dodge. He cannot stand by as Ahsoka dies.
All eight droids fall backwards, dead, with shots going through each of their heads. Anakin stands in the middle, unharmed. Below him, Ahsoka looks up, unsure of what happened. Anakin shakes as he holds his lightsaber, as if the droids who were destroyed were his best friends. Obi-Wan runs up to him. "What happened, Anakin?"
"I... I don't know," he says. "I blocked every shot. All of them. And they all went back at the droids." Obi-Wan strokes his beard thoughtfully, and with a chuckle, he says, "All I saw was a blur for a quarter of a second, and then... this. Have you been secretly learning Soresu?"
"I didn't want her to die. I gave control, complete control, to the Force." Obi-Wan nods, and then says, educationally, "Such an exercise is called moving meditation. That is one of the greatest uses of it that I have ever seen." Five more droids come out from behind a hut, only to be quickly destroyed by a force push.
Then, Obi-Wan realizes that Anakin wasn't supposed to be with them in the first place. "Wait a minute, Anakin. What are you doing here? If you hadn't shown up, none of this would have ever happened."
Anakin grimances. "Well... Ahh... Sorry, master. I just wanted to join in on the fun." Ahsoka looks up, scowling. "Snips, you're the one who got distracted," Anakin says, in a futile attempt to dodge blame. "Ani, you're the one who disobeyed orders," Obi-Wan says. Then Anakin realizes a loophole. He might win a bout of verbal sparring with Obi-Wan. "Actually, Yularen give permission to join in." Obi-Wan curses something under his breath, in Nelvaanese. Anakin smiles. He won. Kind of.
Obi-Wan turns on his comlink. "Admiral Yularen. This is General Kenobi." Of course, Yularen would know this by recognizing the frequency, but the Admiral was always a stickler with protocol, so Obi-Wan uses proper protocol. "We need a medical evac. Commander Tano is badly injured. Also, what in the..." Obi-Wan doesn't want to swear in front of Anakin. "galaxy would make you give Anakin permission for that."
Yularen sighs. Again. That was about seven today, with four of them over the course of five minutes. "You know what it is like to deal with him. Can I be reassigned?" Obi-Wan breathes out through his nose in a subtle chuckle. He can sympathize with this man.
Anakin paces back and forth through the medical bay of the Venator Class Star Destroyer. It is a dim gray, mixed with pure white beds, and medical cabinets of a color in between the two. The only color is in the occupants. Kashyyyk had few injuries, as it was fairly easy by the standards of most battles. Obi-Wan also stands in the room, waiting, with Ahsoka in the bed. A 2-1B medical droid treats to Ahsoka's injuries, with help from FX series assistant.
Anakin is bored and worried. Ahsoka is knocked unconscious to reduce pain in the procedures, the 2-1B droids are not particularly sociable, and Obi-Wan is lost in thought, reading on his datapad a novel entitled, "A Beginner's Guide to the Fine Art of Farming Grogru Fruit." They are all that is in the room. So they wait.
"How is she doing?" Anakin finally asks, incapable of understanding medical jargon in binary. He thought he could interpret binary somewhat well, but medical jargon combined with it is too much. "The patient's condition is not bad. As of now, she should be stabilized within hours. However, she will need time to recover. Not much, but I would recommend two weeks away from the action. For a Jedi, with enhanced healing techniques, I would advise only a week." Obi-Wan finally looks up from his absolutely enthralling novel. "Well, I would say that is good news."
Anakin nods. A week is not that long. "We will need another Jedi to complete the dynamic trio," he says with a smile. Obi-Wan gives him a questioning look. "Ummm... Where did you come up with that?"
"The holonet. Where else?"
"Anakin, when do you possibly find time?"
"Coming from a man who reads books on growing grogru fruit."
"It may come in handy sometime."
"If you retire and become a grogru farmer," Anakin says, trying to keep his laughter from getting out of hand. "Seriously. Do something fun for a change."
"So your version of 'fun' is watching the holonet."
Anakin decides to change the subject. "Who do you think could fill Ahsoka's role in the dynamic trio?" he says containing his laughter to a mere smile.
Obi-Wan rubs his beard. "Well... I think that you could replace her quite well. Shien lightsaber style, still has much to learn, promoted way too early, rash..." He fails to realize Ahsoka has awakened. Both Anakin and Ahsoka are angry now. Obi-Wan's eyes double in size when she says, "I think Anakin won't be the only one offended."
Anakin turns things right back in hurry, saying, "However, I do think that when you get injured, Master Yoda would make a nice replacement. No life outside the Jedi whatsoever, past his prime, gives laborious lectures, hates piloting..." At the second one, Obi-Wan takes offense, and at the last, he finds it untruthful. Both his comments, though, are drowned out by laughter amongst the two younger Jedi.
The Jedi Council is a place Anakin and Obi-Wan have visited often. The large, panoramic windows giving a view of Coruscant, the warmly decorated floor, the feeling of being surrounded, the stern and serene at the same time faces, it is all familiar. It is home.
They give their report accurately, until they get to the part where Anakin joins the battle, and accidentally, nearly kills Ahsoka. Obi-Wan had to take over for those parts, and keep the integrity of the account.
Mace speaks first. "Young Skywalker, you made a slight mistake. Things turned out badly as a result, but I think we can blame coincidence here."
Yoda, of course, has to at least speak second, so he is next. "Agree with Master Windu I do, but careful you must be. Next time, consequences, there may be."
"Agreed," says Kit Fisto, in his usual charming voice.
A general chorus of approval confirms Yoda's position. After just those few minutes, they are already onto current matters. "Now, onto more current matters, we must go, hmmm?" Anakin gives a slight smile. "Where is our next battle?"
By Yoda's standards, his laugh that followed was pretty long, at about five seconds. "Wrong, you are, Skywalker. Not a battle, this mission is, hmmm. A simple investigation, it is."
Anakin takes his turn to chuckle. "First, investigations are never simple, and second, the CIS is likely behind it, and that means at least a little battle."
This time the humor earns a disappointed, stern, glare. "Well then," Mace Windu says. "To continue, on a serious note, our Y-Wings are reliant on tibanna gas as fuel, and we receive quite a bit from a supplier on Bespin. A floating facility called Cloud City earns plenty in the tourism business, but also works with tibanna gas production. It is both governmentally and privately done, and they have a contract to supply the Republic.
Production has gone down to an extent in multiple suppliers that we are starting to assume something is going on. It is starving us of our tibanna, and we need an investigation."
Anakin nods. "Sounds simple enough. Obi-Wan and I should manage without Ahsoka."
At this point, the Council has simply gotten used to the informal protocol. "May the Force be with you," Adi Gallia says, her way of ending the session. A chorus of the same phrase is echoed throughout the council. "May the Force be with you," Obi-Wan responds, and he and his partner leave.
"Are you certain that this is the best course of action?" Depa Billiba asks once they are gone. "I can understand investigating this, but is sending our two most well known Jedi a little too much attention?" Yoda slightly twitches his ear, a sign generally hinting at distress. "Our forces are spread thin as it is," Mace Windu adds. "Numerous other fronts could use their help."
"Time, Skywalker needs, to ponder his actions, hmmm?" Yoda finally says. "Time away from the battlefield, needed it is, for both of them."
Plo Koon rubs his mask, like Obi-Wan would do with his beard. "Still, I am not sure this decision is worth it."
"I do think constant battle is starting to get to them, particularly Skywalker," Saesee Tiin says.
"Only time will tell if this is worth it," Mace Windu says.
"May the Force be with them," Ki-Adi Mundi says. "We made our decision before the meeting, and it has been settled. They will go."
Mace stares him down in his usual, stern way, but nods his head in agreement. "It is settled then," he finally says.