Author's Note: It took me a while, but the next chapter is finally here. More details as to why will be at the end. Anyways, Enjoy.

Chapter Four: The Rescue

As the Dorin Akul travelled through hyperspace towards Cato Neimoidia, Ahsoka and Rex both took the time to look around the ship and get comfortable with the layout to help them be as efficient as possible when it came to rescuing Master Plo. Luckily, there were three cabins: The Captain's cabin and two bunk rooms, so at least they would have a place to lay Master Plo down if he was indeed injured. The medical supplies on board had also been fully stocked so they at least had something to tend to any wounds Master Plo did have to a certain extent until they could find a medical facility. Ahsoka left the cockpit after properly familiarizing herself with the controls, she would have to remind herself to show Rex as well, and went to the cargo bays, finding Rex lined up on one side of the corridor with his new DC-17m firing at a makeshift target in the other cargo hold, nailing the centre shot after shot, but to be honest, Rex rarely ever missed.

"Nice shot," Ahsoka joked, earning herself a chuckle from Rex. "I may not be part of an army anymore, but a man's got to keep himself on his toes," Rex responded. "Oh really," Ahsoka retaliated, before sweeping Rex's legs from under him, sending him to the floor in a clatter of plastoid against metal. "Oh, it's on," Rex muttered, pulling Ahsoka to the ground before jumping onto her stomach, effectively pinning her to the ground. "Huh, nice counter, but you'll have to do better than that," Ahsoka replied, giving Rex a small force push, allowing herself time to get up. From there, they took it in turns to strike each other, the defender blocking perfectly, until Ahsoka threw a punch that got around Rex's defence, hitting him in the head and sending him to the ground by the wall, face away from Ahsoka.

"Rex!" Ahsoka gasped, and rushed over to Rex's still body, worry filling her eyes. She pulled Rex around to look at his face when Rex's eyes opened, and he grabbed Ahsoka's arms, pulling her down in front of him, and burst out laughing. Ahsoka was stunned for a second before she started to laugh as well. They laughed for a few seconds before stopping, when Ahsoka felt something overcome her. It wasn't bad or negative, but it felt calm and soothing. And it was to do with Rex. She wasn't sure what to do, but she had the urge to move her head towards Rex's. To her surprise, Rex must have felt the same thing, as he was moving his head towards her as well. Just as their lips were about to touch, a loud beeping sound rang out across the ship, causing both of them to recoil, the moment gone as quick as it had started.

"Look's like we've arrived," Rex mused.

"Yeah, let's go save Master Plo," Ahsoka replied.

Dropping out of hyperspace above Cato Neimoidia, Ahsoka and Rex sat in the cockpit, looking out over the planet that lay before them. There were no Republic cruisers up in orbit, but looking down to the planet itself, their stomachs turned at the sight. What was once a seemingly beautiful world of Dark blue and turquoise green, was now ravaged with various reds, oranges, yellows and greys. Ahsoka gulped at the chaos before her, while Rex looked on in surprise, surprise that the clones could have turned so violent. But they couldn't turn back now, so Ahsoka piloted the Dorin Akul into the atmosphere through ever-darkening, smoke-fuelled clouds.

Breaking through the cloud cover, Ahsoka and Rex were able to see the damage first-hand. The suspended cities lay burning and destroyed, with small areas of buildings still standing. Large pillars of flame rose up into the atmosphere, all the while, Republic Venator's and Arquiten's hovered above and around, firing their turbolasers, while Grey Y-wings flew over the cities, dropping various explosive and incendiary bombs, decimating buildings and any civilians that were in them. Ahsoka looked on in horror, while Rex looked on in disgust at his brothers committing these atrocities.

"What do you make of this?" Ahsoka asked.

Rex almost choked as he replied. "I know the chip didn't make us act like we usually would, but I didn't expect it to make us do things like this without hesitation. Slaughtering the Jedi was bad enough, but this. This is so much worse. The harsh subjugation of a people, I wouldn't even dream of committing an act like this."

"It would seem that the Chancellor wants to rid the galaxy of the Trade Federation once and for all. And there's nothing we can do to stop it."

After another look at the scene before them, Ahsoka continued. "We need to find Master Plo and get out of here."

"Well how do we do that," Rex asked. "Cato Neimoidia is massive, it would take us as long to find him as it would the clones trying to kill him."

Ahsoka sat there thinking for a moment before coming to a realization. "But the 104th doesn't have a Jedi searching with them, whereas you have me. I could use the force to locate Master Plo while you fly the ship and I can guide you to him, and then I'll bring him in, and we take off without anyone knowing."

"Ok, let's do it," Rex replied.

Handing over control of the ship to Rex, she sat on the ground in a meditation position and reached out into the force. What was once a place of warmth and comfort, she felt only darkness and upon reaching out into the force, she was overcome by a wave of darkness. She pushed it aside and tried to reach out to Master Plo with the help of their force bond. For minutes she got nothing, and she started to think they were too late when she felt a pulse of light through the desolate wasteland of the force. It was a weak pulse, but a pulse, nonetheless.

"I found him, but he feels very weak. He must be injured." Ahsoka stated.

"Can you tell where he is?"

Ahsoka reached out again to Master Plo's force signature, receiving another weak but stronger pulse, along with a brief vision of the area around Plo, as well as his rough location.

"He's on some sort of ridge near the ocean," Ahsoka said, then continued. "He's somewhere around bearing 237, and about 5 clicks away."

Rex nodded, before changing the ship's trajectory to match Ahsoka's description. As they drew closer to the pulse, Ahsoka was able to pinpoint Master Plo's location and relayed it to Rex.

"I've got a pinpoint on his location. He's 300 metres out on a ridge 20 metres above sea level."

Again, Rex changed course, and within seconds, they arrived at an outcropping a few metres from where Ahsoka said Master Plo was, and they came in for a landing.

"Rex stay on the ship, we need to leave as soon as I've got Master Plo on board."

"Got it, Commander." Came his reply.

Ignoring him, Ahsoka lowered the boarding ramp and made her way through the thick fog, and soon came upon Master Plo's unconscious body. Turning him over, Ahsoka was able to get a proper look at his injuries. He had a scorch mark on his right leg below the knee, as well as small pieces of shrapnel embedded in both legs. Looking at his torso, she could see that his tunic was ripped in several places and smoking. He also had a large piece of shrapnel stuck to the left of his stomach, just above the hip. Thankfully, as she looked at his face, she could see that his rebreather was still intact, and she could hear shallow but faint breaths. Whatever had happened to him, he was lucky to still be alive, considering his location. He was located on the very edge of the ridge, above the highly acidic ocean raging below, that could have engulfed him at any moment. As she began to pull Master Plo to the ship, she activated her small commlink connection to Rex.

/I've got him, Rex. He needs medical attention. Get to the boarding ramp and help me get him on board./

/Copy that./ Came his reply.

As she reached the ramp, Rex was by her side and grabbing Plo Koon's other side and helped get him onto the ship, before she closed the boarding ramp behind them.

"Get him to one of the bunk rooms and secure him while I go to the cockpit and get us out of here."

Rex nodded and Ahsoka let go of Master Plo before running to the cockpit, activating the engines and lifting the ship up off the ground, angling the ship to the sky before blasting off. As they exited the cloud cover, they were spotted by two Y-wing bombers, who flew after them and started to open fire. After noticing, Ahsoka flipped a switch, jamming the clones' transmissions, and called out to Rex.

"Rex, I need you in one of the gun turrets, now!"

"Why?"

"We have two bombers on us. I've just jammed their transmissions, but I don't know how long that will last before they are able to call for reinforcements." Ahsoka paused, then continued. "I'm sorry Rex, but we have to shoot them down. If we don't then we all die!"

Sadly, Rex had to agree. Despite the clones being his brothers, he knew that to keep Ahsoka safe, he had to shoot them down in order to protect the ship's identity and scrub it's entire presence on Cato Neimoidia, in turn keeping Ahsoka and Plo safe and preventing them from being tracked. With his thoughts ending, he raced from the room Master Plo was in, and moved to take up the gun position in the Dorsal gun turret, relaying the information to Ahsoka on the way. Once reaching the gunner seat, he activated the gun systems, and sat in the swivel chair, before firing the guns back at the incoming bombers, causing them to split up to evade, however, one of them was too late, as laser fire ripped through one of the bombers' starboard engines, shearing it clean off, and sending that bomber careening off into the clouds, before erupting into a ball of fire.

Unfazed, Rex turned on the other bomber but lost sight of it as it moved under his firing arc and out of sight, before opening fire on the freighter, causing it to shake but was relatively unharmed due to its shields.

"Ahsoka, I can't see the last bomber, you need to do something," Rex yelled.

Hearing him, Ahsoka proceeded to barrel roll and perform various other manoeuvers to shake the bomber trailing behind, while Rex fired at the bomber when it reappeared, but the bomber continued to move out of sight. Seeing as this wasn't working, Ahsoka swerved down into the clouds, and the bomber followed, it's forward cannons and rotating turret firing viciously, though they were missing so much more in the thick fog.

Knowing she had the advantage, Ahsoka reached out into the force to feel her surroundings and felt that they were heading towards a Big, rocky spire. Waiting until the last moment, she banked hard to the left, while the clone bomber luckily veered off to the right, scraping the spire, and had now lost sight of the freighter. Unbeknownst to them, Ahsoka had positioned the Dorin Akul right alongside the Y-wing and proceeded to form a gentle barrel roll before slamming the side of the ship into the top of the bomber, instantly destroying it and sending it into the ocean below, all the while leaving the Dorin Akul with only superficial damage thanks to the ship's shielding. Satisfied that the pursuers were gone, Ahsoka angled the ship back towards space, then proceeded to jump into hyperspace.

Once she was sure they weren't followed or the communications were tapped into, Ahsoka opened the commlink channel.

/Emergency Code 9-13, This is Ahsoka Tano, does anyone copy, I have no contact on any other frequencies./

After a few seconds, she received a bunch of static but could hear someone, though garbled, on the other end thanks to her advanced hearing.

/Pa..wa… Ta..o./

/Repeat./

/Padawan Tano./ Came the reply of Bail Organa, his hologram appearing in front of her.

/Senator Organa, am I glad to hear your voice. The clones turned on me, but I was able to free Captain Rex from the programming./

/Programming?/ Came his answer, confusion etched on his face.

/I'll tell you when I get to you, but I need to know where you are./

/I'm at Polis Massa station with Master Yoda. Master Kenobi recently made contact and his on his way back here with Senator Amidala. I'll send you co-ordinates./

/You don't need to. I'll find it in the star charts and change my course. I also have another Jedi with me that Master Yoda will need to talk to./

/Of course. We await your arrival./

Author's Note: That'll get you in the feels. A little heart to heart moment between Rex and Ahsoka, though I don't think the ship/the galaxy approves. *slight chuckle* Anyway, this is the main relationship and I have a rough idea as to how it will play out, and it will subsequently change some interactions later on in the story when we reach the period of time covered by the Ahsoka Novel. *Cough* Kaedan *Cough*

And yes, here is the chapter. 3 days after the last one. Well, the reason why is that I have MOCK exams in the coming week, so I've been spending time revising for them. Luckily I do ICT as an A level course so I have fewer exams but still.

Another thing to point out is that I've noticed some mistakes in earlier chapters, and I will try my best to rectify them as soon as possible.