Chapter XXIII

Zallar stares up into the sky outside the hangar, he watches the sky light up from the battle overhead. He can just vaguely see the outline of the Star Destroyer with the flurry of green and red blasts between it and the cruisers.

Zallar runs back into the hideout yelling that the others have returned with reinforcements.

Ondar and Cassian poke their heads outside of the control room viewport as far as they can to see the battle. Cassian takes his macrobinoculars, looks through them, and sees a bunch of small shapes quickly descending into Thakwaa's atmosphere. He focuses the scopes and sees they are starfighters, and TIE fighters tailing close behind them.

Cassian doesn't take his eyes off the fighters, "There's a squadron of U-Wings." he says to Ondar, "There's an A-Wing at their point, it's Ashla!"`

Ondar grabs Cassian's shoulder, "We better hope they get down here quick, look."

Cassian looks through the scopes to see only about a half mile away from the mountains base, four AT-AT walkers slowly moving towards them with a number of Stormtrooper platoons behind.

Cassian slowly puts the macrobinoculars down, "That's not good, but we knew this was coming. Get up top the mountain, show Ashla and our reinforcements where to land, tell Zallar to get to his battle position and prepare to attack on my mark."

Ondar nods before hurrying off.

Two TIE fighters close in on Ahsoka and Saw's squadron, once the Rebels are in their targeting computer, the pilots open fire. Benthic, who is piloting Saw's U-Wing, narrowly dodges the green blasts. He looks to Saw and tells him those fighters will have no problem picking them off in this formation.

"Your right," Saw says as he contacts Ahsoka, "Ahsoka, we're sitting Womp Rats out here, we have to break formation."

"Agreed," Ahsoka says, "break formation. Get your men to deploy ground troops, you and I can handle those fighters."

The U-Wings break the wedge formation and go off in seperate directions right as the TIE's fire another round. Saw and Ahsoka mirror each other as they perform a figure eight and get behind the TIE's. Saw gets the TIE in his sights and opens fire, he takes out its right wing and sends it spinning out of control to crash in the plains bellow.

Ahsoka fires at her fighter, but misses. The TIE abruptly spins around in one hard motion and charges Ahsoka's A-Wing, it sways left and right, dodging her fire. The fighter continues to charge her without straying from its course. The two fighters gain speed as they fly directly at each other, they're going to crash!

Ahsoka tries to pull up to avoid the collision.

Too late! Ahsoka covers her face in an effort to brace for impact.

BOOM!

The TIE explodes, but Ahsoka is alright. She takes her hand away from her face as she flies through the smoke and debris of the destroyed fighter, she looks up through her windshield to see Saw's U-Wing overhead.

"I got you Commander Tano!" Ahsoka is relieved to hear Saw's voice.

"Thank you Saw, I owe you one. Have your men made it to the ground?"

"The last troop is deploying now, my ships will hold off any other TIE fighters. I'll meet you down there."

The panel door to the last U-Wings cargo bay opens as the fighter comes to a stop over the mountain, hovering just a couple feet from off the ground. Ondar stands close by and watches the partisans hurry out and down the mountain to find a fighting position.

Idryssa is the last one out before the ship takes off again.

"Saw Gerrera sends his regards." she says as she walks past Ondar.

"His regards are much appreciated." Ondar says catching up to Idryssa, "The Empire is mobilizing, they'll be here in minutes."

"What are we going against?"

"Four heavy walkers and a significant number of troops."

Idryssa stops and shoulders her blaster rifle, "Our mission is to hold off the Empire long enough to get you off Thakwaa. Those walkers will make it difficult for our U-Wings to ground again, we'll have to take them out somehow."

Idryssa continues down the mountain and Ondar follows.

"Wait," Ondar says, "there are only three of us, why didn't we just get on one of your ships before the Empire gets here?"

"Clearly you haven't met Saw before."
Ondar shakes his head.

Idryssa rolls her eyes, "We'll leave once Saw feels he has left his mark on the Empire."

Ondar stops, "He's insane to think he'll take out those walkers!"

Idryssa smiles over her shoulder back at the Rodian, "You really haven't met Saw."

Ahsoka sets her fighter down in a clearing on the mountain where it will be out of range from the Imperial walkers. Once outside her fighter, she doesn't stop to stretch or admire the first setting sun, instead she starts to sprint across to the mountainside towards the hideout. She is careful not to take a wrong step and break an ankle on the rugged terrain or run into a tree.

She runs for about two minutes before her instincts tell her to stop. Ahsoka stops in her tracks and listens to her surroundings as she slowly catches her breath. She hunkers down into the tallgrass when the sound of a snapping twig breaks the stillness around her. The sound seems to echo in her ears, she focuses on the sound and pins it to its source. She looks ahead, and sees through the trees, three Imperial recon troopers, they haven't seemed to of noticed her.

Ahsoka thinks to herself, They must be looking for a way to flank the base.

Ahsoka takes her lightsabers from her side. She's going to have to be fast and quiet, she has to take them out before they call for help. She closes her eyes and takes a couple deep breaths, focusing on the troopers, she opens her eyes and takes off running on her toes.

She runs towards a fallen tree, jumps, and launches herself off its trunk and over the heads of the troopers. She lands right in the middle of the three, she opens her lightsabers white blades and swiftly cuts down the far left trooper.

"Hey!" one of them yells.

The far right trooper raises his blaster to shoot. Ahsoka swipes her blade up and cuts the blaster in half before jabbing the opposite blade into his heart; a quick death Ahsoka hopes. The last trooper raises his blaster as well, but Ahsoka throws her leg up and kicks him hard across the head. She summons the Force to throw the trooper far back and against a tree, he slumps over on its thick roots.

Ahsoka puts her lightsabers away before continuing her run back to her friends. However, she doesn't notice the camera droid that had been watching her the whole time. It clicks and beeps as it sends the footage to Grand Admiral Thrawn.

The footage recovered by the camera droid replays on the Imperial troop transports holopad. Thrawn watches the hologram closely beside the Grand Inquisitor and Seventh Sister.

"Pause." Thrawn says.

The image freezes to show the cloaked figure, clearly a female, mid way through her attack on the recon patrol Thrawn sent out earlier.

"Sharpen the image and brighten its contrast."

The holopad edits the image, and a face can be made out behind the figures hood. Just as Thrawn suspected, the woman is a Togruta, with the same facial features described by the officer whose code cylinder was stolen nearly a week ago.

"And here you have your Jedi, Grand Inquisitor."

The Grand Inquisitor nods, "Lord Vader was right. Up until now, we have had nothing but assumptions on the identity of this Jedi. However, the Togruta seen in this hologram is undoubtedly as my Master suspected, Ahsoka Tano."