Kiana had been there in the coluseum, awaiting the signal. When she saw the flash of purple up near Count Dooku, she knew that it was time to strike. Throwing her cloak off, she ignited her green lightsaber. The ensuing battle was a costly one, for every hundred droids they dismantled, 1 of them fell, but 100 was nothing to the droids numbers. 1 was everything to a Jedi. Each of them that fell hurt every other of them, until, eventually, they numbered just 14 in the middle of the arena, Master Windu ordering them to make this a last stand that would be remembered in the archives. She glanced over to her old master, Plo Koon. Words were not spoken, but they both knew that it was better that than to join with a power-hungry Dark Jedi like Dooku. She had been down the dark path before and had no wish to return to it. She readied her blade. For some reason, this felt right. She imagined joining with the Force to be a pleasant experience. She just hoped that they didn't shoot her in the face.
As a rule, Jedi don't believe in luck. What happened next, she considered the most lucky thing that had ever happened to her. Like flaming valkyries, gunships descended to the battlefield. At first, she was convinced that this was merely overkill on the part of the seperatists, but quickly noticed that the ships were attacking the droids. "So that wasn't just a bluff." she smiled as she felt the feelings of the soldiers aboard, all of them determined to rescue her and the rest of them.
As the ships landed and troopers in gleaming white armour poured onto the battlefield, a commander with blue stripes approached her. "Ma'am, we have to get you out of here." he yelled firing into the horde of bloodthirsty robots.
"Get everyone else aboard, we need to secure their escape." she ordered.
"Not happening, your safety is our first priority." he replied. Kiana could feel that one of their order was still alive on the battlefield, but playing dead for the robots.
"We have a man down and need to get him immediate medical attention." she ordered. She pointed into the crowd of droids. "Make us a path." she ordered. The Clone seathed beneath his helmet.
"Of course." he growled. This wasn't good, he needed to make sure that she was safe and now they were going to throw themselves into certain death? "Never wanted to live forever anyway." he mumbled "Pilot, we have a man down in sector 12" he said, tapping his helmet. No sooner had he said that, that the Gunship that he had landed on hovered around and opened fire into the crowd with all of its weapons. Kiana charged ahead through the explosions. The Clone ran with her, as did their men, providing covering fire as they ran. Eventually, Kiana found an injured Selkath Jedi lying on the ground, next to the dead Reek.
"Are you alright?" she asked him.
"I..." he coughed "I'll survive..." he said, breathing heavily. As she applied preassure to the wound, the gunship flew in behind her and the medic rushed to the Jedi's side. Kiana got up, just in time to deflect a blaster shot from a Droid. She looked over to the commander who stood over a decapitated corpse. He had rolled the corpse onto its back and crossed it's hand across its chest.
"We are leaving." Kiana yelled to him. He turned away from the body and ran to the ship, firing his pistol at the few remaining droids and vaulting onto the Gunship just as it began to lift off with them all inside. "Somebody you know?" Kiana asked him. The Clone didn't reply. They simply watched through the open hatch as the battle began to unfold beneath them. They landed in a staging area with the rest of the Jedi. She wasn't terribly confident in her ability to lead troops. 20 years ago, she had done so during the Stark Hyperspace war and it had ended... Less than desirably.
"General, the 312th are at your disposal." one of the Commanders said, saluting her. She was taken aback. She turned to the Clone that was with her.
"I don't believe we exchanged our names."
"Canderous, ma'am." replied the clone.
"Commander Canderous, I want you to direct these troops." she said "I believe that you are better suited than I."
"Very good, Ma'am." he replied and quickly tapped his helmet "312th, this is CC-0023, I am taking command. I want a contingent of Battle-Tanks and our ground troops protecting the MAC's whilst they focus their firepower on those Trade Federation vessels, I want every other heavy weapon targeting the Techno-Union ships." he ordered. He then turned to Kiana "Every ship we let escape into orbit will come back to hurt us later on." he explained.
"Very good, Commander." she said "We need to locate Count Dooku and the other Seperatist leaders, if we can capture them, then we can end this conflict before it begins."
"With all due respect, ma'am, we need all of our forces to deal with this threat." replied Canderous.
"1 Gunship will not make a difference to the overall result of the battle." She said, walking to the Gunship. Canderous seethed and followed her, jumping aboard with her. The ship took off and they began flying across the battlefield. As they flew past a Techno-union ship, Canderous moved up to the front of the gunship "Aim for the fuel tanks." he ordered.
"Roger." he said, as a pair of missiles were released from the missile bays atop the gunship. They flew and smashed into the fuel tanks, shattering them and igniting the contents, turning the techno union ship into a falling inferno. Flying across the battlefield, they spotted the retreating droids, falling back from a push, lead by a Jedi.
"Be safe." she nodded to him.
"Sir." the Pilot said. "We have just received orders from General Windu. They have located Count Dooku. Generals Kenobi and Skywalker are moving to intercept... Master Yoda is also on his way." he said.
"Very well, Dooku will be no match for all 3 of them. How long until we can get there." she asked. At that point, the ship was hit by AA fire. It rocked and began to lose altitude.
"Engines hit. I can't maintain speed and altitude... Current Intercept time would be 30 minutes." the pilot replied.
"Alright... Set us down there." she said, pointing to the Jedi. As soon as the ship set down, she and the Clone troopers jumped out, joining the push. Kiana managed to push her way towards the Jedi. "Master Arven. It's good to see you survived." she said. deflecting a blaster bolt with a flash of her green lightsaber. Canderous ran towards her as well, through a shower of red blasterfire. He spotted a squad of ARC troopers stood next to other Clone Troopers in the Jedi Generals Gunline. He shook his head at the sight, but then continued to fire back, as several Fighter-Tanks swooped past them and began to cut a swath through the droids lines.
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