"All rebel ships we will be pulling out shortly, lock in the following coordinates for our escape jump on my mark." Balek orders. "N-1 pilots, peel back and regroup with the corvettes to be ready to link up with your booster rigs."
The fresh clones pour into the mouth of the landing bay as Jori and Ahsoka continue to hold their ground. Jori deflects a series of blaster bolts from Commander Rook, using dual pistols, and Force pushes him back against the landing bay wall.
With the Jedi's attention back on their front Rook adjusts his helmet noticing Cato's body next to him. Suddenly he spots the lightsaber laying on the ground a few feet in front of her. He holsters his right blaster and grabs the Jedi weapon running straight for them!
Jori hears the blade being being ignited as Rook comes back at her firing a blaster in his left hand and swings the blue blade with his right. She steps back two paces letting him miss then blocks two consecutive strikes when he aims the pistol at her again. She leans back out of the way as Rook fires hitting the last magna-trooper, who was trying to coming in from behind, square in the chest!
Seeing that she made him shoot one of his brothers Rook jumps towards her angrily bringing the lightsaber down over his head.
Jori blocks then disarms him of the lightsaber cutting through his right hand, as well as the hilt. When he stumbles backwards she spins around decapitating him!
"Agh!"
Jori hears Ahsoka groan as her upper left leg is grazed by blasterfire. She Force jumps in front of her helping her up as she twirls her lightsaber deflecting as many blasts as possible.
She's about to attack the nearest trooper a few feet away when they are all strafed by an incoming ship. She looks up assuming the Wingstar is back but instead she sees the surprise of her life as the Arawak comes in to land with its guns blazing!
Gleim, his unit and the escort Sabre's soar into the spaceport locking onto the gunships taking them down and strafing the clones out of existence!
"C'mon we gotta move!" Jori says grabbing Ahsoka to clear out of the middle of the landing bay.
"Don't set her down Xafus, just bring her in close enough to get them on board!" Gleim orders.
"You got it!"
With the Arawak hovering a few feet over the landing grid Gleim flies out of his seat grabbing his shotblaster and opens the port side hatch; where he sees his friend Jori Kai in the flesh. He fires on a few of the nearest clones as they try in vain to kill the Jedi.
"Gleim!" Jori says excitedly as she and Ahsoka Force jump up to the port hatch.
"I gotta bone to pick with you later kid, get inside!" Xafus punch it!" Gleim says as he pumps his shotblaster and fires on another clone before closing the hatch. "Xafus punch it!"
As the freighter group pulls out the T-55's begin gunning down the remaining V-wings.
"We'll keep the remaining fighters busy Gleim." Zaniel says through his comlink.
"It's about time you guys showed up!" Tosch says through the comm as he leads a pack of V-wings back towards the spaceport again.
"Tosch you've got one on your tail, move off!" Zaniel says locking onto the V-wing.
"One!?" Tosch replies incredulously as he splinters off.
Zaniel fires but his first attempt fails; he re-aims at the V-wing just as it fires at the Wingstar. The blast takes off Tosch's port tail which causes him to spin lazily out of control. Zaniel takes aim again and fires hitting the V-wing this time, he makes his way up to Tosch as he regains control of his fighter.
"Tosch you okay?"
"Yeah, I'll make it."
"Where's Wurth?"
Zaniel is saddened when Tosch tells him the news. Suddenly he spots the last few V-wings form up wing to wing heading back towards them.
"Alright boys, let's plow the road!" Zaniel says as he, Tosch and the others open fire taking down every last V-wing before they can score another hit.
They form up behind the freighter unit as they see Rebel One join the group, which had been waiting for an escort out.
Harke is relieved when she hears confirmation from Allard that the Jedi were safely extracted and aboard one of the freighters on their wing.
"Captain Balek this is Sabre leader, we have both packages wrapped and are exiting the planet's atmosphere as we speak." Zaniel says.
"That's good news Lt, I'm sending you coordinates for our escape jump into hyperspace now."
Kesaro takes out another 170 as the two on his tail are blown to bits by a couple of his wingmen.
"Keep it up boys I think we're starting to scare them!" Kesaro adds.
"Flight leaders this is Fleet Commander Balek, the mission is complete. Fire any last torpedoes at the Havoc's Cry and prepare to make the jump to hyperspace!" Balek turns to Kaeon and orders him and the other corvettes to deploy the N-1 booster rigs.
"You heard him men, unload everything you have on it!" Kesaro says firing a full spread of torpedoes at the Venator.
"Throw all power to the shields!" Soelin orders as the rebel fighters begin bombarding the ship on all sides with their proton torpedoes. "Mepone give me an update on the Jedi." Soleil demands.
"I'm getting reports that the Jedi have been extracted and Cato, the magna-troopers, Commander Rook, his team and many of their reinforcements are all dead!" Mepone replies.
"Blast those kriffing rebels!"
"All rebel ships jump on my mark, 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . now!" Balek says as one after another the entire fleet jumps to lightspeed.
Once in hyperspace on board the Arawak Gleim turns around in his seat and looks at Jori with an unreadable expression on his face.
While she can't read his mind Jori knows what he's probably thinking. "I'm sorry Gleim, Garan faked my funeral. I didn't recover until a few days later." Jori replies.
Gleim says nothing for a moment almost looking angry as he flies over to her and suddenly wraps his little arms around her.
Realizing what this means for him; never getting to say goodbye to Ryaan she is a little surprised when she feels the tears begin to stream down her face. She still hadn't quite accepted the fact that her master was gone either, she'd had so much to keep her mind occupied since then that she never really dwelled on it much.
"He's gone Gleim." she whimpers.
"I know." Gleim replies pulling back wiping a tear of his own away.
"So how did you even find out abo . . ." Jori stops and turns around to see Ez-6 already attending to Ahsoka's injured leg.
"I'm sorry mistress Jori, I thought it was important that he knew." Eazee replies.
"I'm not mad I just don't understand how your command subroutines allowed you break protocol to release that information." Jori says.
"One of my special modifications." Gleim says returning to his seat. "I gave her free will." Gleim replies.
"How did you know where I was though, did Major Garan just come out and tell you?" Jori asks.
"He did when I asked him, after Eazee told me she saw you on Agamar I contacted him and demanded he tell me where you were. So where are we headed?"
Smiling Jori asks if he can take them to Naboo.
"What's on Naboo?"
"Solitude." Ahsoka says answering for Jori.
"By the way I never got your friend's name." Gleim says to Jori.
"Don't bother asking, she won't give it to you." Jori says flashing Ahsoka a teasing smile.
"Suit yourself. So finally going into exile huh?" Gleim asks as Eazee finishes the dressing on the Togruta and walks over to treat Jori's arm.
Jori tells them they were already exiled on Naboo when Zaniel Brath came looking for them to help. A few moments later the ship comes out of hyperspace in the mid rim. He changes course for Naboo and reenters hyperspace, he then asks if he ever knew what came about Ranik's son. Jori tells him once she recovered she searched for him and that Ahsoka had possibly seen him.
"Possibly?" Gleim asks.
"Well I never met the kid, nor his father so I didn't know what he looked like. He split as I was ambushed by more of those clones using the electro staffs." Ahsoka explains.
"That's too bad." Gleim says as he confesses to Jori that he saw Ranik killed by Vader. "I should have left the ship on the ground, that way once the Imps showed up at least I could have picked him up and split."
"Ranik wouldn't have left without his son Gleim, you didn't do anything wrong." Jori says comforting him. "Have you run into any other Jedi since then?"
Gleim tells her he has not but that if he ever does he'll be sure to help them out or put them in touch with her, with her permission of course.
After a thirty minute trip through hyperspace the Rebel fleet reverts back to real space to make damage assessments and take account of their losses. Once everyone sounds off the count is reported to Balek which comes in at forty-seven T-55's that survived the battle, most of which were Kesaro's reinforcements. Out of those eighteen took hits but were still operational; of Lt. Sogan's original squadron only five remained, two corvettes were lost and the rest were damaged and battle weary but still functional.
Rebel One also escaped unscathed carrying former Ryndorian Consul Lamara Harke and her team.
Suddenly Kaeon realizes the count is off, Balek watches him as he counts the blips on the scope showing the extraction team.
"Captain the Arawak isn't with us?"
A dreaded feeling runs through Balek as he assumes the Arawak, and the Jedi aboard her, may have been left behind! Suddenly the comm crackles to life with Pomek's voice.
"Pride of the Jedi this is the Asteroid Blaster."
"We read you Pomek, go ahead." Balek says.
"Just in case you were wondering Gleim mentioned he would be dropping out of lightspeed before us to run an important errand." Pomek says.
While Kaeon doesn't follow Balek sighs reassured that the Arawak safe and likely taking the Jedi home.
"Thank you Pomek, when you speak to him again please ask him to pass on Consul Harke's, as well as our thanks to the Jedi." Balek says.
"Copy that Pride."
So if you haven't already guessed I named Commander Rook of the chess piece. Thus the title of this chapter is like that of a chess move. I thought it was pretty cool.