Galactic date: 5 Feb, 2 BBY

Location: Low Lothal orbit

The Imperial Navy's comms chattered drastically as the light cruiser blockading the terrestrial planet of Lothal was pulled down by its gravity, after suffering a critical hit from the laser of the red prototype B-wing. What took its place was a squadron's worth of A-wings and B-wings, followed by the massive Venator-class destroyers surrounded by blockade runners and gunships.

Ezra stood inside the passenger compartment of a LAAT gunship with a squad of troopers. Sabine was in the other gunship with Kanan, and Hera was in charge of keeping them covered from the sky, accompanied by Zeb and the rest of Green squadron. Despite being the most annoying being within Phoenix Squadron, Ezra decided to take Chopper along with him, since he understood that the mission's requirement of hacking weighted more than his personal ego.

"Make it quick general. Those debris are going to attract a lot of attention." Pointed commander Sato as several A-wings split up with the main wing and escorted the gunships past the flaming light cruiser and into the atmosphere. "Yes commander." Ezra replied and donned his helmet, and so did the troopers inside the gunship, including captain Rex and Gregor.

A thunderstorm happened to be just below the gunships and on top of the comms tower, making the ground forces' ride a lot bumpier all of a sudden. "I suggest you hold on to something Ezra!" Kanan said through his helmet's comlink, after a lightning came out of nowhere and barely missed the hull of his LAAT gunship. "We will general. Time for you to jump." Replied Rex as the first gunship burned past the comms tower at maximum speed and continued its descend.

The second gunship decelerated, and seconds later four ropes from either side of the gunship were stretched out to the top of the tower, allowing its passengers to offload and get to work before the Empire responds. "Delta squad on deck. Good luck Ezra." Kanan said as Ezra and Rex's gunship sped away, with four A-wings and two B-wings trailing close behind in a V formation.

"Green flight, we're coming in low. This will avoid detection and buy us some time." Stated Hobbie, the pilot of the bulky Old Republic gunship. "Thanks. Gonna be a rough fight people. Let's make sure we didn't lose our loved ones in vain!" Ezra encouraged, which led to a surprisingly positive response of everyone listening shouting out with courage.

It was a long way to go from the comms tower to the archives located in the capital, but that wasn't a problem for aircrafts capable of achieving subsonic speed, especially when its pilots know a crucial mission is at hand: expose the Empire's assassination on Maketh Tua and spread uncertainty and an eventual rebellion among the people, and hopefully even within the Empire's ranks.

But the flight wasn't even halfway there when a squadron of TIE fighters launched a counterattack from above, hitting one of the B-wings and rendering it trailing black smoke, making ti an easy target even while it's night and raining. "Green 3, hard left, hard left!" A pilot barked, and in response Green3 managed to avoid the armor piercing rounds from the eyeball fighter, and bought the pilot an extra moment to fight.

The gunship ignored the frenzy going on around it and continued to sail along and above the highway to the capital, occasionally lighting up its front cannons as an act of self-defense. Minutes later Hobbie activated the rocket launchers on top of the gunship as well, launching a barrage of missiles and tearing the ground infantry below into pieces as the gunship hovered above the ground forces' landing zone.

The archive center had a similar look of a standard imperial airfield, with two lines of TIE fighter parked on either side of the road to its entrance and two defense pods marching to and fro its doors, except all of which were reduced to nothing but metal scrap by the gunship's high explosive rockets. Ezra led the troopers out, and paced towards the ray-shielded entrance while finishing off the last pockets of guards crawling on the floor.

"Hold up. Give me a moment." Ezra ordered, intending to deactivate the ray shield with his Force powers. He wouldn't have been able to do that two years ago, and had to rely on his tools and gadgets to breach a security door, but today his powers were far stronger than Kanan or any Spectre could imagine, which resulted in him being able to spearhead certain operations and carry less gear into battle.

Ezra shut his eyes and concentrated on his midi-chlorians, while Rex, Gregor and the rest of his squad kept an eye on his back and set up a choke point outside the doors as a precaution. Everyone knew that such a daring assault on one of the most well-defended facilities on Lothal would certainly attract a lot of imperial attention, especially if their blockade was wiped out in such a quick and strategic way.

Soon the ray covering the glass doors thinned, and eventually faded into nothingness, allowing Rex to shoot open the glass and lead the squad inside with his general ahead of him, ready to block incoming fire with his lightsaber if ever necessary.

The resistance was heavy inside the complex, and unfortunately for Ezra he couldn't block every shot coming from the desperate stormtroopers waiting for them around pretty much every corner and stairwell. A clone had already sustained damage on his thigh plate by a lucky shot from a stormtrooper, and another pair was wounded by an unsuspected claymore planted on the ceiling.

Neither of these gimmicks managed to take its toll on the squad's morale, however, and after a few minutes of intense close quarter battle they found themselves entering a room filled with high-tech machinery and consoles, with a small reserve of ammunition packed nicely and neatly on a gun rack just beside the door. "Alright Chopper. It's your showtime." Ordered Ezra. The droid complied and responded with a few muted and deep beeps as it moved towards a central console in the room, where its user could get a glimpse of every analog file sitting on the other side of the glass in front of the console.

"Kanan, I hope you got your script ready. I'm transmitting the file to you, are you ready to receive?" Ezra asked as soon as Chopper pulled out the file from its original resting place and unplugged it, revealing a memory card with a few golden bars on it. "You're good to go Ezra. Be advised, TIE fighter are headed your way. They look like new models. Be on your guard. Out." Kanan replied sharply as he hastily pieced the broadcasting system back together inside the dim sphere room sitting on the top of the skyscraper, with roars of A-wings and other ships he couldn't tell getting louder and weaker again every once a while.

As soon as Kanan and Delta squad got the file Kanan started his broadcasting. He wasn't a good speaker, but the fact that there was a lot to tell about the dirty work by the Empire made him a lot less nervous all of a sudden, as if he was just doing his things casually on an ordinary day. None of Ezra's squad could hear the people's reaction from several stories above them, but their were damn sure their blood was boiling right now.

Moments later a sudden movement of the ground beneath the good commander shook them all off their feet. It didn't take a genius to figure out the source of the quake: TIE fighters, and they're really pissed off about what they're doing on Lothal.

Time to go. Hopefully Kanan makes it out in one piece.

The entire mission happened in less than fifteen minutes, and almost a third of the time they were fiddling with the consoles inside the archive room, and not fighting stormtroopers in close quarters. It was fast enough for Ezra's team to make a quick escape via the gunship they came in, but Kanan's position was prone to airstrikes and ground assault, and that was concerning Era more and more as the team made their way back to the surface.

They finally made it to the ground floor after a few minutes of climbing stairs like there was no tomorrow, but outside the glass doors a nasty surprise was awaiting them. A full detachment of stormtroopers and walkers were stationed outside, in addition to the three layers of barricades a squad of scout troopers and death troopers set up moments ago.

Even with the combined skills and firepower of Ezra and the clones, they're still vastly outnumbered, and probably under arrest considering the circumstances. The whole team now found themselves in a dilemma. If they fired as their instincts wished them to, they'll get slaughtered, but not without taking at least half of the garrison with them. Option two was much simpler, lowering their weapons and hope that the Empire isn't in the mood of killing today.

But any of those thoughts were eradicated when a wave of civilians brutally assaulted the rear of the garrison, throwing them into a complete chaos, along with the rest of the planet.

We did it. Ezra thought. Now time to figure out how to get out of this shit-show.