Chapter 95

"How many prisoners did we capture?"

"Just under four hundred, sir," Rex answered as he looked around the command center of the Umbaran air base.

Krell was carefully walking around the space, inspecting the bodies of the umbarans and occasionally pushing them out of the way with a massive foot. "So few? A base like this should have thousands manning it."

"The majority escaped through underground tunnels in the direction of the capital, when it became obvious that they wouldn't be able to hold the base. They then collapsed the tunnels behind them."

"Unfortunate," Krell commented and gestured to the dead bodies. "It seems the Umbarans are not as united as was believed."

"Yes sir. There are signs of extensive sabotage that happened just as our attack began in other areas of the base. Nothing destructive, but extensive computer hacking was done to disable various base systems."

"Have all the base security systems reconfigured and locked down, Captain Rex. The enemy will want this base back and I want it under our complete control."

"Thankfully there isn't much to do on that front, sir. The Republic loyalists left the base practically gift wrapped for us, my men are already reporting that the systems are responding to them."

"Good, detail some men to get rid of the bodies," Krell turned his back and looked out the large transparisteel windows which gave a good view of the base and the dark valley beyond. The various light emitting plants and trees being the only indication of the terrain.

The chirping of Krell's comlink had the Jedi lift one of his arms and a full body holo of General Kenobi appeared.

"Congratulations on your capture of the Umbaran air base, general."

"There will be time for celebration when we've taken that capital, General Kenobi."

"That will not be an easy task. We're currently in an effective siege. The moment we amass forces for a ground assault, the Umbarans detect it and start pelting the area with their long range missiles. Now that we have greater control of the sky we can at least use our fighters to perform interception of the missiles. So our lines around the city are holding but that's all they are doing."

"Are these missiles coming from any specific part of the capital?" Krell asked.

"No, they are evenly dispersed throughout the city. It seems logical given what we've witnessed so far that the umbarans have an extensive underground defensive tunnel network. This allows them to keep the launchers supplied, preventing us from doing anything about it. However, Resolute's Intel detachment, in the brief window where our scans managed to cut through their jamming, managed to find this."

A holo of the capital appeared and in the north-west of the city, a seemingly ordinary set of Umbaran buildings were highlighted as the holo zoomed in. Rex had no clue about architecture, but he generally knew when he was looking at a civilian structure. The Umbarans on the other hand, didn't seem to subscribe to any delineation in their buildings. The entire city had the architecture of their air base; rounded oval buildings, with tall spiked spires and not a single square or rectangular structure in sight.

"The energy signatures coming from here matches residual plasma traces recorded in the aftermath of missile attacks. The strength of the signature leads us to conclude that we are looking at the local factory that makes these missiles."

"So if we take that out, they'll face the dilemma of using up a dwindling resource," Rex said with a grin. "What about launching a special operation to destroy it? Aren't the Blades available?"

"They're currently tasked with recon duties, trying to find a weakness in the city's defensive perimeter-" The holo began flickering, which stabilized after a few moments. "Damn, the Umbaran jamming is trying to find our frequency."

"We'll just have to attack the capital regardless of the missiles," Krell shook his head. "We can't afford to let this siege continue, general. We'll break through-"

The holo flickered even more severely and promptly vanished.

Krell tapped his comlink and a small diagnostic screen appeared above his arm. "No signal. They've managed to jam our communications." He stared at Rex severely. "We're on our own, captain."

"Understood, sir. What are your orders?"

"I want supply checks of the entire battalion. If we're short of anything, scrounge for weapons and supplies from this base. Begin a watch rotation, I don't want any possible insurgency attacks on our position. Finally, I want to be ready to begin our attack in twelve hours, so get your troops some rack time."

"Thank you, sir. Should I continue trying to contact General Kenobi? It would be beneficial if we could coordinate our attack."

"General Kenobi has his hands full. As do we. In any other situation, a dual pronged simultaneous attack would be useful, but we can't communicate and until that jamming is lifted, that won't change. We need to hit the enemy in our sector with everything we have, to break through and lift this siege."

Rex couldn't believe what he was hearing. Didn't Krell have a single better tactic in his head than a straight forward assault? "Sir, we'd be marching into a blast zone."

They felt the rumble of an explosion shuddering through the structure of the tower.

He rushed forward to the window, just in time to catch the tail end of two explosions that had hit near the base's defensive perimeter. Thankfully the force fields had absorbed the worst of it.

"More insurgents trying to get through," Krell commented grimly, he then gave Rex a flinty look. "I realize you haven't agreed with all my strategies, captain. However, you are smart and loyal enough to obey my orders. Now prep those troops and carry out your assignments."

Rex could only salute, "Yes, sir."

To say that Fives was unhappy with the orders from General Krell was an understatement.

Rex found his second in command inside one of the underground starfighter hangars, where he and a number of other ARC troopers were busy learning and finishing the work already done on the six craft currently sitting in this bay. It greatly helped that they had apparently found a user and maintenance manual in the local base computers.

"Those missiles have the yield of ground burst proton torpedoes, at least six kilotons," Fives pointed out incredulously. "We won't even make it to the city outskirts. Is Krell delusional? Does he have a tactical theater shield somewhere that he's not telling us about?"

"I've tried to reason with him, Fives. What else can I do? Those are the orders."

"Great," Lieutenant Jesse commented from his own seat behind an umbaran holo computer panel, where his hands were rapidly tapping and swishing on the interface. "Another suicide mission. Even if the missiles didn't get us, their perimeter forts surely will."

"It seems to me that the general has got something against clones," Hardcase commented from inside the guts of a starfighter.

"I think you're all overreacting," Sergeant Rime rolled his eyes. "General Krell's record speaks for itself. Do you really think he doesn't care if he loses men? Without us, he'd find it a bit difficult to take that capital."

Hardcase folded his arms, "I think his desire for victory has blinded him to the fact that there are lives at stake. I've never seen a general with these kinds of casualty figures in his record."

"He's definitely not acting like any of the other Jedi," Fives slammed his fist against the landing strut of the starfighter he was leaning against. "He has no respect for us."

This was going into dangerous territory and Rex had to stop this kind of talk. "Listen. I don't agree with him either, but I don't have a better plan to argue my case."

"Then you've come to the right place, captain," Fives scratched his short beard. "I've been thinking it'd be such a shame to just let these starfighters sit here and gather dust. We can't rely on the Umbarans to have a tiff with each other each time we run into their artillery walkers. I've looked into the specs of their guns and armament. They'd be just the ticket if we run into more enemy armor, they'd also be perfect for taking out that munitions factory and a few perimeter forts. Open us a chink in the capital's armor."

Rex shook his head, "Surely the umbarans in the city will realize by now that we have this air base. They'll know to not just trust every Zenuas fighter they see flying overhead from our direction."

"And normally you'd be correct," Fives smirked with a satisfied smile and slapped Hardcase's shoulder pauldron. "This clever man managed to slice the latest Umbaran access codes from the enemy defense network."

"Surely they would've also cut the air base from that," Rex reasonably pointed out.

"Oh they did, but I managed to reconnect on the sly," Hardcase smiled with satisfaction. "They don't even know. As far as the network is concerned, our access is from a new umbaran flight squadron that they created in the defense of the city, with authorization from a valiant hero of the Umbaran militia, whose identity codes I usurped and edited from one of the high ranking prisoners we have."

Rex frowned at the heavily tattooed ARC trooper, "I didn't realize you were such a slicer, Hardcase."

"It's what I do in my down time," he shrugged. "Only now that I really have the first time to make use of it in the field."

"So with those codes, their fighters and if we're sneaky about our course, we can fly these fighters right over the capital, bomb that munitions factory and perimeter fort in one swoop. We therefore stop their missile supplies from being refreshed and create a path for our troops. With these fighters on overwatch, we can also intercept any missiles that target the 501st."

Rex sighed, "That's certainly better than just marching straight into enemy fire."

"See, what are second in commands for," Fives gestured with arms spread genially.

"Don't let it go to your head," Rex grumbled, pointing a finger at Fives. "I'll bring this plan to the general. Don't work too long in this hanger. If you're going to do this you need to be in top form, so get to your bunks in two hours. That's an order."

"Fine," Fives shrugged.

"So have you figured out who is going to fly these contraptions yet?"

"We've found the Umbaran simulator programs, we'll start training the instant after we take some rack time."

"Good, I don't want this to be a suicide run. You hear?"

"Yes, sir."

Anakin had finally relented on getting some rest and dealing with his urgent bodily functions that needed attending. Seeing the speed with which he had jumped off the interface chair was rather amusing.

Now I was in control of the holodroid, walking around the Umbaran airbase with the holoshell of a clone trooper. If any other trooper asked or even scanned me, they'd find that I was CT-4659 'Recluse', with the rank of sergeant. It was an identity I had inserted into the 501st legion register just for occasions such as this. Of course, I could just use the Force on any trooper and in general to remain unseen and blend into the background, but my focus was mostly on stealth in the Force at the moment, to remain hidden from Krell.

With the orders from Rex to secure the base and its systems it allowed the perfect excuse for me to dig my fingers into any umbaran system, subtly helping the ARC troopers crack the network again with the aid of R2's deft cyber touch. It also let me gain digital snapshots of certain select technologies I was interested in sending back to MandalMotors and my think tank for development.

Whilst we had made considerable strides in holographic interfaces and haptics, the Umbaran stuff was on another level, easily a full generation ahead in comparison.

The maneuverability of the Zenuas fighter was definitely something I also wanted for the next generation of Fang fighter, so I made a scan and interfaced directly with one. The weapons on it were interesting and the synthetic plasma weapons were definitely an interesting avenue of research. The energized plasma 'torpedoes' that the fighter used for anti-ship work was also of considerable interest since the stuff had a disintegration after effect that spilled over and had a 'damage over time' to whatever ship it hit.

I imagined they would be just the thing to efficiently burn through biological hulls of Yuuzhan Vong capital ships, if you could get it around the dovin basal generated singularities they used as shields.

My route carried me to the base's main reactors next and while there was nothing truly groundbreaking about the fusion systems themselves, they did feature a level of compactness for their rated output that definitely merited study. It explained the strength of the shielding around the cockpit bubbles of the Zenuas and the weapons on it.

I gave a small grin as I studied the computer readouts of the reactor, sensing a familiar presence entering the reactor room.

"Sergeant?"

I turned to give Rex a casual salute, "Captain."

"What are you doing here… Recluse?" he asked.

"Making sure the reactors aren't going to fail on us. Their automation is very good, but they run somewhat hot in comparison to ours and I can imagine a runaway or even the fusion bottle failing if there isn't someone watching for it."

My fingers tapped on the large control panel pointedly, adjusting the fuel flow down a few percentage points, when the automated system had started lagging in compensating for it.

"Losing power would be rather disastrous," Rex pulled off his helmet and stared into the banks of glowing fusion bottles. "Have you had any sleep, sergeant?"

"No, sir. I'm a Sapper and a techie at heart, I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway with an unknown fusion plant near me that I didn't make sure was safe for us and the troops."

"Yes, well. Thanks for that, sergeant. I'm just doing the rounds and checking in on everyone. We're attacking the capital in ten hours, so I want everyone with full bellies and completely rested."

"So Krell is sending us into the meat grinder again," I commented flatly. "Only this time it's more of an energetic plasma disintegrator if we want to get technical."

"Those are our orders, sergeant."

"True. There isn't a battle we've fought so far in the war where carrying out our orders hasn't led to many of our brothers dying. However, this is different and you know it, captain."

Rex's mouth visibly flattened and his eyes smoldered in anger. "It's not like I can just disobey. From day one, ever since we could form a coherent thought after we came out of those clone tubes… to obey orders from our superiors have been hammered into our skulls."

"Again, true. But orders have another quality, captain. They must be within the regs and serve the Republic. Does it serve the Republic to have the 501st wiped out to the last man?"

"If it achieves the mission and objective," Rex answered immediately.

"And will grinding our armor and skulls pointlessly against a perimeter fort and aerial bombardment achieve anything?"

Rex sighed, his shoulder slumping, "No, I guess you have a point, sergeant."

"Ah ha, there we go," I said with a smile, tapping the holoboard with a flourish. "Reactor should be stable for fifteen hours without monitoring." I turned and gave Rex a salute. "If you'll excuse me, captain. There's a rack with my name on it."

I pretended to sleep in the Umbaran barracks for one hour before feigning frustration and getting up.

My destination this time was the starfighter hangars.

It was here that I saw the progress Fives, Jesse and Hardcase had made since I had remotely pointed them to the fighter user manuals.

It was rather impressive. They had successfully serviced and rearmed the fighters, but it was clear that actually flying the thing was the problem. The flight controls were not intuitive at all and were as 'alien' as the Umbaran mindset.

"Damn it," cursed Hardcase from within the pilot bubble, as the simulation flashed red.

"Easy on your finger movements, Hardcase," Fives remonstrated his fellow clone from his own fighter. "You just fired a plasma missile before you even took off. If that had been the real thing, you'd have blown a hole the size of a Juggernaut tank inside the building."

"Well, you could barely even fly and you were constantly upside down!"

"Listen brothers, we're not going to get anything done with you two bickering at each other like this," Jesse pointed out reasonably. "Reset the simulation and try again."

The three pilot bubbles returned to their normal blue and the three men carefully stuck their hands into the holo control spheres, careful to keep their hands in a 'neutral' position. Then they moved the spheres up slowly before pushing forward.

So far so good, it seemed. They had at least taken off without blowing themselves up accidentally. They even made it out the hangar doors, but then Jesse ended up firing the chin turret by accident and in his frantic efforts to make it stop, ended up destabilizing his own flight, crashing straight into Hardcase's fighter, who was flying to his starboard in formation.

"Oh come on!" Hardcase complained.

"Urgh, I have a whole new respect for flyboys," Fives grumbled, tapping the controls to reset the simulation.

Interestingly, at this rate, they were going to launch their mission in five hours, hopped up on stims to keep them going. The probability line showed they would abandon their secondary objective to destroy a perimeter fort and that was not good.

I stepped out of the blind spot behind the fighters and walked up to the main diagnostic terminal next to the row of fighters. "Hey everyone. Things are going well?"

Fives and the other two were naturally weary of me. "Sergeant… sorry, what was your name?"

"Recluse," I said, stepping up to the panel and beginning to tap commands into it. My holoshell was now without a helmet and was showing a typical Jango Fett face and voice, but with a stylized cog tattooed onto the right cheek. "And you can relax, I'm not about to report you. I bet you the whole 501st would be in here helping if they knew. But then Krell would too, so I don't blame you. Now, I see you're trying to fly these fancy contraptions…"

"Wait, how did you even know about this?" Fives asked with suspicion.

"Well, I was part of the detail who worked on the internal security and would you know that the umbarans even have surveillance in their barracks, both visual and audio?"

Fives groaned, "Seriously? Who else knows?"

"Just me. You're lucky I was alone when I finally figured that system out. Now I figure you three need a sapper's steady hand to fly these things." I tapped the console in front of me and brought up the pilot manual, displaying the instructions on flight and weapon controls into a larger format. Two giant holographic Umbaran hands now hovered in front of the three 'pilots'.

"We looked at this already, sergeant."

"Yes, but we all know a manual can never tell you the whole story. The difference between theory and practical reality. The small tricks and nuance of taking that perfect shot or in this case, flying this fighter. I looked at your simulations and it seems to me that you are struggling to make the translation from one gesture or action to the next, without stumbling into another that you don't want to do but because the fighter's computer is just following orders…"

"It'll move or fire when we don't want it to, because our emotions are getting in the way of our actions," Jesse concluded.

"So there's your first task, whatever gesture you make, if you're ever unsure, return to the neutral one. This way at least you won't make a blunder like that." I turned around and mimicked the posture of flying in the bubble cockpit. "Let's try going through a typical takeoff sequence and find the best way to transition between gestures…"

Fives had to admit, he had doubts about Sergeant Recluse, but there was no denying what a help the brother had been.

In just an hour of simulation training, they were consistently taking off, flying in formation without crashing into one another and were even starting to make sense of the Umbaran interfaces. The sergeant had even managed to rig a translation program into Aurabesh characters, which was a big help as the Zenuas fighter was smart enough to even make suggestions to them. It wasn't on the level of a droid, but had something the sergeant called heuristic matrix learning. Each fighter actually adapted over time to its pilot and the longer someone trained in it, the better responses it gave.

The finger and hand gestures for firing the weapons of the fighter were rather strange and Fives' hands were aching from all the repetitive practice they had been doing.

He had only managed to get in three hours of actual sleep when his eyes opened in the barracks and he immediately felt the stiffness in the small muscles between the bones in his hands.

In retrospect he was glad that Recluse had managed to convince them to get some actual sleep after the training session.

After two battles and the long walk to the air base, combined with the training; stims had been the only thing keeping them going, but now he at least felt some modicum of normality in his being. He had to admit to himself that trying to immediately launch the mission to the munitions factory was highly irrational. Had he not been hopped up on stims and frantically finding some way to make Krell's plan not spell doom for the 501st, he would've ordered anyone else to bed and chow before trying such an insane move.

He glanced around the darkened barracks, only seeing the sleeping forms of his fellow brothers, the occasional light snore echoing throughout the room. The umbaran barracks were oddly designed with three stack single beds spaced evenly. Clearly the locals trusted that their militia wouldn't fall off the top rack for some reason.

Fives rolled out of his own bed on the lowest rack, carefully came to his feet, grabbed the extra bits of his armor that was too annoying to go to bed with and silently walked out the barracks.

He returned when he was fully suited up and began with Jesse, then Hardcase; carefully poking them awake.

They walked with purpose, their rifles shouldered, presenting for any who bothered looking that they were just on their way to a perimeter patrol.

The door to the hangar bay with their fighters was in sight, but Fives stopped dead when he saw that Rex was waiting there patiently.

"Are you seriously going to do this, Fives?" Rex's face was carved out of granite.

"We're going after that factory," he replied, his voice equally hard and determined.

"You realize what your chances are? Not to mention that Krell expressly forbade the mission when I suggested it to him. You're committing insubordination."

"This is what must be done for the sake of the 501st and our brothers. If we must sacrifice our lives and freedom for them to live… It's what we do every day, Rex. The only difference now, our opposition is our own commanding officer."

Rex shook his head, "I hate that you're right, Fives. I hate that nothing I can possibly say will dissuade you."

"Are you going to try to stop us anyway?" Fives subtly began limbering and loosening himself in preparation for an actual physical fight with a superior officer. Rex, being the experienced operator that he was, immediately picked up on that. He realized that Fives was fully prepared to dump Rex into the same category as Krell - an enemy in the way of the 501st's survival.

Rex closed his eyes and sighed, "I can't help you, when you get caught."

"We understand completely, sir." Hardcase and Jesse nodded in agreement.

Rex stepped forward and placed a hand on Fives' shoulder, looking into the identical eyes of his brother and comrade in arms. Understanding and something that lacked words passed between them before the captain nodded at the other two and left.

"Let's go."

Inside the bay, they found Recluse still there, standing by the large diagnostic computer station.

"Everything's as ready for you as I can make it, lieutenant."

"Did you get any sleep, sergeant?" Fives asked sternly.

"I managed two hours right over there," the Sapper jerked a thumb to a ruffled field sleeping bag nearby. "Don't worry, Fives. I'm good and your fighters are waiting. I've got an override on the hangar doors, as far as the tower and Krell is concerned, they're closed. The only point they'll realize that is not the case, is when you're flying away from this base."

"Thank you," Fives thought of slapping the trooper that had been such a great help on the shoulder, only to think better of it. He suddenly knew that there was a reason the man had been given the name Recluse.

"Good luck and as the Jedi say, may the Force be with you, Fives, Hardcase, Jesse."

They hurried to their fighters and sat down in the inactive cockpit chairs in front of each fighter, putting down their rifles under their seats, on the small platform there.

Fives placed his hands on the arm rests and the bubble shield winked into existence around them. The control holo spheres appeared and he firmly inserted his hands into them before lifting his arms up and backward.

The bubble cockpit hovered into air and smoothly inserted itself into the Zenuas fighter.

The main MFD holo panel winked into being in front of him and he swiped his hand firmly across the upper icons, which all turned red, then switched to yellow before finally turning blue. The fighter started humming and its systems sprang to life.

He brought his hands back to the neutral position and clenched his fists once.

"All right boys, check your coms. By the numbers."

"Jesse reads, all systems go."

"Hardcase reads, ready."

"Just imagine we're in the field, only this time we're wearing a fighter for armor. Stay in formation and follow my lead."

"Roger, Fives."

He slightly raised his hands and pushed slowly forward.

The fighter raised itself into the air with a deep hum, hovering forward into the empty space above the deck. He raised his hands up slightly again, and the fighter gained momentum, beginning a straight upward ascent through the launch tube.

Fives gently twisted his wrists left and the fighter obediently yawed towards the east.

He spared a brief look at his sensor displays and saw that Hardcase and Jesse were also doing relatively well, though the former was still a bit wobbly in his flight.

"Tighten up, Hardcase."

"Trying, Fives."

"Try harder."

Finally the launch tube ended and Fives felt a brief moment of disorientation as his fighter went through the holo camouflage and burst out into the free and open air above the airbase.

He was already orientated and pushed forward hard and intently with his hands.

The fighter went to full throttle and the air base vanished from beneath him, to be replaced with blurs of red and green light as he sped over the luminescent foliage of the forest.

He spared a quick look and saw he was easily flying over 900 kph. He hadn't felt the acceleration at all. He didn't know much about what the flyboys did and experienced in their day to day, but he knew that they still got a kick when they gunned their fighters to full speed, especially in an atmosphere.

"These inertial dampeners are something else," he couldn't help but comment.

"It almost feels like I'm controlling the world around me in this thing," Jesse said with amazement.

"Don't let it go to your head," Fives warned. "Tighten up on me, at this speed we're just minutes away from the city outskirts. Ready yourselves for the first turn to starboard, just like we practiced… Ten seconds… five, four, three, two, one… now!"

Fives twisted his wrists steadily and slightly to the right, adding a slight roll in his wrists.

The three fighters turned in a southerly direction.

They had to fly as low as possible and trace a course that led away from the direction of the air field, skirting the city edges.

He could just about see hints of the city itself through the gloom of eternal night on the horizon. Clear artificial blues, reds and greens, coming from light panels that the Umbarans loved to stick on their architecture.

"Now we just have to hope we don't get shot down by our own side," Hardcase grumbled.

"If we don't stray too much from our course, that shouldn't be a problem, but thank you for reminding me, Hardcase," Fives commented sarcastically.

Just over two minutes of tense flying later, with their eyes peeled on their scopes and each other, keeping their flight as steady as possible, they finally spotted trouble.

"Blast, now that is one huge battle!"

Far ahead of them, through a cloud layer, flashes of light and the streaks of blue and green plasma cannon fire streamed through the night.

The computer couldn't properly render the amount of fighters shooting at each other in the sky on their scopes, to Fives it was just a dense sprinkle of dots in their forward sensors.

He was now facing a conundrum, staying down here would keep them relatively safe, but it was very suspicious. The Umbarans would wonder why three of their own were staying down here and out of the fight, in the worst case, they'd assume that they were deserters or traitors.

"Stay with me, brothers."

He raised his hands and the fighter climbed.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Fives," Jesse worried.

"So do I," he mumbled under his breath.

They burst through the first cloud layer and into sheer utter chaos.

Z95s and Zenuas fighters were zipping everywhere, some staying in formation and others in single one on one fighter duels.

Fives felt as if his heart wanted to jump out of his throat as he frantically maneuvered left, right, up and down to dodge both fighter and plasma blasts.

"This is insane!" screamed Hardcase.

"Fly first and scream later, Hardcase! You don't have time to be frightened."

The entire world around him became just his own fighter and the obstacles in his way. He didn't even think about shooting, just surviving.

He almost missed the computer screaming at him that he had missed their planned turn to port by a full two kilometers.

"Hardcase, Jesse, dive and turn!"

He twisted his wrists and pushed his holo controls down.

The fighter obeyed and they screamed for the deck.

He pulled up with seconds to spare before they would've become smashed debris in the forests around the capital.

"Thank the stars," gasped Jesse. "We made it!"

"Don't count your credits just yet, we've still got to make it past the city perimeter defenses."

The capital was now looming large in their vision as they whipped through the sky, approaching from the south.

The buildings his scanners could immediately see was a mix of small and large, with a variety of shapes. Yet one drew his attention because it was streaming data queries at his fighter's computer. He pulled up more, increasing their flight's altitude to just over 120 meters off ground level.

"Now we find out if our codes work. That tall building in front of us is a perimeter fort."

"I see it too, Fives. They're interrogating our computers."

He resisted the urge to shift his hands into the firing postures. There was every chance that the fortress would detect that immediately.

"Hopefully they're too busy to contact us over the radio," Hardcase worried.

Fives really wished he could give his fellow clone a slap over the head at that moment.

He watched his computer readout with baited breath and finally the magic words appeared.

'Cleared to proceed, Pilot A340T33.'

He didn't celebrate and just pushed forward, increasing the fighter's throttle to what was called max overdrive thrust.

"We're running a bit late, but that's fine. Set course for heading 310 on my mark… mark."

He twisted his wrists, turning the fighter until the overhead indicators in the HUD lined up.

"Keep your eyes peeled, boys. We don't want a fighter patrol joining our little formation for a look. They get close enough they'll see we're not umbaran."

"Roger, Fives."

The next two minutes as they streaked lengthwise over the city was the most stressful few minutes of Fives' life thus far. He had been in so many battles where death was just a step away, but this was somehow worse. Here his enemy wasn't on the ground and visible. Here his enemy was potentially just a blip on his scanner and he wouldn't even see the shot coming.

Suffice it to say, if he made it through this campaign, he would never have a bad word to say about the flyboys.

The computer chirped a warning at him and brought him out of his half-dazed thoughts. "Approaching target, slow down to 600 kph."

He gently pulled back his hands. The computer displayed a grid overlay of the city, highlighting them and allowing him to see individual buildings from the mass of darkness and patterned colors below.

Finally, a large building flashed in red; it was nearly a hundred meters lengthwise and shaped like a curved oval. It was like a super-sized version of one of the buildings at the airbase and only stood out from the other buildings around it because of its size.

"There it is!"

"Are you sure, Fives?"

"Recluse programmed these computers and he hasn't let us down yet. Besides, look at the scanner, this close there's so much ambient EM from this building, I don't see how it can't be our plasma weapons factory. Now switch to weapons mode and let's get this over with."

He made a fist with his hands, then spread out his thumb and the inner two fingers, pushing his left hand forward, pulling in with his right. Then with his left, designated the factory as the target and closed his fingers.

The missile pods on either side of the Zenuas fighter's lower struts began to glow ominously, building up in energy, until a giant spheroid chunk of electro plasma was gathered there.

"Fire!"

He threw his other hand forward.

Six plasma missiles shot through the air, crossing the two kilometers to their targets in moments.

"Turn west! Full overdrive!"

The three fighters yawed left and their rear engines glowed brightly before they broke the local speed of sound and within moments were already three kilometers away.

The explosion that followed lit up the entire northern part of the city and for a long few seconds light came to the Shadow World.

The green fireball that rose over the city was over two hundred meters in width, the factory and everything beneath it vaporized in an instant, whilst the overpressure smashed buildings to pieces within four hundred meters all around.

Fives looked back briefly, feeling both elated and somewhat horrified. The former he knew was from their success, but he remained puzzled at the latter. The computer flashed a warning.

"I just got a radiation alarm, we do not want to be in this part of the city for long! Set your next target as the perimeter fort."

"Scanning, got a lock!" Jesse reported.

Fives saw they were a little off course in their frantic retreat and shifted the fighter to compensate. The computer also displayed and highlighted the rapidly approaching fort.

It was a tall pentagonal tower, which had a commanding view of the city outskirts towards the west and the surrounding forest. There were over twenty recessed launchers that could pop in and out of the building's structure. The computer further highlighted over forty anti-infantry Repeater blaster positions.

"And Krell wanted to march us straight into that," Hardcase said grimly.

"That's why we're here. Only lock on at the last possible moment. We have to take advantage of the shock of that explosion. Otherwise we're dead."

"Roger, Fives."

He lowered the fighter's altitude, going as low as they could whilst still remaining above the buildings. He didn't doubt that somewhere, from some sensor operator, word would spread through the Umbaran network that their little flight of three fighters was responsible for the destruction of the factory.

They were so low that they had to start dodging around tall buildings, but it was either this or die to umbaran missile fire.

After a full 90 seconds of hair razing flight, the edge of the city approached and their target.

"There it is… wait for it… wait… lock on and fire!"

Six more plasma missiles shot forward and angled themselves to the base of the tower fort.

Fives immediately jinked left as best he could, almost crashing into Jesse in the process, when the fort's Repeaters opened up on them.

Green bolts streamed outward into the sky, seeking to cut them down.

Then the plasma missiles hit.

Five lower floors of the tower fort disintegrated in moments, turned to plasma fire and its constituent atoms.

The three fighters shot past it as it began tipping over like a giant tree, before something in its structure was taxed way past the point its engineers had ever designed for. It began collapsing in on itself, duracrete, steel and other alloys might as well have been made of flimsiplast in the face of the forces now being exerted as it fell.

Then a munitions store inside lost containment and a much smaller explosion climbed into the air around the city, sending debris and shrapnel outward on ballistic arcs for kilometers in every direction.

"Kriff yeah! That's the way to do it!" shouted Hardcase in triumph.

Fives let out a breath of relief he hadn't even known he'd been holding and a vast weight was somehow lifted from his shoulders. The 501st now had the chink in the armor they needed. He could now face them with duty done and no shame, no matter what happened. Krell could stick his lightsaber in his chest and he would die knowing that his brothers would live on to fight another day.

"Let's go home boys."

Rex walked into the air base command center, helmet under his arm, feeling a knot of tension in his stomach which was also wrapped around his spine.

He glanced briefly to his left, where Fives, Hardcase and Jesse stood disarmed and 'escorted' by three other ARC troopers, but his attention was all on General Krell.

The besalisk Jedi stood with all his arms folded behind his back, staring into a scale holo rendering of the capital city, with the giant scar in its north and the missing perimeter fort highlighted in an ugly red. Then tension in the room was palpable as the Jedi stretched the silence and made them wait on his word and judgment.

Rex knew one thing at that moment, he didn't care how, but Fives, Jesse and Hardcase, would not die because of this. He could've stopped them, with his pistol set to stun, he could've taken out two of them before the remainder could turn around and engage him… but he hadn't. It would be to spit in the face of the sacrifice they were going to make for the 501st and for Rex himself. In that same way, he couldn't look himself in the mirror if he didn't make the sacrifice of a leader as well. He was their commanding officer… he was responsible for them.

Rex cleared his throat, feeling somewhat sick of the game Krell was playing. "You wanted to see them, sir."

"Indeed," Krell said briefly. He couldn't help but notice in his tone, that the Jedi general felt a sense of pleasure at Rex being the one to speak first and hurry this entire thing along. "It seems they have accomplished a very brave feat." The bastard still didn't have the decency to even turn around and face the men he was about to condemn. "Unfortunately, they've also committed a serious crime, by directly disobeying my order."

"With all due respect, sir," Rex stepped forward. "The order to attack the factory and perimeter fort was mine. If there's a punishment to be given, it should be directed toward me. I'm their commanding officer."

"General, sir," Fives stepped forward immediately. "Captain Rex is attempting to take the blame for actions that were clearly mine."

"Fives!" snapped Rex. What was the stupid idiot doing?

Fives charged ahead anyway, "I request that his admission of guilt be denied and full blame placed upon me. It was my idea, I pushed for it and roped Hardcase and Jesse into it."

"Do you now?" Krell asked archly, finally turning around and regarded Fives with a darkly amused expression. "You willfully countermand my direct order and now you have the audacity to request who should bear the punishment of your insurrection." The Jedi began a slow languid walk, up and down the line of men in the command center. "Let me be clear about the punishment for the treason committed by ARC trooper 5555, CT-5597 and CT-4901."

Back to being numbers now are we? Rex thought darkly.

The Jedi walked up the line, keeping his face turned away. "They will be court martialed." Krell abruptly stopped in front of Rex and pushed his huge alien face so close that the clone had to lean backward. "They will be found guilty and they will be executed."

Was it his imagination or were Krell's eyes… different?

Krell stepped back and turned to face the hologram of the wounded city. "Make no mistake. For crossing me, you will pay the price. Take them to the detention hub where they can join the captured umbarans in their own private cell."

Rex felt anger as never before, but forced himself to salute. "Yes, General."

I blinked my actual eyes and looked up into the worried face of Anakin standing over the interface chair.

The Force directed me inward and I regained my equilibrium, reminding me that yes, I was actually here in the troop hold of the Omen flying at 187 light years per hour and my stomach was complaining at the lack of food.

I popped off the circlet from my head and handed it over to him. "I left the holodroid working at the base reactor. It should be able to handle a convo or two by itself using the Recluse persona."

"So it's as foreseen."

I nodded and jumped off the chair, "Krell is already in the first stages of giving in to his Darkness. If Masters Tiin and Kenobi weren't fighting for their lives at the moment they would sense it as well."

"And even if they did," Anakin took my place and fitted the circlet. "It's not like they could do anything about it."

"Ahsoka." Chewie popped his head through the hatch that led to the upper deck. "Incoming transmission for you. It's from Ursa Wren."

"Thanks Chewie," I waved and re-enabled my comlink's connection to the ship's com array. Immediately the device started chirping in its usual annoying fashion. "Yes Ursa?"

The stern visage of the Blades' second in command appeared over my arm. "Manda'lor. I'd appreciate some eventual notice if you have to suddenly depart from a battlefield."

I winced, "Sorry about that. I was also quite busy with a certain Jedi matter." She knew what equipment was on the Omen, so made the obvious connection and I didn't need to spell it out.

"Understood, Manda'lor. You should know that there is a gift for you on board the Omen. We intended to give it after the battle of Umbara."

"Gift?" I asked, rather honestly baffled.

"Yes, it came to the Armorer's attention that you have since aged into your majority, after getting caught up in that anomaly. After investigation into the matter, she feels that your current armor is not reflective of your status. She requires you to correct the matter immediately. On the troop deck of the Omen, in locker B19, which you can open with code Tau 334910, you will find your gift."

"So what you're saying is that this is two years worth of belated birthday gifts and my coming of age in Mandalorian society rolled into one?"

She paused for a moment, "Yes, manda'lor. You could look at it in that manner."

"All right, hang on."

I walked down the deck to the far end and found the locker in question. M8 did a routine quick scan and finding nothing abnormal, I tapped in the code.

The locker door hissed and retreated to the left, the lights inside coming on automatically.

I stared at the contents, feeling like my jaw wanted to become unhinged and plant itself on the floor.

Staring directly at me, with its intimidating T-shaped visor, was a proper Mandalorian helmet, specially shaped for a togruta exactly as designed by myself and Anakin. The forehead of the helmet had a Clan Viszla stylized mythosaur emblem embossed on it

Below that was further beskar plates, shaped exactly in the Aegis pattern; vambraces, gauntlets, pauldrons, breastplate, groin protector, cuisse, greaves and boot plating, which I could easily replace the current plating I had on with a microsolder and time.

All of it was covered in the digital camo pattern I favored with the Jedi emblems also prominent on the pauldron and chest.

I took a deep breath and had to touch the beskar to chase away the feeling of surreality that washed over me. Just by the weight and touch, I could tell that the Armorer had not skimped on the beskar. This was high grade, easily above 90% purity at least, something that took a long time to achieve and given that it was made by her, would easily fetch a small fortune.

"Thank you, Ursa."

She nodded, "It really should've been handed over to you in a proper Naur'alor* ceremony, but that can be dispensed with given the circumstances."

I immediately recalled that ceremony from my knowledge and readings of Mando culture. In ideal circumstances, the Armorer herself would be the one to hand this over to me for my own inspection. She would use a smith hammer, vibroblade, blaster and even a ceremonial lightsaber to demonstrate the strength of the parts to me. This would also be done with select witnesses from the clan in attendance.

"If it sets the Armorer's pride and duty at ease, I will do the testing and record myself doing it."

Ursa's mouth twitched somewhat, "I'm sure she will appreciate it, manda'lor."

"Anything else to report?"

"Other than three injuries among the Blades during our recon operations of the umbaran capital, no, manda'lor."

"Good, you've received word about what the 501st achieved in the north-west?"

"Yes, manda'lor."

"I want you to station your squadron nearby, stand ready with a Krayt and wait for a signal on our encrypted frequency."

"It will be done, manda'lor."

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A/N: Naur'alor - formal title of a beskar armorer