Anakin bolted back onto his feet. His eyes shot left, then right, searching frantically for a solution while the tank underneath him continued to shake and lean away from the wall. Ahsoka stared in his direction. She was out of ideas, Obi-Wan was dying, and it looked like their luck had finally reached its limit. Creativity wouldn't save them this time.
"Both of you! Jump!" yelled Obi-Wan, shoving himself upright on protesting arms.
Either of them might've caught hints of the command through the scant remnants of their hearing, but just then, the giant craft carrying them all lurched and threw them flat on their backs. The three of them began to slide toward the edge. Ahsoka spun and waffled clumsily until her hands met the groove of the tank's front rifle port, which she seized firmly like the lifeline it was. Anakin was not so fortunate. Facing backward, he struggled between finding something to grab and trying to roll to a better position. In the end, he had accomplished neither. With an acute feeling of fear, he felt himself glide off the tank and enter freefall. Time seemed to stop in that instant, perturbed only when he next felt the stern clasp around his ankle, followed by the collision between his forehead and the sharp metal edge of the tank he swung into. His vision went black and he hung limply, suspended upside-down.
Obi-Wan's grip was failing fast. It was only a question of if he would lose Anakin or the sight port he held onto first. There was no saving these clones after all, he concluded with bleak acceptance. But maybe he could still rescue his apprentice. Ahsoka would be smart enough to leap before the vehicle hit the ground, he expected. She knew how to jump, knew how to land, and she'd already found a way to remain attached to the tank until the last second before it crashed. She would survive on her own. Anakin wouldn't, but Obi-Wan could take the fall with him; hold him tight against his chest and absorb the shock of the fall in his place. It was a shame that Anakin would have to wake up to a dead Master, of course, but Obi-Wan supposed it would be better than watching him slip away in real time. Qui-Gon would be proud. To die in place of the Chosen One – perhaps that was his role from the very beginning. He let go of the tank.
Gaining speed, Obi-Wan managed to collect Anakin's unconscious body into his arms well enough, when their fall was roughly and suddenly broken in mid-air. Anakin slipped away from him with a jolt and found himself swinging upside-down once more. Both hands now quivering around one ankle, Obi-Wan looked up to see Ahsoka, nearly hanging upside-down herself by now, sacrificing an arm from her hold on the tank and extending it their way. There wasn't a way to tell her to let go. Obi-Wan doubted she would even if he tried. As it were, Anakin blinked awake to a warped and swaying scene of desert horizon, letting out a yelp and flailing his arms before taking notice to the fact he wasn't actually falling.
"You're– Now stop– You're only making this harder!" he heard his Master scold from above, though all his senses seemed to be wrapped thoroughly in cotton. His attention shot toward the sky. Obi-Wan trembled with effort above him, apparently some ways below the rest of the tanks and now in line with the one Cody's group resided in.
"Master!" he shouted in fright. An agitating sensation pricked his attention to the left, and he ignited his lightsaber just in time to deflect a sniper's bolt aimed to pierce through his heart. The swing tested Obi-Wan's withering strength. "What's happening?!"
Unable to answer owing to the blood gurgling inside his throat, Obi-Wan jerked his head up at Ahsoka and the peeling tank. The act unfortunately encouraged said blood to flow in behind his teeth, and he pulled a hand immediately from his hold on Anakin to prevent it from showering them both.
"DON'T LET GO DON'TLETGO–!" Anakin begged with a start. It wouldn't be the first time his Master's insistence on civility nearly resulted in their deaths. Panicked and swatting bolts from an awkward position, Anakin appealed to the only other authority figure left in the area. "CODYYY?!" he invoked from his comm.
Cody drew back from the periscope inside his tank, the desperate tone filling the cabin and garnering the attention of every other clone in addition. "General Skywalk–" he started, cut off as soon as Anakin found he was listening.
"I DON'T KNOW IF THERE'S ANYTHING YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW BUT YOU MIGHT WANNA LOOK OUTSIDE," he cried in one long, continuous word. Cody wasted no time. He staggered and strained and pushed the hatch open, only to freeze there in the opening and balk at the unfolding disaster. The tank was keening away from the wall on its final set of legs. Ahsoka hung by an arm from the rifle port. Anakin hung by an ankle with his lightsaber batting away shots like a there was a swarm of insects in front of him, and both he and Obi-Wan floated magically underneath the machine's growing shadow. Ignoring the clones squeezing their heads through the hatch to get a view alongside him, Cody withdrew and shoved away those in his path to the inter-AT-TE comm unit on the wall. "ASCENSION CABLES!" he shouted over and over again, hoping against hope that the likeness in clone mentality might translate the haphazard plan in lieu of the time needed to elaborate.
Within seconds, the hatches on either side of the peeling tank were unhinged, and a web of ascension cables shot through and pierced the walls. The clones inside pulled without reserve, some of them even disengaging the magnets in their shoes to add gravity to the force behind their arms. Several cables snapped in the process. A few broke loose from the wall, too, but through the clones' power combined, the tank slowed to a stop where it neared an angle parallel with the ground. Any delay would've had them all hurtling down, pinning both Generals underneath and crushing everyone aboard. Cody didn't stop calling, knowing the comms were old and prone to failure, until his men at the hatch reported success with fists held high and victory cries permeating the cabin. He finally released the call button. His helmet clanked wearily against the wall. In that small moment of release, the comm on his wrist blinked into life. He expected another panicked call from General Skywalker. What he received was a rather unenthused voice of a clone.
"Hey uh, Commander?" it began, horribly nonchalant and infuriatingly at ease with the situation, "Me an' Switch've been out here a while, and we've spotted some Wraiths hangin' around what looks like a setup for launching– 'oop, yep, they're loadin' a missile on it. Permission to fire?"
Cody wanted to scream. Wanted to simultaneously award Boil and Switch every damn medal in the set and knock them senseless for even asking his permission. Instead, he raised his wrist up to his face, head yet propped against the wall, and responded with all the tact expected of his rank: "Permission granted, boys. Make 'em dance."
Far away and well out of sight from the calamity occurring further north, Boil lowered the macrobinoculars he used to spy on the group of Sand Wraiths sending missiles up at the larger group of clones. He was perched on top of the heavy cannon in the speeder, stripped from the most recent enemy tank they fought almost two hours ago. He sent a nod down in Switch's direction. Switch sat casually at the driver's position with his helmet off and returned the nod with a grin. "Hold on tight, Boil. Let's give 'em a taste of their own medicine, eh?" He picked his helmet up from the passenger seat and plopped it over his head.
Boil manned the first of the two railguns. It wasn't as powerful as the tank cannon, he figured, but the rate of fire would be much faster – better to create a scare and scatter the enemy. He and Switch had plenty of time joy riding through the wasteland to discuss the quirks and qualities of their recently acquired ship-ful of guns. They rode full-speed toward the launch site of unsuspecting Nikto. "Ready…?" asked Switch, leaning forward and tapping his fingers against the wheel in anticipation. Boil reciprocated the gesture, eyes on the target, and waited for just the right moment. "…NOW!"
The speeder came upon the Sand Wraiths like a bullet, armed to the teeth and shielded beyond hope of retaliation. It drifted in a wide arc as Switch veered the controls, Boil firing relentlessly into their ranks. Switch timed the skid carefully to orient his partner's aim, such that together, they encompassed the site completely in one tight semi-circle. The two hollered obscenities in unison. The Sand Wraiths, unguarded and utterly defenseless, darted to and fro to avoid fire. One moment they rushed to gather their guns, the next moment found them fleeing in peril from the chain shot digging smoldering pits at their feet. It wasn't long before most of the Nikto – those surviving the ambush – were abandoning their gear and running madly for their own vehicles to make a hasty and undefended escape. Boil made quick work of any guns they had attached. He allowed for a peaceful escape out of respect for the General he knew would prefer mercy. He and Switch stood from their seats in a sardonic salute while the enemy took off into the distance. "All clear, sir," Boil reported back to Cody.
