Anakin staggered against the cruel, icy winds that assaulted him on his first step on top of the hull. It was like trying to balance through an arctic hurricane out here; his body heat was sapped within seconds, and it took his full strength and concentration simply to avoid being thrown into oblivion. Obi-Wan made it look much easier, Anakin immediately thought, though in his case, he could commune with his pilot to predict the ship's movements. Anakin, by contrast, had no such advantage. R2 was performing quite well, as expected, but as a droid, had no way to indicate his maneuvers in real time. It was therefore Anakin's efforts alone that would keep him on board – but how could he possibly expect to catch another person like this?
He took another step, legs trembling beneath him. There had to be some kind of trick to this. Obi-Wan's life depended on there being some trick to this. Pressure rising, Anakin flicked his view from his uncertain feet to the figure plummeting in the bright blue distance, rapidly approaching as the interceptor drew near. He wasn't ready. A few seconds weren't nearly enough to adequately adjust to the erratic gales of Bespin's upper atmosphere. At this rate, if he was lucky enough to catch him at all, they'd both end up freefalling to their deaths. Obi-Wan just needed to fall slower, and then maybe this could work out. Unfortunately, even that step required Anakin to harness the Force: a near-impossible task, considering how difficult it was already to keep himself upright.
As the ship reached a point level with Obi-Wan, R2 accelerated, steepening their angle to match his descending speed. The air whipped back in dissent. Anakin wobbled against it uncontrollably, battling the currents that struck out and threatened to toss him aside. As soon as he stretched out an arm Obi-Wan's way, he was forced to withdraw. Leaning too far in any direction had him floating away from the hood, which… Now that he thought of it, was extraordinarily helpful. That is, assuming R2 didn't take off with the ship. He drew in his knees. Thankfully, the ship remained under him, neither falling away nor coming too close. R2 had cleverly matched their target's velocity, meaning Anakin was free to move as he pleased. Hovering this way, there was no need to balance.
Anakin lifted his hands. His once-scattered concentration pinpointed upon the mangled form several meters away, wrapping him tightly in the folds of the Force, pulling him closer through the grip of the winds. I'll be taking that, thank you very much. The Force quivered in an oppressive wave. Obi-Wan drifted lifelessly inside its will, dragged compulsorily until he met Anakin's touch, whereupon he deflated into a pair of possessive arms. Sighting this, R2 slowed the ship ever so gently to catch them in turn. Anakin's boots made contact with the hull once again, and the grey fog enveloped them not a second later.
Blanketed now within the slur, they could only hear it when the lightning bolt crash came from the storm's center around Sector 6. Anakin turned to squint blindly upon the dim silhouette of the floating island as it severed at last, powering down and crumbling in two halves toward the planet's vacant surface.
Everyone scrambling inside the city felt the drop far more acutely. Like an elevator descending, Ahsoka was suddenly lifted away from the floor of the wide quarantine room, along with every terrified citizen under her care. Their screams echoed loud across the tall walls. Plo jostled at his perch near the room's ceiling where he'd carved a path through the labyrinth tunnel system leading straight to the breach outside. He knew what had happened, just as these refugees did.
"Ahsoka!" he shouted over their collective hysteria. It was deplorable, but the worst case scenario had come to pass. The only thing left to do now was escape on their own. Not every mission allowed the innocents to be saved.
Competing ideas raced through Ahsoka's mind as she wedged between persons. Intuitively, she felt the need to restore order, institute a calm attitude among the victim population, and proceed from there. But what then? Her and Plo's one-by-one evacuation strategy was useless while they didn't have the time it required to safely pass each individual up to the ceiling tunnel. They'd only rescued a few when the platform gave out. More than a hundred remained. She couldn't just give up on them all. …Could she? Plo's urgent gesture seemed to indicate that she could. Far and above her he waved his arm back, in toward the tunnel, compelling her to retreat. But she couldn't bear to perceive what any of these citizens might feel if they saw her obey. A last hope abolished. A hatred for Jedi. Their last living emotion would tell of betrayal, before being snuffed in a gruesome crash.
"Do something!"
"You're Jedi, aren't you?!"
"Take me!"
Dozens of desperate pleas clamored to garner her sympathy. Frantic hands clenched all over her body, vying to preserve themselves as if Ahsoka were some magical, life-giving beacon. She pulled and wrenched from them – the room clotted with a heavy, infectious fear that buried her in its weight.
"I'm sorry! I- I can't! Let go of me!"
Her cries were ignored, if at all they were heard. She ceased to be sentient in their terror-filled eyes, just a means of escape with limited capacity.
"Stop it!"
Their manic thoughts were even more suffocating than the limbs they used to strangle her. When she thrust them away, more would latch on to her arm. She didn't want to leave, at least not initially, but now she wasn't even given the option. Scratches carved into her arms and dug through her clothes. Anonymous nails ate into her skin and were ripped away, perpetually in cycle fueled by the deathmatch going on around her. The fear etching into her mind nearly brought her lightsaber to bear, but all at once the mob fell to the ground in a tangled mass. Finally, the insatiable fingers were gone. In their place came an invisible set, Plo's careful presence plucking her out from the rest, raising her high out of reach from the sea of covetous refugees. The mournful sounds they made would surely ring in Ahsoka's ears for months to come.
"General Koon. We've located the 212th and the LAATs are inbound. ETA thirty seconds. We'll wait for you at the breach."
It wasn't the first update to go unacknowledged. Wolffe and his squad entered the power facilities' ground level through a shattered glass wall that, on further inspection, had once been two doors. Inside, the scene was sheer horror. Dead brothers were seen through the fog, draped over extravagant pieces of furniture that had been flipped on their sides to constitute a barricade against the MagnaGuard that invaded their den. Obviously, it didn't work. Some of the troopers were missing pieces of armor, Wolffe noticed, decorated instead with emergency kit bandages or makeshift splits. The picture was loathsome as it was clear: the droid raided a medical post. And by the looks of it, most of the 212th had been here when it happened. The MagnaGuard's unmoving corpse was splayed near the entrance, cuing the Wolfpack further inside as Sinker startled the team to alarm when he stepped on its face.
Maybe half of the men were alive there to greet them. Mackenzie was especially so, in spite of his wounds, for he landed a shot through the collarbone of Wolffe's tracking specialist before being rushed by three other clones. Once subdued, his story confirmed their suspicions: the hideout was penetrated, and several men died in defense of the more critically injured. Anyone else was out in the field. And it appeared that those in the field would be lost in the field, because just then, the station quaked in an ear-splitting groan, and the murky cloud over the city ascended while Sector 6 dropped.
Running through the derelict city was like running on a low-gravity moon; the injured were shuttled into daylight with remarkable ease. Smaller bits of wreckage began to float where they stirred from the ground, culminating a diffuse soup of inconsequential obstacles that chewed at the plating over every clone's legs. Evac was late, it turned out – the LAATs were unable to land. They bounced on uneven terrain made of pits and debris, struggling in addition to compensate for the Sector's velocity. The best they could do was to kill their thrusters somewhere close to the ground, so that evacuees could be passed up as distance permitted.
Wolffe supervised the tenuous operation, keeping one eye on the chasm for any sign of Plo. The gap was impassable now. It spanned all the way from one end of the platform to the other, a monster's jaw that yawned ever wider.
"Commander Cody, do you read me?" It was at least worth a shot. If he could provide exact coordinates, there was a chance someone could pick him up. And a Commander was rarely found on his own: if Cody survived, there were likely more with him.
Miraculously, the trio remained suspended along the station's edge. Except, whereas their previous situation had them dangling down toward the planet, they now dangled up toward the sky. Cody's right wrist was ensnared in cord. The comm unit attached blinked to summon him, but aside from him having no means to answer it, he was stricken by the magnificent sight of a Republic destroyer soaring in from the south. Its mountainous presence consumed the horizon.
In one, concerted act, the three ships extended their vast docking bridges, and right as they each connected to Sector 6 from east, west and below, the plunge was terminated at once.
LAATs hovering delicately smashed into the ground. The Wolfpack was floored with their fragile patients. Plo and Ahsoka were safe by comparison inside the narrow tunnel, but as usual, the worst of this mission chose Cody, who received a slow, deliberate shake of the head from Switch as the three fell again from the maximum height their cables allowed.