Timeframe: Prequel trilogy. Final year of the Clone Wars, one year before Order 66.

Genre: Adventure, Action, H/C, Friendship, drama

Characters:

Tyro- A fourteen-year-old Jedi Padawan, Tyro has a particular gift with technology, and the force. He likes to keep a street-savvy appearance with his bright-green mohawk and general punky appearance. Despite this, Tyro is an exceptionally devoted Jedi. Less than a year after being accepted as a Padawan, he had his master expelled from the Jedi order for turning to the dark side. In doing so Tyro willingly gave up his apprenticeship for service to the AgriCorps. It was there that Gavyn found him and convinced him to resume his training as a Jedi.

Gavyn- A seasoned veteran and Jedi master, Gavyn is a tower of man. He is a charismatic general, well equipped to the task of inspiring troops and managing military tactics. He has earned a reputation of being ruthless as well, due to a particularly brutal victory on Esseles, but Gavyn is actually quite an compassionate, affectionate and empathetic individual in person. He favors defensive lightsaber maneuvers and healing through the force.

Warnings: Language (mild-moderate, mostly star wars swears), violence (a fair ammount but nothing overly graphic)

A/N:

These characters were initially created for an Order 66 Star Wars D20 campaign, so we figured we should let them have some fun before meeting their inevitable fates.

In the spirit of tabletop games we tried something new, and wrote this piece using six-sided-dice for turning points and supporting characters, creating some rather interesting situations that really pushed these characters to their limits.

Loronar was a relatively new point of interest. It had always been a spaceport hub, and the Loronar Corporation was a huge manufacturer of starships in the galaxy. The republic had begun to rely on them to keep their fleet strong. Now that the battles against the separatists were moving further into the outer rim, the quantity of ships available had become even more important to republic's victory.

Of course, the Separatists knew this, and launched a ground assault on Loronar Corporation's headquarters. Gavyn's clone legion were defending it with relative ease, but the constant stream of separatist forces were going to wear the forces soon.

The Separatists made a smart play, invading from the ground. Loronar Corporation's specialty was aircraft- they would have had the planet well defended from the sky. However, they were hesitant to shell their own planet and equipment to defend against a ground assault.

Gavyn had studied the situation on his route to Loronar. The plan was to split a group of soldiers from the defense of the headquarters, and move them to the outskirts of the city, where the Separatists were sending in their re-enforcements. They would break the droid route, allowing the defenders to clear the city. From there, they could turn the tide of battle around and take the offensive.

Landing the Jedi transport in a large courtyard of the Loronar Corporate headquarters, Gavyn jumped to the ground. It was still early in the morning, and there sky was clear, if not a bit dusty. The corporation was clearly expanding, and Gavyn could see signs of construction work dotted around the area. Any work seemed to have been put on hold though, with Republic-branded military equipment stacked up under tents and overhangs. There were several clones resting from their work at the front lines, who waved at Gavyn from across the courtyard. Gavyn smiled and waved back, but he was anxious to find Ace.

He only had to wait a moment, however. Familiar yellow armor rounded the corner at a jog. He could sense Ace's grin, despite his unchanging helmet. "Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed your vacation." Ace teased, patting Gavyn on the back and giving him a quick hug.

"It is good to be back." Gavyn replied. "Ace, this is Tyro. Tyro, Ace is one of the Clone Commanders of this legion." He introduced, letting Tyro step forward.

Ace pulled off his helmet, and held out his hand. "You must be Gavyn's apprentice. Welcome to the 122nd."

"Thanks Commander, or uh Ace, if I'm allowed to call you that?" Tyro replied with a slight smile, taking the man's hand.

"Of course" Ace smiled. "It is a bit easier to remember than CC-0314-94."

He studied Ace's face. People often asserted that clones were simply to be taken at that name- you couldn't tell them apart from one another, no individuality. Tryo, even after only working with them a handful of times saw that kind of talk for what it was-bigoted and lazy. Sure, he couldn't get to know every one of the tens of thousands of clones, but it was a disgusting disrespect to not recognize someone's individuality. Regardless of these lofty ideals, Ace seemed cool enough.

Tyro looked around. After three years of war the surrounding scene was all too familiar, even to someone who did not frequent the front lines. He wondered how many here had been fighting all that time. Could someone fighting that often even live that long? How many people here would even live past this battle? Reflexively he admonished himself for thinking like that, but the idea still lingered. A knot started to form in his gut. He tried to reach for some sort of logic to explain it away but almost immediately realized he was grasping at straws. There was nothing to do but admit it; he knew nothing about the frontlines of war.

Gavyn could tell Tyro was nervous. He couldn't blame the kid, this was going to be dangerous. Casually, he put his large, reassuring hand on Tyro's shoulder. Gavyn didn't want to draw attention to his nerves, but he wanted to let his apprentice know that he was going to be fine.

"When will you be ready to go?" Gavyn asked Ace.

"Whenever you are. The boys are all packed up, and we've repositioned to defend with a smaller group. Also, we brought your equipment down, it is in the storage room down that corridor." Ace said, nodding to the right.

"We'll meet you in half an hour." Gavyn replied, wanting to give himself enough time to prepare. If they were hasty now, the consequences could be much worse when they were out in the field. He hurried down the corridor, and quickly found the supplies.

Tossing his robe over a pile of boxes, Gavyn strapped on the white armor over his robes. A blue Jedi Order insignia was emblazoned on each shoulder. "Tyro, leave anything that isn't crucial here. Go ahead and take any supplies you think you might need."

Tyro nodded, looking around. There was a lot of stuff here. Crazy military stuff, not the kind of weaponry he was used to either fighting with or against. Usually it was just his lightsaber and blaster pistol, but he got the feeling those were not going to be the best things in this kind of situation. "Uh...what...do I…?" he trailed off, staring blankly at the overwhelming amount of blasters, launchers, and force knew what else.

Most of what Jedi were equipped with in their survival pack would be sufficient for battle. There was armor… but nothing that would fit Tyro. The clones also had all kinds of other equipment that Gavyn borrowed, but they would probably need some time to train Tyro to use it, such as grenades and even jets.

Gavyn stroked his chin as he looked around the room. He picked up a blaster rifle and tossed it to Tyro. "Take that. You'd probably get killed before a droid gets in range of your pistol." He said gruffly. "Don't forget to grab some power packs for that too. You don't want it fizzling out on you." He said, as he grabbed some power packs for himself. Gavyn pulled his robe on over his armor, making him look even more imposing than usual, then slung his own blaster rifle over his shoulder.

The weight of the rifle hit him hard. Tyro staggered backwards barely wrapping his arms around it. This thing was like...as big as him. And now he looked about as confident as he felt.

Okay, wait, no, he could do this. Center. He'd shot one of these things before.

He took a deep breath. Visualize. That was what they were taught, visualize yourself using it. This was real though. Shoot to kill…

His mind grabbed that and warped it into all sorts of horrible images. What if there was someone other than droids... He felt like he was going to puke. This was basic stuff, stuff he had spent his life learning to do and deal with so why was he losing it now? This was not how a Jedi was supposed to deal with things. A Jedi was calm, composed. He couldn't catch his breath. If Gavyn wasn't regretting this decision now, he might be soon. Gavyn looked like he was getting ready to leave. Tyro was just standing here, frozen.

Perhaps he should say something…His mouth was dry. He knew he was letting fear get to him, but the more he tried to force it back, the worse it became, he knew it was wrong, which only made him feel worse. He had to focus. If he couldn't focus he was going to mess this up, people were going to die. People were going to die no matter what. Yes, people were going to die; either by his ineptitude or his proficiency he was going to kill them. There is no death...that wasn't helping either. But if he couldn't rely on that...Tyro couldn't breathe. This was his life now. This was who he had to become.

Gavyn did not have to be a Jedi to see the fear written across Tyro's face. It was the look he feared he would need to face if he took a Padawan during this war. It made Gavyn's heart sink, but at the same time it was not as sad as he thought it would be. Tyro was going to be able to handle this, he was just walking into the unknown. Making this milestone into a big deal was probably just going to work him up more.

"Let's get going." He said. "Stay close to me. I'm not going to let anything happen to you." Gavyn assured his apprentice confidently, before he stepped back through the door to meet with the rest of the squadron.

Tyro nodded, seeming to take assurance from Gavyn's words. He took a deep breath, slinging the rifle over his shoulder before following.

Ace had arranged a handful of transport ships to bring the squadron out to the mark. When Gavyn stepped into the hangar, the troops sitting down and idling, leapt to attention, mobilizing to get into the ships.

The Jedi followed Ace's beckon, and climbed aboard the closest transport. Gavyn wrapped his wrist around an overhead loop, and held on as the transport took off.

Gavyn took the opportunity in the crowded transport to make some more introductions to his Padawan. "Tyro. Our friends here go by Breaker, Double, Slim, Pike, Popper, Champ, and Big Ten." Gavyn rattled off, over the roar of the wind. "Boys, this is Tyro."

Tyro grinned, replying with an upwards nod. "Thanks for inviting me."

The point at which they were going to set up an ambush was not far from the Loronar Headquarters, but the flight took much longer, so they transports could loop around out of sight. They landed about a mile from the spot Ace had scoped out to make the attack. It was a good location, where the droids were cutting across a large quarry to siege the headquarters. The clone troops had the high ground, and there was not a simple route for the droids to retreat. It would be defensible, once the area was secure, from the rim.

As they neared the edge of the quarry, Gavyn lay down and peered over the edge along with Ace and Tyro. It looked like they were queuing tanks in the quarry before they moved into siege position. There were ten altogether, more than they were expecting. This was going to be a rough one.

Ace spoke up first. "Bugger those tanks. We're going to need to take them out quick."

"If we can trap them in there, it will be easier. Our explosives will go farther if we can group them together." Gavyn noted. He glanced around the quarry. "There are some oversized cranes that could be toppled to block the routes out."

"We can get a pair of explosive units…" Ace started, but Gavyn shook his head. He knew that lightsabers would be the best to topple them, explosives would alert the droids and they could be unpredictable.

"Tyro and I can handle one of those cranes, we'll take them by surprise." Gavyn suggested. "Have a few troops set up explosives on the other one, and we'll detonate it when it will do the most damage."

"Sounds like a plan." Ace said, setting down his electrobinoculars. "We'll cover you from up here until the crane is down." Ace told Gavyn, as the Jedi was already slipping over the edge of the quarry. "Be careful."

"And may the force be with you." Gavyn responded, before disappearing over the edge as he climbed down the jagged quarry walls.