"Lead from the Front, and They Will Do Anything for You."
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The padawan felt himself jostling. His empty stomach was being pressed into his spine, and he felt a hand over his lower back. The smell of burned wood and metal was in his nose, and the taste of metal was in his mouth. He opened his eyes to see the ground rushing past beneath him.
He was being carried at a very fast pace. He blinked and looked up. A deep boom rumbled through the air, and before he could realize it, a massive explosion erupted two-hundred yards behind them.
"Do you have the commander?" he heard a voice ask.
"I've got him, sir!" he heard the man carrying him respond. He pressed his left hand into the low back of the man's back and made himself a little more rigid. "LA-ATs maintaining fire!" the man said. He looked up to see one of the aforementioned landing craft spiraling out of the sky and crash.
Then he remembered. He was on Jefi. They were in the middle of a campaign.
"The enemy has crossed to waypoint alpha. They are being overrun," he heard. The man slowed.
"Put me down," he said. The clone carrying him slowed as they arrived at a mass of broken concrete.
"Hold on, sir," the clone said. He slowly lowered the padawan to the ground. He put his hands beneath him and used the Force to steady his landing. He gritted his teeth as a mud and soot covered clone ran to his side.
"Commander, you're alright," he said. The padawan steadied himself with his hands and sat up straight. The clone who had carried him reached his right hand out holding his lightsaber covered in mud and chips of stone. The padawan reached and took it.
"Thank you, Longshot. I'm fine," he said as he examined the weapon. He wiped the mud off the emitter face and saw it was dinged and nicked itself, but he was confident it would still work. "How long was I out?" he asked.
"Not long, sir. You were able to free the men from the LA-AT's wreckage, but you passed out."
"Where are they?" the padawan asked.
"They're undercover, but we can't get a medivac in yet. We're working on a casevac," the clone reported. The padawan understood and categorized that information and shifted to the current threat, those big guns.
"Were you able to raise the fleet, Commander Grey?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. They are holding their turbo laser batteries priority for us, but their sensors are being jammed, and we don't know exactly where the guns are."
The padawan nodded his head and spit the blood out of his mouth. "How many remote scouts do we have left?" he asked.
"We have not used any," the clone responded.
"Three?"
"Yes, sir."
The padawan nodded. "Did you find the bearing of those rounds that are coming in?" he asked. Another sonic boom filled the air. The ground shook as one of the mammoth projectiles landed a safe five-hundred yards away.
"Yes sir," Gray responded. The padawan nodded his head.
"Alright. Launch all three. One to the extreme left of the position, one right at it, and one to the right. We need to triangulate their position so we can tell the cruisers where to fire."
"Right, commander," the clone said. The padawan reached out with the Force and felt his men on the battlefield. He had lost a lot, but the rest were engaged. He used the technique his master Plo Koon had taught him called Battle Meditation to feed his strength into his men. When he looked up, he saw the clones throw the drones into the air like javelins.
"Help me up, Longshot," he said. The clone did, and the padawan put an unsteady foot under himself. Having taken shrapnel and ricocheted hits, his armor was chipped and damaged. "How long before we can figure out where the fire is coming from?"
"No telling sir. Two, maybe three minutes," the clone said. The padawan nodded and looked tonthe other clones around him. Deadshot, set up your counter battery radar on top of this piece of cover." He gritted his teeth as he tried to stand straight. "With that, the drone scouts and me, we should be able to specifically figure out where this fire is coming from," he said.
"Yes, sir!" Deadshot said. The padawan shifted his eyes to Commander Gray.
"Commander, get everyone behind me. I'll cover us in the meantime." He looked into Longshot's helmet. "Help me to the top of this cover." The clone helped him around and onto the top of the upturned concrete slabs, and the Jedi Padawan carefully planted his feet. "Thank you, Longshot."
"Any time, Commander," he shouted. The padwan clenched his fists and dug into the Force. He felt everything that was around him. He felt the drones. He felt his clones. He felt the very nature around him. Then, they entered his view. It was not difficult to feel the approach of the mammoth projectiles as they closed at uncommonly high speeds. He reached into the Force and gathered it into his hands as if it were a blanket.
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Their Jedi Commander stood atop their cover like a guardian. The clone watched him work his hands as if he were grabbing something. They felt the ground vibrate slightly as if a vehicle were approaching but there was none. He looked to the ground and saw little bits of rock and dirt movin toward the Jedi. Even the water puddles showed slight ripples across their surfaces. It surged in waves. They had felt this before. This was where their Jedi was using the magic of the Force. He moved his hands as if physically gathering the force and holding it.
He began to throw his hands in slow punches or martial arts moves. They all felt it through their armor as if something moved through them, almost like a wind. The deep boom of incoming projectiles announced over their heads again. This time they landed well away from them. The Jedi continued to do this. Longshot looked at his counter-battery radar display and saw they were being diverted off course. The Jedi was throwing the massive shells off their course.
Impressive, he thought. This is why they're in command. After a moment, Commander Cody, their lead clone crackled over the comms circuit.
"We've got it, sir."
"Give me my helmet, Commander!" the Jedi said. Longshot knew it had been lost. He pulled his off exposing his head. He had a duel mohawk going from hairline to hairline. Tatooed on his right temple was LS-2500 and small scars speckled the left side of his face where he had Yemen shrapnel the campaign prior.
"Commander!" he shouted over the sonic boom. "Yours was lost! Take mine!" he said as he tossed it up to the Padawan. The padawan caught it and looked at it and then shifted his red eyes down to Longshot.
"What's their call sign?" he asked. Commander Cody looked to him.
"Echo Foxtrot Nine One, sir!" Cody responded. The padawan looked back to Longshot.
"Thank you! I'll only be a minute, Longshot!" he said.
"No worries, Commander!" he shouted. The Jedi padawan put the helmet over his blue face and pulled it over his head. As he looked to the sky, Longshot noticed the padawan again looked exactly like one of them. He heard the padawan open the circuit over his wrist comm.
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"Echo Foxtrot Nine One, this is ODC Six One Nine calling on Navy Sec, over" he said. The transmission crackled to life.
"Six One Nine, this is One Seven, be aware Nine One' communications has been disabled. We are assuming communications, send your request," the communications officer said over the network.
"One Seven, fire-mission, new target, grid-square five-five-six-one decimal five by nine-seven-one-four decimal three," he said over the circuit. He held his hands up again deflecting another barrage of massive projectiles. A ring of craters was being dug around them as the padawan equally deflected the projectiles. He listened to the transmission again as there was a lull in the massive fire.
"We copy your coordinates, Six One Nine. Be aware, our orbit will only let us remain unmasked for four minutes. After that we cross the terminator and will be out of view."
"Understood," he said quickly.
"What kind of Fire is your request?"
"Blue Rain," he responded. There was a pause.
"Are you sure, sir?" the comms officer asked over the circuit. Blue Rain was the pro-word for main battery fire. Those were anti-ship turbo-lasers that would carve the landscape up.
"I am certain," the padawan said.
"How many turbo-lasers, sir?"
"All of them. Give me a three-minute fire mission." Again there was a pause.
"What is your intent for the target, sir?" the communications officer asked. The padawan was getting very tired of the procedural aspect of all of this. What the hell did he think his intent was, to deter them?
"I want you to turn that grid square into glass," the padawan responded. There was a long pause before the transmission opened again.
"Your trajectory will be danger close above your position, Commander," the ship warned him.
"Understood." The padawan deflected another salvo if the super heavy projectiles. Dirt and stone sprinkled down on him as he waited for the ship to eat back with him. "Commander, get those drones two thousand meters up. I want them to be able to perform battle Damage Assessment."
"Aye, sir," Gray said. The drones nosed up and gained altitude fast.
After a moment, the transmission opened back up. In the background, the padawan heard the powerful discharge of the Venator-class attack cruiser's turbo laser batteries opening fire.
"Stand by," the ship's communications officer said. "Plasma down-range." The padawan looked over his shoulder and saw tiny blue star bursts in the sky.
"Stand by, boys," the Padawan said. "Here it comes." Very quickly, though they drew into a long line of blaster bolts. They entered the atmosphere with a shock ring like a ripple in a pond, and they approached at an incredible speed. The clouds glowed and then flashed a bright blue as the bolts pierced through them.
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Longshot covered his ears as the turbo laser bolts roared overhead. The sound was more deafening than the sound of the big gun projectiles. The entire landscape was illuminated in a bright blue as the blaster bolts passed over them and burned holes through the atmosphere.
Longshot looked up to see the blaster bolts passing behind their Commander's head trailed by wisps of burned, orange flame as he stood there, covered in the same mud as they, suffering the same wounds, fighting with them, defending them.
Now, he was getting some back for them. He was standing for them. He was their leader.
He was their Jedi.