5: Sideways
When things go sideways as they so often do in this war, they tend to have a way of going sideways in a spectacularly disastrous fashion.
What was supposed to be a routine supply drop has become a desperate evacuation as a Separatist battlegroup drops out of hyperspace practically right on top of them and everything, predictably, goes to osik.
Kon is busy trying to keep himself, the commander, and a handful of shinies alive long enough to get to the evac point. He doesn't even think about where they are – he trusts Tim to be in the center of the formation, deflecting blaster bolts back to give them room to advance, and that the shinies know to follow their training and stick close.
They're almost to the top of a ridge when he turns and notices there's an opening in Tim's defense, leaving two of the shinies – the batchmates Impulse and Inertia, judging by the thunderbolts on their helmets – exposed. And he isn't the only one: one of the Seppie droids has seen it, too.
For a moment, the universe crawls to a stop.
"Down!" he orders through the din, willing them to hear him, and to his relief, both shinies fling themselves out of the way before the droid's blaster bolt can hit. He opens fire immediately, not stopping until the droid is down. He pauses, extending a hand to help Inertia up, and shouts for them to move.
Tim, however, seems to have frozen in place. He is staring at Kon like he's never seen him before.
"We have to go," Kon tells him, shaking his shoulder. He'll carry him out if he has to, but he'd much rather not have to.
Tim blinks slowly, as if coming back to himself, and he is off, moving in that eerie slip-quick way that Jedi do, lightstaff twirling blaster bolts away from their path. The shinies are already following in his wake. He slides down the other side of the ridge after them.
It was a stroke of luck and Kon can only hope their luck will hold.
AN:
As a reminder, I update and post on Ao3 first these days.
Updates are usually batched, though I will try to keep them spaced out. As a result, my Ao3 will sometimes be a few chapters ahead of where my ffnet is. This fic is a prime example of that, as the Ao3 edition is posted up to 11 chapters as of July 2021, while it's only just going up with 5 on ffnet to start.