Chapter XXXI
Ondar looks up at the night sky through the tree branches, he sees the thousands of stars across Wild Space shining bright. But what he notices most is the dark silhouette of a massive Imperial ship.
"They're here." he moans.
The group huddles around the thicket along the jungles edge and the plateau that leads to the Jedi Temple. On the plateau, the red light of the freighters distress beacon can be seen flashing through it's viewport.
"And here they come." Zallar grumbles as he points a hairy finger to the sky.
Descending from the night, the red and white beacons on the wing tips of an Imperial Sentinel-class transport shuttle can be seen blinking in the dark.
Callan instantly hits his comlink.
"Ahsoka, if you can hear me, the Empire is here as you hoped."
Her answer comes back with the sound of swinging lightsabers and strike of the blades against each other. "Good." She says calmly amidst the noise and chaos.
Strike! Woosh!
"Stay low and out of sight."
Woosh! Zing! Strike! Woosh!
"What about you?" Callan asks.
"Don't worry about me."
Strike!
She says quickly, "I'm sending you the transmit codes to one of my allys. His call sign is 'Prestor One', tell him-"
Zing! Whoosh! Strike! Woosh!
"Tell him, Fulcrum sent you!"
"Wait? Prestor One? Whose-"
Woosh! Strike! Strike! Zing!
The comlink goes dead.
"Ahsoka?!"
Callan feels Shila's hand rest on his shoulder as he stares blankly at the mic.
"How are we going to make that transmission?" Callan asks without looking at Shila.
"We can use the transmitter on the freighter."
The deafening shriek of TIE fighters can be heard overhead. The group looks up right as the jungle is illuminated by the exploding freighter from a quick airstrike by the TIE's. The freighter jumped a bit to the strikes force hitting its hull before the blast left the craft in a heap of flaming metal debris.
"Yeah, something tells me that's not going to work." Ondar sarcastically says.
"Now what?" Zallar asks.
The Sentinel-class shuttle glides over the plateau to land beside the burning freighter. It turns to face the group before the landing ramp is deployed and two squads of Stormtroopers hurry to file out. Their white armor is highlighted by the soft orange glow of the flames, and long shadows cast away from the freighter at their feet.
One of the troopers abruptly holds out a hand and points towards Callan.
"Over there!"
They've been exposed.
"So much for staying hidden." Cassian comments.
"Spread out!" Shila orders, "Stay in the thicket!"
The group takes cover behind trees and whatever they can use for concealment. With their blasters out and ready, they open fire down range towards the troopers. One of them drops dead before the rest scrounge the smoldering debris for cover, and return fire.
Shila pulls a grenade off her tack vest, activates it, and throws it at the Stormtroopers. The grenade skips once across the rock surface before rolling up to one of the destroyed exhausts of the freighter, the Stormtroopers taking cover glance down at the metallic ball.
"Look out!" they cry as it explodes.
The Stormtroopers are thrown violently from the cover, their uniforms carbon scored and cracked by the blast.
Cassian fires twice at the Imperial troops before hunching down to use the brush as cover to get to Callan. Callan hunkers down with Cassian the moment he gets up to him.
"We have to find some way to transmit Ahsoka's message!" Cassian says.
"I know! Titus has a private hangar built into the mountain, he's bound to have a ship with an adequate transmitter."
The roar of another Sentinel-class shuttle is heard overhead. The group looks up to see a searchlight shining down on them. The shuttle slows down as it gets closer to the edge of the jungle. It hovers over the plateau and the Stormtroopers cease their barrage. The ramp deploys, and the group watch as troopers dressed in black armor with luminescent green eyes jump out the shuttle to form a defensive line, standing between them and the Stormtroopers.
"Death Troopers." Shila grits her teeth.
The troopers raise their blasters and fire into the brush, the echo to the distinctive ring of their E-11D blasters bounce off the trees.
Callan shoves Cassian out of a bolts path.
"Time to go!" he says, "Fall back further into the jungle, we will have to try to lose them!"
Cassian motions back to Zallar and Ondar for them to follow as they rise up - not enough to become exposed - and run further into the dark jungle. Zallar and Callan fire a few stray shots back at the Death Troopers, but the bolts merely fly over their heads.
Shila gets in front of Cassian and looks above one more time. She sees flying low over the treetops and heading straight for the plateau, a single TIE Advanced x1 accompanied by two strange TIE's she has never seen before. However, she recognizes the TIE Advanced, a feeling comes over her that she has seen it long ago, on Coruscant. If it is in fact the fighter she is thinking of, then she knows who is piloting it, and she is terrified of him more than the Death Troopers or Grand Admiral Thrawn for that matter.