Back in the Game (COMPLETE)

9.4.1

Rex hesitated before putting on his helmet. "It's been a while since you've been here for this," he commented, looking down at her. "Is it any different than you remember?"

Ahsoka stared off into space. "The stakes feel higher, for some reason. I know it's always been this dangerous, but somehow, I know that there's more to lose now than I ever could before."

"I think we finally figured out why we shouldn't be here," he suggested, looking down at this helmet. "Now that we know this whole war is a sham, maybe none of this is right anymore."

"If something goes wrong," she added quietly, "if we lose people, we know Palpatine can't be blamed for it. It's on us from now on."

A pregnant pause hung in the air until Rex rested a hand on her shoulder. "So we take the blame and we keep going." She looked up at him as he went on. "It's all we can do right now, but we still have a job to do."

Ahsoka nodded, clearing her mind, and settling into the Force. "Then let's do it right."

Putting on his helmet, Rex went over their part of the mission one last time. When the cruiser jumped out of hyperspace, the gunship fired up its engines and he grabbed onto one of the straps, resting the other hand on one of his blasters.

Even if this mission failed, at least he was with Ahsoka one more time. It was the least that had gone right today. Now it was time to make everything else right.

~

Because of the position the cruiser took when it entered Lokori's orbit, O-Mer, Fox, and the rest of the slave squad had the farthest to fly to reach their coordinates. Fox had a feeling that they might not make it back to the ship first due to their travel time, but they could deal with that later.

When their gunship did touch down, O-Mer pulled out his lightsaber, not igniting it just yet, and led the squad silently to the ridge where some of the troopers would be sniping from. He held up a fist to signal for a stop and crept over the edge of the rock formation in front of them.

Fox kneeled beside him, and they both saw what was going to be a challenge for them: Ahsoka had testified that the last time she was here, there were about 20 slaves working in the fields. Now, there were at least 100 of them, all spread out, nurturing dull, grey soil that no longer had any nutrients.

"That's a bit more than we were expecting," O-Mer pointed out, hiding behind the ridge again. "It's going to take at least five trips to get all of them to the villages, if not more."

"We can still take out the guards, though," Fox argued, cocking his sniper rifle. "Besides, Commander Tano prepped a backup squad for a reason. Once we take care of these droids, we can worry about the slaves."

"I'll let Dogma know," he told the clone. "I'm going to take some of ours to the other side anyway, since it's more vulnerable. By the time they get down here, we'll be ready for them."

Fox nodded, turning to the rest of the squad. "Half of you go with Commander Majal, he'll cover you when the shooting starts."

O-Mer led half the squad around the farms. As he made his way over, he whispered back to the clones. "I get why we're saving them, a hundred people is a lot, but why did Ahsoka want to do this if she thought there were only twenty of them?"

One of the clones who was immediately behind him answered. "No one here really likes slavery. Most of it comes from General Skywalker, and Commander Tano just fits the mold, I guess."

"Huh," he replied, activating his comlink. "We're going to need that backup squad. There are almost a hundred slaves here, and more than we can fit into two gunships."