Chapter Four

The next day's march thankfully passed by without incident. They'd been delayed significantly already, between the attack and dealing with the aftermath, and they'd lost half a day. It appeared, however, that the Felucians didn't want anything more to do with them after the previous days ambush. Ahsoka didn't blame them, between her, the troopers, and Marczak, the Felucian war party had lost a dozen of its members, possibly more if any of those who escaped had suffered serious injuries. Without a similar incident to cause further delay, they managed to make good time, exiting the gorge in the late afternoon and setting up camp roughly ten klicks away from their objective by nightfall.

The camp they occupied was, as was normal for a military campsite, almost identical to the one they'd occupied they previous night, with slight variations in the perimeter to allow for different terrain. Also identical were the actions taken by the troopers once they were encamped, once again eating quickly and then dispersing to the perimeter either to sleep or to stand watch. That left Ahsoka, again, to sit with Marczak.

No, she thought, Ghes. He'd asked her to use his first name last night, after he'd told her about Yavin. Part of her thought it had been wrong to pry, especially after 'outing' his Force sensitivity. After all, she'd only known him for, what? Two weeks? But he hadn't seemed resentful about it, in fact he'd seemed relieved after he'd told her. Ahsoka couldn't imagine carrying a secret like that around. Maybe he'd needed to get that off his chest, to trust someone, especially if he'd been telling the truth about her being the only person he'd ever told about the experience.

Either way, Ghes seemed to be better for it.

"…there weren't really that many bugs after we passed eight klicks." He said, wrapping up an animated description of his part in the Second Battle of Geonosis. "It turned out that Rip's tendon and quad had been sliced clean through, but he was fine after eight hours in the tank."

"Impressive," Ahsoka said. "though I can't believe you stumbled into the same wall we did."

"It's true, I swear." He said, holding his hands up in mock defense. "How else do you think it got on the maps?"

She laughed. "Then I guess I should thank you, at least we knew that wall existed before we ran right into it."

"That's one way to look at it." He said, laughing as well.

"Can I ask you something, Ghes?"

He shrugged. "Shoot."

"How did you end up here?" She asked. "In the army, I mean."

"Truth is, I'm a mercenary." He said.

"Really?" Ahsoka asked. Ghes had never struck her as a mercenary, at least not the kind she was used to seeing fight alongside battle droids or guarding Separatist facilities.

"Really." He confirmed. "A few months before the war broke out, some senator's aide came to where I was working with ner buir, my father, and offered me a job fighting for the Republic."

That was odd. Ahsoka might not have paid much attention to what was going on outside the Temple before the war, but she was certain that the GAR had basically appeared out of thin air. She'd never heard of any active recruiting before Geonosis.

"What senator?" She asked, curiosity peaked.

"I don't know." Ghes answered. "Never met him. All I know is that the paperwork checked out and I got paid. Eventually I ended up with a commission, I guess because it looks better than having a merc leading troops in the field, but I was just as surprised as everyone else when the Chancellor pulled an army out of his shebs."

"Do you at least know why you were recruited?"

"I guess it must have had something to do with my background." He shrugged. "I worked in private security, did a little bounty hunting. That's why they had me with the Coruscant Guard at first, I spent half my life before the war started in the undercity on one job or another."

"So you're from Coruscant." She guessed.

"Yea." Ghes said, nodding. "I grew up in Galactic City, but buir kept as close to tradition as he could raising me."

"You don't wear the armor though?" She asked.

"That was my choice." He said, smiling slightly. "Republic's never been particularly kind to Mando'ade, especially not Jedi, and my cultural pride isn't worth the trouble."

"If it's that bad, why did you join up in the first place?"

"Because Coruscant's my home, my family's there." Ghes said. "Not a very mando thing to say, I know, but I guess I'm a little sentimental. Besides, I've seen what the Corporate Sector Alliance and the Trade Federation do to worlds."

Ahoska nodded grimly. She'd seen it all too often, worlds looted and strip-mined as much to line the pockets of the Confederacy's corporate backers as to feed their war machine. There was a reason beings like Nute Gunray and Wat Tambor always seemed to be at the center of the worst Separatist war crimes.

"What about you?" Ghes asked.

"What?" She responded, confused.

"Why'd you join up?" He said.

Ahsoka barely stopped herself from scoffing at the question. It would have been rude, even if Ghes had asked a stupid question.

"I'm a Jedi." She said, matter-of-factly. "It's our duty to serve and protect the Republic."

Ghes scoffed at her answer, something which both surprised and aggravated Ahsoka.

"Come on," He said. "don't give me that…"

"What?" She said, defensively. "It's true!"

"Okay, I guess the better question then is, why do you keep fighting? I've been doing this a long time, Ahsoka, long enough to know that you truly want to be here. That's not something I can say about every Jedi, hell, every officer, I've met."

It wasn't a question she had to think long about, because, in a way, it was one she'd asked herself a long time ago.

"I keep fighting for them, the clones, the men, under my command." She said with as much resolve and conviction as she could muster. "I keep fighting because they do."

Ghes's smile as she spoke was far warmer than Ahsoka had seen it before. She'd even go so far to say that it was… affectionate.

"Good answer." He said, still smiling. "Home, family, duty, those are all good reasons to start fighting, but you have to keep fighting for your men. You give them everything you have because you owe it to them to do your damnedest to make sure as many of them make it home as possible. Even if their brothers are the only home these boys have."

Ahsoka smiled back despite the somber tone Ghes had ended on.

"Anyway," He continued. "I'm glad General Skywalker reassigned you. Me and the boys get along well, but it's nice to meet interesting new people once in a while."

"Thanks." She said, feeling a little flush. "It doesn't seem like your men feel that way, though."

"Just give 'em a little time." He said. "They'll warm up to you eventually."

Ghes checked the chrono as he rose from his seat.

"I'm going to stay up till the next watch shift, but you should get some sleep." He said, stretching.

"No, I'll stay…" Ahsoka started to protest.

"That's an order, commander."

"I don't know, Colonel." Stalker said as he scanned the compound wall through his scope. "It looks to me like our intel was bad."

Even without macrobinoculars, Ahsoka could see the sharpshooter was right. Separatist presence, at least at this outpost, was far from "drawn down". Even calling the veritable fortress before them something as mundane as an outpost seemed a disservice.

Fortunately, the lack of experience and training so common among Separatist officers was evident in the fortress's location. The isolated "island" within the bed of a long-dry river would, to the untrained eye, appear a good defensive position for the purposely remote command center. A more experienced commander, however, would immediately recognize the ridgeline which stood several hundred meters away from, and provided a decent overlook of, the Eastern side of the facility as the vulnerability it was. To make matters worse for themselves, the Seps had only cut away the foliage on their side of the ridgeline, leaving in place the concealment Ahsoka, Ghes, and the ARFs were currently exploiting.

"Hey." Ahsoka said, elbowing Ghes as an idea began to form in her mind. "Can I see the binocs?"

"Be my guest." Ghes said as he passed the bulky viewing device to her.

Binocs in hand, Ahsoka swept her magnified vision across the fortification. As she looked beyond the far wall, a smile crept its way across her lips and her idea, became a plan.

If Ghes had been resistant to her idea, his men had been outright hostile to it. Ahsoka understood why, it was a little unorthodox, and extremely risky. If it failed, or if to many things went wrong, most of them would probably end up dead. In a way, it was a lot like something her master might try. And she had the feeling that that, more than anything else, was why Ghes eventually agreed to try it.

The Seps had been inconsistent in enforcing the "clear zone" around their fortifications, going so far as to allow the fungal tree line to grow right up to the wall farthest from the ridgeline. Ahsoka didn't know why they were so negligent, perhaps they thought that the bioluminescent qualities of the foliage negated its benefits as concealment. Or maybe the officer in charge of the base couldn't be bothered to fill out the paperwork required to send out engineer squads every week. Whatever the reason for the neglect, Ahsoka wouldn't hesitate to exploit it.

It was a simple, if time consuming, matter for her, Ghes, and his command squad to circumvent the fortress perimeter. Equally time consuming was their approach to the wall through the glowing jungle. But this task, as well as the tasks to follow, were simplified by one fact Ahsoka knew very well; tinnies were consistent.

A droid mind would rarely, if ever, consider it a worthwhile effort to vary the routes and timing of their patrols. The mechanical mind simply couldn't grasp the security flaws such a routine created, as, to them, the only thing that mattered was that every square meter of ground was covered by patrols. This inability to comprehend an idea that organic soldiers took as a given made any patrol schedule set by a droid, which they almost always where, predictable. Thus, it was easy enough for Ahsoka to figure out said schedule after observing them for only a few hours.

This knowledge, while useful for their approach as they knew when the wall would be clear of sentries, would be vital to their infiltration.

"Ready?" Ahsoka asked the trooper nearest to her, Rip, when they reached the base of the West wall.

"I'm not so sure about this, colonel." The clone said to his commander. "It doesn't seem reliable."

Ahsoka couldn't help but feel a little offended by the tech sergeant's lack of confidence in her and her plan, even if she had similar misgiving she was trying very hard to suppress. Luckily, Ghes appeared to have no such doubts.

"Don't be such a hut'uun, Rip." He said, dismissive of the trooper's concern. "I'm sure the commander has done this before. Right?"

"A few times." She said, stretching the truth a little. "Mostly with Rex."

"See?" Ghes said to his men. "Easy."

Now that wasn't true. While she had done maneuvers like this before, those feats hadn't required nearly the same level of precision. On top of that, the wall looked significantly larger from the base than it had from the ridgeline, which, she had to admit, hurt her confidence more than a little.

The clones seemed to sense her misgivings as they remained unconvinced by Ghes's reassurances. Seeing this, Ghes once again stepped up.

"All right," He said. "If none of you want to man up, then I'll go first.

Despite his crouched position, Ghes did his best to swagger as he moved passed his men and close enough to Ahsoka that he could speak to her without them hearing.

"Don't worry," He said as quietly as his helmet's vocoder would allow. "you've got this."

She smiled, encouraged by Ghes's expression of confidence in her abilities, as she began to center herself in preparation for what she had to do next.

"Do you want me to get a running start?" Ghes asked, already backing up a few steps.

"Sure." Ahsoka replied, though she was almost certain it wouldn't make any difference.

Stopping about a meter and a half away from her, Ghes hopped in place a few times, as if to amp himself up. Ahsoka, for her part, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and focused on Ghes in the Force.

"Ready?" Ghes asked,

Ahsoka took one more breath before responding. "Ready."

Ghes began at a run, quickly crossing the short distance between them, then squatted, and, as he was about to spring upward, Ahsoka seized him in an invisible grasp and propelled him upward. He easily cleared the top of the wall, and, as his path arched downward, Ahsoka once again took him in her phantom grip and gently lowered him to the walkway atop the fortification.

For what seemed an endless moment after Ahsoka reopened her eyes, Ghes failed to appear. Her heart stopped as her mind ran through everything that could have gone wrong. Maybe she hadn't slowed him down enough, he had been heavier than she'd expected. Or worse, she could have overshot the walkway entirely, dropping him from the height of the wall to the hard duracrete surface beyond.

This fear was replaced with relief, and a little pride, the moment she saw Ghes's helmeted head silhouetted against the night sky as he peaked over the outer edge of the wall, signaled the all clear, and waved for her and the clones to follow.

Ahsoka's successful lifting of Ghes seemed to satisfy the troopers' concerns, and Rip was the next one in line. She too felt more confident in the maneuver, and managed to repeat her success with Niner, Stalker, and Vor all in quick succession. Her own ascension was the simplest, with her clearing the wall by herself in one Force-assisted leap.

Once atop the wall, she found that Ghes had already located the way down from the fortifications and into the rest of the facility. He began leading them down almost immediately after Ahsoka landed on the walkway, and they began to carefully pick their way toward their objective.

Most Separatist bases were poorly lit at night, as their battle droids' photoreceptors saw well into the infrared spectrum and thus didn't need conventional lighting. ARF trooper armor, however, was coated with a paint that made them very difficult to see in the infrared. This put Ahsoka in the position of having to move along walls while her companions attempted to shield her from potential observation with their armored bodies.

Doing this, and once again exploiting predictable droid patrol routes, the group managed to avoid detection long enough to locate their objective, the command headquarters building. Located near the center of the facility, this structure would house most of the organic officers, the droid central command computer, and the computer memory core where all manner of sensitive materials pertaining to Separatist forces on Felucia would be stored.

They chose to infiltrate the headquarters through a loading dock on the south end of the building, guarded by a single sentry and a squadron of non-sentient logistics droids. Once inside, it didn't take long to find their way to the basement and the computer core. Not for the first time, Ahsoka wondered if anyone in the GAR or the CIS realized that the two militaries' heavy use of prefab structures, sometimes from the same manufacturer, made it so that spies, infiltrators, and saboteurs could navigate their facilities just as easily as their own soldiers. The final obstacle separating them from their objective was a locked door. They stacked up along the wall to one side of the entryway, with Ghes closest to the hatch, Ahsoka immediately following him, and the clones behind her.

After a moment, Ghes leaned back and tapped her with his elbow, a prearranged signal for her to "check" the room. Ahsoka stretched out her awareness in the force enough to encompass the room beyond the wall against which she leant. She found one presence, an organic officer, Neimoidian. From his mind, she could make out the impression of four droids, two at consoles in front of the officer, and two guarding the door behind him.

Ahsoka relayed this to Ghes by tapping him on the upper arm, once for the officer, then four times in rapid succession for the droids. She could hear Ghes's grip tighten on his rifle as she tapped out her report. It was the organic, she guessed, he was a complication. Mostly unaffected by a droid popper's electromagnetic discharge, the Neimoidian would necessitate a less stealthy approach. They had to go loud.

On a gesture from Ghes, Ahsoka switched to the other side of the door along with Stalker and Niner. Rip and Vor shifted closer to their commander, the former passing him a small device Ahsoka assumed to be an electronic lock pick. Ghes proceeded to make a few hand signals at her, and, while she basically understood, she wished she could hear the closed channel he'd no doubt used to tell the clones the same plan.

Ahsoka pulled her sabers off her belt, holding both in a reverse grip at the ready. Ghes jammed the code breaker into the door's lock, then pulled a flash grenade from his belt and armed the device. When the door slid open a moment later, the grenade was the first thing through, detonating in a burst of blinding light in the air next to the Neimodian. Ahsoka followed the weapon, stepping through the door and activating her lightsabers, impaling the droid guards to either side of the entryway. Then she ducked down, allowing Ghes, next through the door, to shoot over her. He dropped the two droid technicians with a round each, then put two through the back of the still dazed officer.

"Clear." Ghes said before the Neimodian's body had even hit the floor. "Stalker, Niner, on the door. Vor, move this junk. Rip, get me that data."

"Anything specific, colonel." Rip asked, pushing the limp body of a droid off one of the consoles.

"All of it." Ghes replied. "Or as much as you can get."

As the clones moved to carry out his orders, Ghes removed his helmet and turned to Ahsoka. He was anxious, she could tell, and rightfully so. Going loud had been brought up as the worst-case scenario during the brief time they'd had to figure out the plan for this little information raid.

"Is it too much to ask that nobody heard that." He asked.

Ahsoka quickly extended her awareness out to the rest of the building and found they would be having no such luck.

"On the floor above us." She reported. "Someone's going for the alarm."

Her warning was proved correct a moment later when the room was filled with the wail of an alarm siren.

"Of course." Ghes grumbled before calling over his shoulder. "Rip?!"

"The systems going into lockdown!" Rip replied urgently. "It'll take at least fifteen minutes to work around. Maybe ten if we're lucky!"

"We're never lucky." Ghes said, pulling his helmet back on and retrieving his rifle from off the nearby console. "Boys, we're about to have company!"

Ghes was right, both about the company and the trouble Rip would have with the lockdown. Fourteen minutes later, Rip was still working at the console and they hallway outside was rapidly filling with battle droids assaulting from both directions.

"Now would be a good time, Rip!" Ghes yelled, the desperation in his voice a hint that another group of droids had arrived.

"Seriously, Rip!" Niner said, ducking back into the room to avoid blaster fire. "We have to go now!"

"Hold on!" Rip said, tapping his fingers nervously on the edge of the console. "There! Transferring now!"

"All right!" Ghes exclaimed. "Now we just need a way out of here."

Ahsoka, frustrated that she'd had little to contribute since they'd breached the core control room, smiled.

"Stand aside boys." She said, moving in front of the door and readying her sabers. "I'll handle this!"

Ahsoka activated her weapons as she dashed out into the hallway. Springing from wall to wall as she either dodged or batted aside blaster bolts, it took her twenty seconds to get in amongst the droids, and less than a minute after that to dismantle them. Her smile widened as the last droid on her side crumpled and she felt Niner's sheer awe at what she'd done in the Force. It was easy to tell that the trooper hadn't worked with Jedi much.

Not to be outdone, Ghes rolled out into the hall, grenade in hand, loosing the device as soon as he reached his feet. The weapon spun through the air, impacting the metal chest of a droid near the middle of the pack before exploding in a shower of fire and shrapnel. Ahsoka wondered for a moment why he hadn't just used a droid popper, until the smell of singed human flesh and melted synth-fabric reached her nose.

"Move!" Ghes yelled after the flash and fire of the detonation had subsided. "Commander, take point!"

Ahsoka led the way out of the headquarters, making short work of the few battle droids and officers that crossed their path. With the alarm already sounded and stealth no longer a concern, she decided to lead them through the closer main entrance rather than go back through the loading dock that had been their point of entry.

Outside, the night was far brighter than it had been. Illumination flares now hung over the facility on their miniature parachutes, shining like suns and casting odd shadows off structures and parked vehicles. Off on the perimeter, Ahsoka could hear blaster fire, and detonations from light mortar rounds.

This was the rest of Ghes's men, who'd been ordered to open up on the East wall as soon as the Separatists raised any alarm. The Seps, or any outside observer for that matter, could easily assume that they were being assaulted by a far larger force than was actually out their, given the volume of fire that could be seen headed in their direction. Ahsoka knew, however, that there were only twenty men out there. Most of the blaster fire was coming from overcharged hand blasters wired to small remotes the ARFs had set up along the ridgeline while the infiltration team had made their way around the base perimeter. These devices weren't especially effective, at least not from the range they were being employed from, but they were loud, bright, and put out a lot of fire over a lifespan of a few hours before self-destructing. The confusion this assault caused among the Separatist forces, when combined with the internal alarm, resulted in conflicting orders being delivered to the droids, with company sized units moving in circles as they were constantly redirected. Much like their predictable patrol routes, this complete chaos was easy to exploit.

That was, until they came across droids that knew exactly what they were doing.

"Commando droids!" Ahsoka heard Ghes yell as she reached the stairwell up to the top of the West wall.

Turning, she saw half a dozen of the nimble BX-series machines dodging from cover to cover as they rapidly approached Ghes, who had been bringing up the rear. He'd turned to fire on them, ducking behind a stack of crates roughly fifty meters from were Ahsoka was standing. She was about to go back to help him when Vor stopped her.

"Colonel said to get over the wall!" He said, sounding as reluctant as Ahsoka felt about the prospect of leaving him. "He'll be right behind us."

Still unsure, Ahsoka glanced back at Ghes. One of the BX droids was already down, and the others had stopped advancing…

"All right." She said before turning away from the ongoing firefight, still reluctant, but at the very least willing to get the troopers out before coming back for Ghes.

The five ascended the stairway quickly, urged on by the knowledge that, the quicker they got over the wall, the less time Ghes would have to hold off the commandos on his own. The descent for the troopers was simple, as Ahsoka only had to let her companions jump and then slow their falls.

"Colonel!" Ahsoka yelled into her commlink after Niner became the last trooper to hit the ground. "Let's go!"

She turned to the interior side of the walkway and looked down at Ghes, still holding his position. He looked up at her for a moment, then began to back toward the stairwell, firing as he went. The commando droids took this as an opportunity to resume their advance. Ghes, now away from cover and within ten meters of the wall, looked up at her again and Ahsoka waved for him to hurry up. He nodded, turned back toward the droids, and was struck three times in the chest by rifle fire.

"Ghes!" Ahsoka yelled as the man was knocked onto his back.

Without thinking, Ahsoka flipped off the wall, activating her lightsabers in mid-air, and landed astride Ghes's body in a protective stance.

"Commander," Vor's voice yelled out over the commlink. "what's happening?"

"Col. Marczak's down!" She responded, deflecting a barrage of blaster bolts back into a BX.

"He's hit?" Vor said, confused. "But his biometrics are…"

The rest of the clone's words were drowned out by a volley of rifle fire, a volley that came from underneath Ahsoka.

"What the…?" She said, looking down through her legs to see Ghes pointing his rifle. "You're alive?"

"It'll take more than a few rust buckets to kill me." He said, probably sounding more pained than he'd wanted to.

"How…" She started, before thinking better of it. This wasn't the time for that question. "Can you move?"

"Yeah." Ghes responded, shifting back so he could stand up behind Ahsoka.

"Then go!" She said. "I'll cover you!"

It took Ghes longer than it probably should've to get up, but once he did he didn't seem to be in as bad of shape as she'd thought. He reached the top of the wall without issue, and hesitated only briefly when Ahsoka told him to jump. She took a risk and jumped with him, slowing both their descents at the same time. The risk paid off and they both hit the ground running for the cover of the deep jungle.

"Thanks for the save." Ghes said as he ran alongside Ahsoka.

"I owed you one from yesterday." She said, grinning. "But how are you still alive?"

With less incoming fire to worry about, she took a few seconds to look closer at his wound. There wasn't one, no blood, no hole in, just carbon scoring from the impact of three rounds in a tight grouping over Ghes's heart.

"Beskar alloy." He said, tapping the now slightly askew extra plate attached to his chest.

That explained it. Beskar, Mandalorian iron, was one of toughest substances in the galaxy, Ahsoka had even heard that lightsabers had trouble scratching it.

"I thought you said you didn't wear Mandalorian armor anymore?" She said accusingly.

"Doesn't mean I have to rely on the osik they issue us." Ghes countered. "Besides, it's just the one plate."

Ahsoka shook her head. Despite her slight irritation at Ghes, she was glad for the extra plate. She was growing quite fond of the odd Mando officer.

"I'll tell you one thing, though." Ghes continued, starting to huff from the exertion of the run. "This thing is damned heavy!"

Author's Notes:

Starting, as always, with the response to last week's review; Hybrid301, thank you very much. As much as I have always appreciated my (relatively) long time readers, it's encouraging to know that this new version of my little story has succeeded in reaching an at least slightly wider audience. And, as always compliments are most welcome, if only because they help shore up my rather fragile confidence in my writing abilities.

Speaking of low self-confidence, this was a chapter I was particularly nervous about publishing. "Why when it was so obviously awesome?", you may ask. Well, I'll tell you. It's because the entire raid on the Separatist outpost was written after an over year long slump that started a few months after I'd started writing this revamped story. That means that everything from that point forward until the end of Part I was written during a writing blitz I went on between March and May of this year (2018).

I've been worried ever since I started publishing Live Well Lived that, because of the long gap, there would be some change that might turn people off. A little paranoid, I know, but like I said, I'm pretty insecure about my "art".

Let's see, what else is there to talk about with this chapter?

Making Ghes a mercenary was something I didn't really think of until a friend of mine (not Wolf) suggested it. I have to admit, I'm kind of embarrassed I never thought of it before, considering how much more believable than any of the other explanations I've tried.

I know the "why we fight" speech Ghes makes is a little corny, but that's something that means a lot to me as a current soldier and aspiring officer (once I finish my bachelor's), so I'll ask you to indulge me a little on that front.

Don't nitpick my lore when it comes to some of the equipment in this. Things like infrared absorbent paint and automated blaster decoys are mostly made up by me, though I try to keep within in-universe logic when doing anything like that. Retaliation (Ghes's Acclamator), for instance, is based loosely off ideas of ship system automation experiments suggested by the Katana Fleet from Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy. Everything I invent can always be at the least loosely justified with Legends lore.

Finally, Ghes's "fake out death" from towards the end. I honestly didn't think of it like that until a friend pointed it out to me. That was just always how that scene went, and I thought it was rather obvious that he wouldn't die or be seriously wounded this soon into the story. Other than that, I guess it is kind of pointless, an demonstration of one of the reasons Ghes hasn't bought it yet. But beskar is one of the more well known Mando trademarks, and even if he doesn't wear full beskar'gam for uniformity/avoiding prejudice sake, that doesn't mean he wouldn't have the good sense to strap a spare plate to his chest a la the additive plates you can see on the Phase 1.5 armor some ARCs are sporting during the Battle of Kamino.

Side note: Despite what TCW would have you believe, ARC isn't a title troopers earn. Like everything else in the Grand Army, ARC is a role clones are bred for. However, I would be remiss not to mention that infantry troopers were cross trained into special forces roles when replacements couldn't be cloned quickly enough. And it was also established (by supplementary material) that Rex, Cody, Baccara, and a number of other clone officers were retrained by ARC trooper Alpha to be more independent thinking (more like ARCs) and thus better able to assist unexperienced Jedi Generals with the challenges of fighting a galactic-scale war.

Now that I've successfully nerded out over technical details of personnel assignment in a fictional army, I think that's it for this week. As always, favorite/follow if you enjoyed (though if you're still actively reading at this point you probably already have) and I encourage you to leave a review.