Starting with an update on Obi-wan and company. (sorry I can't write space battles)

Sunlaou's Jedi starfighter sped past another burning chunk of debris, the twisted and blackened metal shining and sparking. He fired off lasers from the front-facing canons as he targeted the speeding vulture droids in front of him. Thin wisps of black smoke still trailed from his left wing, and he'd recalled that Obi-wan had told him to get it fixed on more than one occasion.

"Soni, your wing is—" Aayla momentarily pulled up beside Sunlaou, indicating the damaged wing.

"I know, I know, I'll get it fixed once we finish this battle!" he said, yelling unnecessarily. He banked a hard left, avoiding a missile that would have otherwise completely destroyed him.

"Sunlaou, I don't think you'll still be here after this battle—not with that kind of damage," Obi-wan's usually calm voice came over the interconnected comm system. "It's trailing more than just smoke now."

Sunlaou spared a brief glance at the damaged part of his ship. Sure enough, fiery sparks flew out of the gaping hole in the torn metal, along with the initial smoke and sputtering black oil. "That doesn't look good…" Sunlaou muttered, eyeing the wing. His R-unit beeped frantically, his small eye-cam pointing towards the mess. "Have you tried stopping oil flow?" Sunlaou maneuvered through the wreckage and dismembered droids, still fighting hard despite the fact that his ship could blow up while he was in it.

"Sunlaou, if you stopped the oil flow, only half the engine would be working!" Aayla said, weaving through vulture droids and targeting the ones attacking the men. Her trigger finger fired automatically, destroying half a squad of vulture droids.

"Thanks General!" one of the grateful clones said, swinging around to continue into the battle.

Although they were losing many men, the Republic forces were making good headway in the battle.

"It's the only thing I can do right now!" he answered, nerves and adrenaline making his voice tight. He gripped the steering controls for the starfighter tightly in his hands, sweat making his hands slip. Sunlaou didn't care what the others said, he wasn't turning in to fix the craft.

He had family on that planet—and he intended to save her.

Rex gritted his teeth, refusing to give in to the pain ripping through the skin on his back. He sucked in harshly through his teeth, his breathing heavy and labored. He forced his mind to focus on other things, struggling to completely shut out the pain.

Kanari.

Rex immediately felt himself relax at the memory of the palace worker. She was always smiling, always laughing, and had a sort of general joyousness about her that made her enjoyable to be around. Rex let Kanari's smile wash over his mind.

It wasn't only Kanari that Rex enjoyed the presence of—it was also the children. Kiki's nieces and nephew were constantly chattering and giggling, sometimes pulling him or the other men into little "games" that they would make up on the spot. More than once he'd gotten lost in the gardens trying to find one of the smaller children in a game of hide-and-seek.

The corner of Rex's lip twitched.

He'd be lying if he said he didn't kind of miss them. The children's energy was rejuvenating in a way, and Kanari always made good food for him and Crusade Squad.

He tended to enjoy little Ri the most; she was quiet, and yet the Force-sensitive child knew when sitting on his lap and smiling was best for him. On the days when she was feeling talkative, she surprised everyone by coming out as a very articulate and well-spoken two year old. A clone at her age would have been speaking just as well, but for standard civilians it was amazing.

She was definitely sassier when she was having her talkative moments.

Rex's small lip twitch grew into a faded smile as he remembered the witty retorts she would come up with as she replied to a particularly stupid comment. His forehead pressed into the cold stone wall, the frost on the hard surface biting his already numb skin. He exhaled in a short puff of breath, the small white cloud floating up to cloud his vision. The Lizard had long since left, and he was glad for that. He could have a moment to himself.

"Rex…"

Rex's eyes snapped open, his gaze flicking to his right, three men down, where Bliz was chained. He was facing the wall the same way Rex was, but he tilted his head back to give Rex a look. "What're you laughing about?" he whispered, voice raspy. His own dry and cracked lips spread into a small smile.

"Remember the kids?" Rex asked, careful to keep his voice low. The Lizard's hearing was impeccable.

"Yeah…" Bliz whispered back, his smile widening into a grin. "I always liked the blonde one."

"Chiekora?"

"Mm…" Bliz rested his head against the cold wall, feeling a bit better now that he had something happy to think about.

Ri'van looked down to the set of rusty keys in his hand, then up to the male Jedi chained to the dusty wall, left half-standing because of the level he was raised. He focused tensely on the back of the Jedi, contemplating his options. In the end, he hooked the keys back on his belt, sighing sadly through his teeth.

As Ri'van shuffled through the doorway, he didn't miss the look the Jedi sent him.

##

Ri'van was breathless, but he continued running, scrambling on all fours to get to the main prisoner's cell. He sharply turned a corner, almost slamming into the adjacent wall and dropping the rough cloth bag that he held in his mouth. The smell of dry jerky wafted up from the porous bag.

Behind him, he could hear the heavy footsteps of pantry guards running after him, racing to get back the food he had stolen.

Ri'van knew he was close; he could smell the blood.

Just one more corner…

At the last second, Ri'van stopped in front of the rusting metal door before he almost ran past it. He pulled the door open and ran inside, closing it shut again. He waited until he heard scratching footsteps outside the door pause for a moment, then continued on. Ri'van was younger, thus making him lighter and faster than the older males. Plus, the smell of blood and cold temperature would hide the smell of sweat coming off of his body. Ri'van slowed his breathing in the chilly room, not wanting to make too much noise. Slowly, he locked the door from the inside and took the bag out of his mouth. The opening was wet, but the food inside was otherwise undamaged. He turned to the dark cell behind him, knowing full well that he had probably scared the prisoners with such an entrance and that they all had stiffened in their spots. Slowly, he ambled to the left wall, where the pregnant woman was chained. Although it was dark, his vision was fine. He wouldn't have needed to see where he was going either way because of the heady sweet smell coming off of her from the pregnancy hormones.

"Are you awake?" he whispered, kneeling down in front of her.

The female's eyes barely cracked open, revealing deep purple irises that probably used to laugh when she did. Her entire body was shaking, the ends of her slender fingers reaching a deep blue.

Ri'van felt like kicking himself in the head. He hadn't realized that the cold effected warm blooded creatures differently from cold blooded. Had she been any smaller, she most likely would have frozen to death. Ri'van fumbled with the drawstring on the bag as he contemplated a way to make her—no, all of them—warmer in the cell. He didn't have the controls for the temperature of the prison cells, and there was no way he would have been able to sneak a blanket into the room—there weren't enough, anyway.

The entire time, the woman watched him with an almost absent look on her face. Each breath she took made her shutter, starting from her ribcage and vibrating out to her extremities until they reached her hands, which seemed to shake permanently.

Almost clumsily (for the cold was getting to him) Ri'van pulled out a thin strip of jerky. "Can you eat?" he asked, hoping he didn't make a mistake and bring her something that was too hard for her to chew. Steadily, so as not to startle her, he moved the keys in his hand up to the lock at her wrists, inserting the correct key and turning it.

Her arms dropped to her lap, her shoulders popping at the sudden shift in position. The female hissed as she bit her lip and squeezed her watering eyes shut, placing a shaking hand on a shoulder. After a moment she reopened her eyes, looking down to the strip of jerky Ri'van held in his clawed hand. Her shaking fingers slowly reached up, but couldn't clasp the meat.

Ri'van hurried as he ripped it into smaller pieces and put them all in the woman's lap. He wasn't sure how exactly mammals' nervous systems worked when they were this cold, but surely she would have been able to pick up the smaller pieces?

"Th…them…"

Ri'van looked up from what he was doing, straining to hear what the female had said.

"Them…" she said again, motioning with her eyes to the group of males at the wall. With trembling fingers, she clumsily pushed the small pile of shredded meat on her lap toward Ri'van. "G-Give…to…"

"I'm sorry…" he said, finally understanding what it was she was trying to say. "I can't do that. You have to eat your share." He crawled over to the wall perpendicular to hers, ignoring the frozen and dried blood that stuck to his hands. He tapped the first male he reached on the face, rousing him from shallow sleep.

The male opened his eyes, hazel brown and tired looking. His hair was in solid spikes on top of his head, and his face matched the others' perfectly save for a few minute differences—he had laugh lines around his eyes. He stared at Ri'van with open cautiousness.

Compared to the others, he's the trusting one of the group, Ri'van thought, pulling out a small hard wafer. "Can you eat this?" he asked as he unlocked one of the male's hands. He turned over his hand and placed the food in it, moving on to the next prisoner. He continued this same process with all of the males, the entire time marveling at the "clone troopers". Ri'van wondered how they could have all ended up looking exactly the same (they must have at least been different ages)—or how they could even tell each other apart. The bone structure was matching all throughout the set, except for the strangely younger looking one at the end of the line. Ri'van wasn't entirely sure whether or not that was true, but he'd heard the screams from all of them, and his sounded a bit higher. Ri'van returned to the female, this time preparing to make his rounds with water. He had to hurry though, the frigid air was severely stalling his movements as he moved sluggishly back across the room.

He unscrewed the cap to the canteen and pressed the lip of the container to the female's lips, praying the contents weren't frozen. Thankfully, they weren't, and he saw that when the water dripped from the sides of her mouth and she started choking. Well, it's probably more mud than water, he thought. Brushing the crumbs off of her lap, he moved on to the rest of the prisoners. Ri'van stole a glance inside the bag, making sure there was still food left for him to eat. He had to make sure that the other Lizards thought he stole the food from storage so he could eat it, not to feed the malnourished prisoners.

He was planning on eating the small bit of fish, jerky, and bread in the sack. He knew that the pantry guards would smell his breath to figure out what he did with it.

With now shaking fingers, Ri'van retied the bag, chewing on the food he forced himself to eat. He hated not being able to give the rest of it to them, but he had to make sure that no one else knew he was aiding their supposed enemy.

If he were to be caught, he could possibly be driven out or even killed, and he would be of no use to the prisoners outside the clan or dead.

Kanari snuck through the deep back alleys of the homes in front of the palace, keeping her footsteps light and quick. From what she had seen at the windows, the Republic had been pushed back to the south, near a line of trees. Even after days of the bomb having initially exploded, small fires still burned in between the rubble, and lost soldiers and civilians alike would wander through it, just lonely pale figures floating through what used to be called a city, a home.

Just like ghosts.

She stepped over another dead body, this one too charred to identify as Lizard, clone, or civilian. Kanari had long since lost count of the amount of bodies she'd seen over the course of these three days.

It wasn't the first time she was sneaking around after dark.

A noise sounded behind her, and on pure instinct she spun and pulled her rifle, aiming into the stretching shadows. The dark spilled into every crevice and corner it could find, pulling like blankets over dead bodies of men and women. It was almost like a solid, the way it sat atop everything.

Nothing showed.

Kanari took a slightly shuddery breath and turned back around, continuing to the south district. The closer she got to the area, the more signs she saw of the battle; a helmet here, an arm there, more dismembered bodies that suffered from the bloodthirsty Kirzmin Lizards.

She stepped over another body, not even bothering to look down and try to identify it. She'd tried that before, and she'd almost thrown up. Kanari's thick brown hunting boots crunched over debris and matter she would rather not identify. She crept along until she'd made it to the end of the South District, watching carefully from the shadows as the group of clones sat around a fire, helmets removed and hauntingly silent.

"Still no reinforcements—can't even get communication off of this damned planet," one spoke, poking the crackling fire with a twisted metal pole.

"We've been fighting for days! How long do they think we can possibly last out here?" another said, sounding younger and less experienced compared to the rest of the group.

Kanari crept forward incrementally, not wanting to give away her position. Carefully, she placed her hand on the crumpled wall in front of her, crouching low.

One of the clone's heads snapped up, instantly silencing the conversations of the others. He took his decee in both his hands, glaring in the general direction of Kanari. Every fiber in Kanari told her to get up and run and not move at the same time. Her heart beat furiously in her ears, adrenaline beginning to make it harder to sit still.

"What is it, Sarge?" the younger man asked, tensing up with the rest of the group. He too picked up his blaster, looking in the same direction as the sergeant. His eyes narrowed to dark brown slits.

The sergeant didn't say anything, instead carefully tiptoeing to the wall Kanari was hiding behind. Suddenly his footsteps stopped.

Just when she thought he would turn around and go back to the camp, another clone sprung out from her left, aiming the rifle directly at her head.

Kanari yelped and leapt back away from the weapon, her hand digging into something sharp. The sudden pain was a surprise, and naturally, she swore in Verinese.

"We have a spy, sir!" The clone looked down at her, gaze cold through the black visor.

The sergeant from the fire came around the other side, also with his blaster aimed. "Well well…" he said, his lips twisting into a sadistic smirk. "I thought we had a spy around here."

"What do we do with her, sir?" the clone asked, addressing his commanding officer. He was speaking over her, probably thinking that she couldn't understand him. She'd sworn in a different language—he must have assumed that she couldn't speak Basic.

"We may have to hold her prisoner—but we don't have the provisions for an extra person." The sergeant kept his blaster rifle aimed at her head, but momentarily looked at the other. "Help her up. We'll figure out what to do with her."

Kanari was unceremoniously lifted from the ground by her arm, the hunter's rifle almost slipping off of her back. The clone's tight grip on her upper arm didn't release as he held her there. She glared at the rude clone, but remained silent. Kanari yanked her arm away.

"Alright," the sergeant said after a moment. "We're keeping her until we can figure out what to do."

"Come on," the rookie said, tilting his head back in the direction of the fire.

Kanari didn't budge, instead choosing to glare directly at him.

"She doesn't understand you," another clone spoke, annoyance tugging at his voice. He raised his arm up to push her shoulder forward.

Before his hand had reached her, however, Kanari spun and took his wrist, pinching the nerves and bending his hand back, effectively holding the rest of his arm still. Pain shot up along the man's arm. "I can understand you perfectly fine, thank you very much," she snarled, general anger sharpening her diction and partially erasing her accent. "And I'd prefer it if you addressed me instead of speaking around me."

The circle of men stood in partly-stunned silence for a moment before the sergeant spoke up. "Alright, ma'am, you have to come with us."

Kanari scowled. "Says who?"

The sergeant leveled a cool gaze at her, his voice slightly muffled through the filters of his helmet. "Well, protocol states that we should—"

"I'm not going anywhere," Kanari said, turning and stepping over the rubble. She was aiming to get back to the palace; the children would be worried sick without her. There were other maids, but she was their favorite.

Three of the clones immediately stepped in front of her, effectively blocking her path. "We're sorry ma'am, but we can't let you do that. We don't know whether you're an ally or an enemy, and it would be safest at this time of night if you were to stay with us." His official tone made to leave no room for argument, but Kanari ignored him—she was stubborn like that.

"I have important business I need to—" The slight whir of loaded guns aiming at her forehead and all vital organs stilled her movements. She narrowed her eyes.

"You have to come with us."

Kanari gave the smallest huff of breath, turning and aiming her steps back toward the dying campfire. She didn't like the idea of having to be "taken prisoner" but she didn't want to potentially risk her life.

"And we'll need to take the rifle, ma'am." The same trooper who had roughly pulled her up and pushed her forward reached to pull the strap of her rifle.

She almost broke his wrist.

"Argh!" the clone yanked his arm back, rubbing his sore wrist. "What is wrong with you?!"

Kanari knew that she would probably be in bad blood with the group of men, but she wasn't about to let anyone touch any of her weapons.

"You'd better come with us now before I change my mind," the sergeant ground out, yet again re-aiming his rifle.

Honestly, Kanari was getting tired of this, but she did as she was told and walked with her hands behind her head to the dead fire, struggling not to trip over large chunks of rubble. She sat at a low crumbled wall, hands still behind her head. She gazed coolly at the men.

It was almost a minute of staring before any of them moved.

The rookie was the first to remove his helmet, walking over to sit beside Kanari and setting his bucket on the ground. She immediately noticed his slightly uneasy demeanor and the black and silver paint striping his arms and legs—Kiki's company. The other men, she noticed, had different colors on their armor as well, a few not having any sort of identification.

Kanari lowered her arms and folded them neatly in her dusty lap, eyeing the men that sat directly across from her.

Eventually, conversation resumed, but it was more with eye movements and gestures she was apparently not supposed to be able to pick up.

"I know you're all talking about me—no need to hide it," Kanari said, not even bothering to cover the amusement in her voice. "It's rude, you know, speaking about people that are in the same group as you."

She didn't fail to register that shock that came across the men's faces before the sergeant recollected himself and sat up straight. "Well," he began, crossing his legs at the ankles. "Since we're obviously not going to get anything by you, I am Sergeant Salis."

They both knew she wouldn't be calling him "sergeant" any time soon.

One by one, the clones started introducing themselves, some giving numbers instead of actual names. Once they saw the slight annoyance on her face, they would immediately change it to a shortened version of their number. The last clone left was the one sitting next to her—the rookie.

"I'm Dice," he said almost quietly, poking the metal pole at the embers if what used to be a fire. He offered the smallest of smiles before quickly returning his attention to the ashes.

It was a moment before Kanari spoke. "My name is Kanari." She knew they would have trouble properly saying that. "Kah-NAH-ree-yeh," she sounded out, pronouncing each syllable and rolling the "r". "You could call me by whatever nickname you want, but I will not answer to 'woman' or 'lady'."

A few of the men still sat with bemused faces, while a few of the others nodded in agreement. "Alright," Sergeant Salis spoke. "You might as well get your rest. I'll keep first watch," he said, shooting Kanari a pointed look.

Kanari opened her mouth to protest, but then quickly decided against it. She lowered herself to the rocky ground and lay on her side, watching Dice a few feet away from her.

Dice looked up from where he was laying, blushed a bit, and shifted over another meter or so. "Sorry ma'am…" he muttered, turning his back to her.

Kanari didn't know what he was apologizing for. She rolled over onto her back, the dead, glowing fire at her feet. She gazed up at the dark inky blue sky, counting the stars and naming the planets.

She wasn't going to sleep anytime soon.

I feel like making Dice have some kind of puppy crush on Kanari, but that would be completely irrelevant to the story (although it would be nicer than the "comic relief" I have going on now with Aella and Alick). At this rate, the next chapter should be out shortly, and it will be slowly but surely leading up to major events.

~AAx