I grabbed the belt around my waist and jumped out of the ship. Spinning over in mid air so that my back was facing the ground, I deployed my grappling hook. It shot straight up and latched onto the hull of the gunship. My troops watched as it zipped past their faces and I stopped falling all together, but only for a moment. As I continued my dissent, I was oblivious to the sound of my grappling cord snapping. I started to let out a scream, but remembered we were on a stealth mission for the time being, so screaming was not an option. My troops were on their way down, but I was falling to fast for them.

"Master is not going to be happy about this!" I muttered to myself. Then it hit me. I leaned over to my boot and snatched the blaster off. I hastily grabbed the grappling hook in it and started to attach it. As I scrambled to set up the blaster for its grapple setting, my finger accidentally hit the trigger and I fired a red light up into the air. (Thankfully away from all my men.)

"Whoops! Let's...try that again!" I plugged in the grappling hook and aimed it at the ship. Releasing the trigger once more, this time, to my relief, a silent grapple tightened itself around the ship just in the nick of time.

I hung from the blaster, my eyes shut and breathing steadily.

I had almost become an inter-galactic, light-saber wielding, padawan pancake on the ground of Alderaan. That's not looking like the greatest mission report in the galaxy...

"Who woulda known?" The Yellow leader, Sky, chuckled as he dangled from his blaster beside me. "Commander Beto is bad with blasters!"

"I knew I brought this thing for a reason..." I mumbled to myself. As I opened my eyes headed for the safety of the ground. Just before I reached the surface of Alderaan, I looked up at my squadron and smiled. "Now you guys know why I use a light-saber!" I shouted up.

My team and I eventually all made it down, and headed though the forest to the front of the palace. We sat and watched for a little while as the two walkers and the two fighters caused some damage.

"Alright, boys," I started to walk out of the forest. "It's distraction time!"

"Hey, isn't that a Jedi?" One of the smaller droids guarding the palace gate asked.

"Yeah!" the other one said. "Blast her!"

I dipped forward as they began shooting and did a front flip into the air avoiding every shot they took. I activated my blue light-saber and slashed the two trigger happy droids in half. I landed gracefully on my feet and continued slicing through the thin layers of what the Separatists called "defense". My team had already engaged in battle and we seemed to be winning, until the Sepratists brought out a new toy. A BIG, new toy. I jumped up and used a droid's chest as a platform. As I dislocated it's head, I propelled myself into a backflip, and cut another droid in half.

With this new weapon out, I was going to need to call in some reinforcements.

"This is Commander Beto to Gunship, we are in need of reinforcements, repeat, in need of reinforcements."

"Copy that, and we're on our way."

By this time my team was on the defensive, or at least I was. I couldn't make and moves and talk at the same time so I had to block shots using my light-saber as a shield.

"Mars, what's your status?" My master's voice came in over the com-link.

"Distraction is in progress, Master," I replied.

"What's that tone?" My master asked, a hint of suspicion in his teasing tone.

"What tone?" I asked.

"That tone."

"Oh, this tone? It's my, "I'm trying to concentrate on not dying" tone."

My master chuckled slightly. "Ok, ok, I'll see you on the next flight outta here, Mars."

I switched my com-link off and went back on the offensive. Soon after, my Red and Green squadron came to our aid.

Now that I knew the droid problem was being taken care of, I needed to concentrate on that weapon. First off, I didn't know what it did. Disadvantage number one. I did, however have two sky high advantages.

"I'm going to demobilize that weapon closest to the wall, but I'll need your help to do it, Mac. I need you and Green leader to distract it while I go in for the kill."

"Copy that Commander."

A droid ran past me, toward the weapon, so I grabbed it around its neck area to stop it.

"No! No!" It cried.

I cut off its legs and they started running away, but two seconds later they were lying on the ground. I dropped the rest of the droid and suddenly heard a loud bang.

"Hey! I said no explosives!" I cried over the com-link.

"That...wasn't us, sir..." Mac answered tentatively, knowing I was about ready to go off like a bomb myself. If my orders aren't followed, I tend to get a little frustrated.

"Watch out!" Before I could comprehend what was happening I was tackled to the ground.

Milliseconds later, a fighter crashed to the ground right were I was standing. I sat on the ground, my eyes wide. My master stood beside me and helped me to my feet.

"Need a hand?" He asked smiling. I stood up an immediately assumed my defense position.

"Master, what are you doing here?" I asked, trying to keep the remaining droids at bay. "I thought you were rescuing the princess!"

"The princess is gone," Varian confessed. "The Separatists moved her. Somehow they knew we were going to be here," he shouted over the ongoing battle as he, too, had unsheathed his green light-saber and stared defending himself from the droids blasters.

"Then we've just waisted time here!" I shouted, growing a little more frustrated.

"It would seem that way..." My master sounded like he was agreeing with me, but for teaching purposes, he wasn't going to verbally state that.

"What are we going to do now?!" I asked.

"Retreat. Head back to the station and re-plan our rescue mission."

"But-" I was going to argue, but that bang sound went off again, and one of the walkers collapsed and caught fire not too far from us.

"Mars we have to leave now, but it's your call, these aren't my troops," I put my head down and thought to myself for a moment. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, gripping the hilt of my light-saber tighter. If theres one thing I don't like, its retreating, but my master was right. If I wanted my team to survive, I was going to have to do the thing I hated most.

Turning my com-link on I started backing away toward the forest behind me. "Everybody fall back, I want all mobilized stations to go into a full retreat."

Everyone that was left started backing away and soon, everyone was darting back for the gunship through the thick lush forest.

Everytime I'm forced to retreat, I feel like I've lost. I can't stand the thought if losing, but no one is any use dead.