By the time Caleb had gotten in the gunship, he was already best friends with the squad he was leading. Jesse loved talking just as much as he did, and the others liked laughing at them so they didn't try to stop them. Not a cruel laugh, just an entertained and joyful one.
Of course, when the gunship left the hangar, all the fun had to be put on pause. There were four things going on at once, and they needed to focus on their part. Hold on, Master, Caleb kept thinking. We're almost there.
"When we hit the ground, shields need to be off first," Caleb instructed. "Remember, we don't want anyone else other than you or me taking fire if we can avoid it."
"Yes, sir!" They responded, and they adjusted the straps on their arms.
Jesse chuckled at their immediate reaction, glancing at the Padawan through the helmet. "You spent a lot of time with Commander Tano, I can tell."
Caleb smiled, proud to be associated with her. "Oh, yeah. Not enough, of course, but I got what I could before everything happened."
"We all did," Brunt, one of the bombers reminded him. "It wasn't anyone's fault here that she left, but there's only so much we could have done."
"At least, that's what Captain Rex tells us," another bomber, Shell, added.
Caleb nodded, knowing where the captain had come from. "It's in the past now, anyway. Right now, someone else needs help. We can't focus on what's already happened if we want to change what will happen."
Jesse praised his monologue. "Roger that," and many clones agreed with him. "And right now, our job is to blow the towers and make a mess doing it. Do I need to explain further?"
The clones shook their heads cheering, riled up for the fight. It wasn't often that orders like this were given. Then again, it wasn't often that situations like this happened either, and for a good reason too.
Throughout the gunship, the pilot's voice warned them: "We're landing in about 20 seconds. Get ready, boys!"
Caleb drew his lightsaber but didn't activate it quite yet. The troopers with shields hoisted them, and the bombers drew weapons. Time to blow.
As soon as the doors opened, Caleb jumped out and activated his saber, ready to take any initial fire that might come their way. The five shielders were right behind him, covering the bombers as they stepped down from the gunship. With all of their extra toys, they were going to move slower than normal.
At the base, a squad of battle droids had been dispatched to address the intruders. They hadn't started firing yet, but Caleb saw them making their way over. They needed to close as much distance as possible before the tinnies prevented them from getting to the towers.
"Full speed!" He commanded the squad, and he ran out in front of them, even the shielders, trusting them to cover the bombers. Drawing their fire, he deflected the red bolts that started flying towards him, allowing the blue bolts to pass him and find their targets. When he got close enough, Caleb jumped on top of the nearest standing droid and started slicing them to pieces.
Dealing with the battle droids was no problem, but a destroyer was rolling towards him too. "Get to the towers!" He told Jesse and the others. "Start bringing it down!"
The destroyer, of course, targeted Caleb, the Jedi in the equation. He advanced on the droid, keeping his saber moving to deflect the blaster fire. He sprinted and deactivated his saber long enough to get it through the shield, and struck the blasters on either side. He thrust the saber through the heart of the droid, and the inner workings sparked and died down.
More battle droids were coming, but they were after the squad this time. Caleb moved to intercept them, slicing through their ranks while the shielders took care of the stray shots that Caleb missed. The bombers began setting up explosives around the base of the first tower, using the weakest ones first. The more powerful bombs were for the grand finale.
Jesse double-checked the position of the bombs before yelling, "Clear!" The entire squad started running for the next tower around the perimeter, and in about ten seconds, the bombs went off, destroying the base of the tower, therefore destabilizing the whole structure.
The tower crumbled to bits, leaning in towards the base itself. Caleb used the Force to protect himself from the debris, but the rest of it hit the tinnies he was fighting and did the job for him. He couldn't help but smile. If the whole mission went as well as this, they were going to do just fine.
Caleb moved to cover the squad again since the next wave of droids hadn't come out to meet them yet. Out of the corner of his eye, though, he caught a glimpse of a large squad running towards the side entrance of Scarlet Haven, led by Ahsoka. Grinning, he turned his attention back to his work. The Jedi Masters were going to be fine.
~
One of the reasons Rex liked having a Jedi in command was that you hardly ever had to guess how they felt about a particular situation. If they expressed any emotion, it was normally readable. Ahsoka was being a little more guarded with her expression, but Rex could still understand. A grin played across her lips, but her eyes were burning. The message was clear: We do our job, leave nothing standing, and make it back home with everyone alive. Leave nothing to chance, give the enemy no window to stop us. We do this, and we do it once.
Ahsoka's mind was still running on overtime. Her abilities could handle it, and it felt good to feel her old instincts begin to kick in again. The various thought processes came naturally, but were more refined now, more efficient. Everything she had learned had a purpose, and all of those purposes were clicking into place.
The gunship was halfway to the ground when Ahsoka felt a searing pain on her back. She winced but refused to cry out. It wasn't a cramp, and it wasn't even a memory from the Inquisitor. It felt exterior from herself, even though she certainly felt the pain. Anakin, she realized. She focused her mind and projected to him. Just a few minutes longer, I promise.
When their gunship opened up, Ahsoka stepped off silently, crouching behind a boulder jutting up from the ground. She felt another hit strike her right shoulder blade, and then in her side. She forced herself to focus on the mission. They weren't far from the shield encircling Scarlet Haven, but as close as they could get to their entry point. She closed her fist in a halt above her shoulder, and the squad waited motionless for further instruction.
She desperately wanted to make conversation or joke about, or just relax, even a little bit, but she couldn't let herself, not now. Ahsoka had to keep track of every piece of the mission, however loosely that meant. Caleb's position, especially, was key to the success of the mission. She had to time their entry so that the battle droids would be distracted by the towers, and not focus on them.
Across the way, Ahsoka saw Caleb running to meet a squad to battle droids, and he dealt with them while the troopers moved to take care of the first tower. She felt a hint of pride when he performed perfectly.
Rex, who was also keeping an eye on the battlefield, commented, "He looks like someone else I used to watch."
She smiled, just a little, but it was a bittersweet moment. Ahsoka knew she wasn't that confident, that joyful, that enthusiastic anymore. Sideous has stolen that from her a long time ago. The one peace she did have was that Anakin's pain had stopped. Scarlet Haven must be responding to the attack. Hopefully, they would leave him alone for now.
Opening her fist into a flat palm, she signaled to prepare. The 501st shifted, ready to run at a moment's notice. She waited, patiently, and calmly. That was one thing she had learned on Dromund Kaas: patience is key. It was what had allowed Sideous to rise to power, and it was what had enabled her to stop him. All things come to those who wait.
The tower came crashing down, and as the building made impact with the ground, the shield faltered and fizzled out in patches. Ahsoka brought her arm down and sprang to her feet, darting to the entrance. Rex was right on her heels, along with the other fourteen men with them. It was a forty-second sprint to the door, and not once was the squad fired on.
Ahsoka pulled out a lightsaber, ignited it, and burned through the lock on the door. She ripped it open with the Force and hurried her men in before any battle droids noticed their presence. She was the last one in and shut the door behind them.
The squad parted the way for her, letting her move to the front of the group. She walked about ten meters down the hall, then opened the door to the stairwell on the right. Drawing her blaster and the same lightsaber, she swept the stairwell for droids. Four were making their way down from the next floor up, and she shot them before they could pop off a shot on her.
"Clear," she called to her men. "Two stay in the stairwell and guard our exit. Everyone else with me."
She quickly descended the stairs, heading for the basement level. Speaking to Rex behind her, she instructed, "The detention wing has two doors, one on each end. I need you to guard the far one while we get everyone out."
"Understood, sir," he answered, understanding now why Ahsoka had wanted a squad of fifteen. She had already calculated how many troopers she would need, and where they needed to be during the extraction.
Ahsoka exited the stairwell, turning left towards the cells, but a group of battle droids was headed their way. In the seconds before they started firing at her, she decided her blaster wasn't going to do any good and holstered it. With the same hand, she drew her second lightsaber and ignited that one too, just in time to dart forward and deflect the oncoming fire. Clearing the path, she pierced through the droids, bringing them all to the ground.
Flipping one of her sabers, she burned through the lock to the cells and opened the sliding door. "Everyone except Rex, grab a Jedi," she ordered, using the Force to deactivate the twelve locks on the cells. The rest of the squad filed in after the captain, starting with the farthest cells and working their way to the front. Once every trooper had a Jedi over their shoulders, Ahsoka began walking back up the stairs. They couldn't run yet, they needed to wait until they got to the surface again. That's where they were going to have to sprint.
Her lightsabers at the ready, she began the climb back up. The clones at the top of the stairs made way for her. "No sign of trouble, Commander," Shell updated, eyeing the rest of the troop. "That's going to attract attention, though."
"Which is why I need you boys with your weapons hot," she told them. "You're leading the run back to the gunships. Cover the others as much as you can, and let them get on first."
She walked back to the exit, opening the door, but not leaving just yet. Caleb's troop had circled around the base, and they were about forty degrees off of their path back to the gunships. They had to wait as long as possible to make sure that no stray fire found them, or the unconscious Jedi.
"Caleb," she spoke into her comlink, "How much longer before you get to the next tower?"
"Give us sixty seconds," came the quick reply. "Can you hold that long?"
Ahsoka nodded. "Make it quick," she told him, calling to the back of the group. "When the coast is clear, run like hell back to the gunships. Divide into both of them, and cover the others getting on."
Everyone shifted the Jedi they were carrying. "Yes, sir!"
She turned back to the battlefield, watching Caleb, Jesse, and the rest of their squad. They had made quick work of the towers, only two of them were left standing. After taking care of another wave of battle droids, they started to shift to the fourth tower. Ahsoka held up a hand, and the troopers drew a breath.
Stepping towards the thick of the battle, she pointed towards the gunships. "GO!" Fifteen armored men, most of whom were carrying a full-grown adult, ran at top speed away from the building. Ahsoka stayed between the clones and the droids, intercepting the fire that came once the droids noticed their prisoners escaping. Rex stood beside her, returning the fire when she couldn't.
This run took longer with the added weight, but within a minute they were beyond the reach of the shield, or at least, where the shield used to be. It was no longer functioning without four of the five towers necessary to power it. The last tower was still standing and functioning, but it wasn't enough to compensate. The gunner must have also noticed the Jedi escaping, though, because the cannons pivoted and aimed for Ahsoka's troop.
"Commander!" Rex called, but she had already seen it.
"Keep going! Get the Jedi to the gunships!" She ordered. When he hesitated, she added, "That's an order, Captain!"
Trusting her, he darted off to cover his brothers. Ahsoka stood still and hung both lightsabers back on her belt. Raising her hands towards the tower, she used the Force to increase the density of the air above her. Regular blaster bolts could burn, but they couldn't pass through metals, like steel. Cannon fire packed enough energy to destroy a thick wall, but the Force manipulated the laws of physics, too. Since air already had high energy, when it was concentrated, it could deflect the plasma bolts of even cannons. It was the basic science of deflecting blaster fire but scaled up a few notches. She was essentially creating a high Force energy wall in midair, one unaffected by heat, or by equal to or less energy.
Sure enough, the cannon fire came, but when it reached Ahsoka it went hurtling back the same way it came. It tore through the top of the tower, and the bottom came crashing down not long after that, thanks to Jesse and his troop. Ahsoka jumped back to meet her men, who had all piled into the two gunships waiting for them.
She smacked the side of the ship. "Take us back, boys. Dogma," she said, turning on her comlink. "Send in the fighters."