"While I am helpless to prevent the fighting, I can offer your people sanctuary; a safe haven until the conflict has ended."

—Count Dooku to Governor Roshti

"Get your shebs DOWN!"

Sergeant Vith's shout was a ringing echo in Tup's helmet—right before a rattling explosion flashed bright, roiling outward in a shockwave of light and fire, flinging metal and the crumpled figures of his brothers, small and dark and frozen for a split second in sharp relief against the end of the landing bay—

And then the force of it rushed over Tup, roaring through buffers and pressing him down over the scream of muscles and the aching protest of joints bent too long in active firefight.

"Fek," Jammer hissed on the open comm. "Squads Two and Five are gone."

Tup forced his bruised body up into a kneel, his HUD fighting to polarize and compensate for every flash of light; a jumble of real and not-real colors that shot a spike of pain through his temples and down to the base of his skull. Dried sweat itched in every crevice of his bodysuit and his lips had split and cracked hours ago, the taste of copper and salt sour on his tongue.

All had gone to haran the moment he and his squad had planted their boots on Ringo Vinda's scorched deckplates. Ten hours later, things hadn't gotten any better.

They were holed up in the shadow of a downed droid tank that had listed hard to one side; a couple of headless B1s dangled, lopsided, out of its twin hatches, and its lee offered a relative safe zone for the moment.

Beyond the droid tank leaned an old atmospheric harvester—or what was left of one, reduced to a burning shell that shivered with each echoing blast of whatever had detonated. So far, it had masked their heat signatures from the droids, but Tup knew their luck wouldn't hold.

"We've lost the bay! No one else is coming!" Their heavy gunner was hunched over his cannon, exhaustion etched across his shoulders. His visor was fixed up, though, reflecting firelight and the thin haze of blue that rose beyond the harvester—and the black of space beyond it. "We need an exit, Vith!"

"Our orders were to take this bay, Kir. We will find a way."

"How? By blowing us to all Nine Hells? Those tin cans are doing a damn fine job of it so far!"

"Trooper."

Kir ignored the warning edge to the sergeant's voice. "We've gotta regroup. There's no other way, Sarge!"

Tup bit the inside of his cheek. Kir wasn't wrong—but hells if he picked the wrong time to mouth off to Vith.

After that initial makeshift landing, ten other squads—mostly of the 501st's Roller Company—had joined Vith's in an effort to keep the bay. They were in Sector 16, far from the scheduled landing zones, and Tup wondered if they'd accidentally dropped onto a Separatist staging area; droids here were thick enough to blast two with one shot and their sheer numbers had overwhelmed the clones from the beginning.

Ten separate pushes into the lower pedestrian corridors had been repelled—brutally—by droidekas, who seemed content to stand sentry at every exit point.

And after that last push, the droids had managed to separate Vith's squad from the others. In the universe's particular brand of cruel irony, that one tactical error meant he and his brothers still had their heads.

For the moment.

"So we're on our own?" Rhyd, their token rookie, asked.

The burst of low static over the comm was likely the sergeant's long suffering sigh. If Rhyd and Kir survived this mess, they'd probably find themselves on EVA-duty, scrubbing turrets with a toothbrush for the next two months.

"Things get rough and you lot turn into a bunch of crying womp rats—"

But that moment of inattention took Vith out.

A low hum of sniper fire—Tup felt it before he saw it, that crackle of the air—and the sergeant dropped hard to the deck plates, a bright, smoking hole in his torso, one hand scrabbling at his chest plate and the other automatically re-aiming his blaster.

"Commando droids!" Jammer dropped, too; one knee on the deck plates as both hands worked at the sergeant's armor, but his visor was trained up into the higher reaches of the bay. "Watch your heads!"

Tup's HUD adjusted and he saw the unmistakable, metallic gleam through the haze of smoke. On instinct, he yanked Rhyd down and the second shot singed the shiny's helmet. The kid breathed a curse and a thanks.

"Fierfek," Kir growled, shifting on his balls of his feet; restless as a caged katarn. "We're just sittin' nuna! You three, grab the sarge. We've got to go!"

The heavy gunner ignored Jammer's startled "No!" and launched himself forward, rotary spinning as the burly brother heaved his cannon around.

He didn't make it two steps.

Three shots in rapid succession snapped the clone's wide-striped helmet back; Tup heard a choked gurgle before the man hit the deck plates.

Jammer's shout of rage was drowned out by a hissing, thrumming roll; the droidekas had decided to come play, too—and again on instinct, Tup drew Rhyd back with a hand on his shoulder bell, blaster trained out but not firing. There'd be no lucky shots through those shields.

"Back!" Vith rasped. The medic had Vith on his feet, but the sergeant was hunched against his second, each breath a wet rattle. "Back behind the harvester!"

But then—finally, as Tup took the cover for their left flank, edging himself into the hole left by Kir—he saw it: a familiar ring of light lit the darkness beyond the landing bay's magnetic fields.

"Sergeant!" Tup winced as his HUD fought to polarize against another flash, bright and rippling across the feed, as the harvester gave in to the inevitable and crumbled inward with a groaning sigh. "We've got our incoming!"

But Vith had seen them, too, those gunships angling toward the glittering haze of the magnetic fields—just as Tup saw the vultures close behind, the bright blue of their engines and the red flash of plasma bolts—and they all saw a streak of yellow, a burst of blue, and heard the whining scream of an engine as a vulture droid aimed itself directly into the bay.

"No chance!" Vith yelled into the comm, open to the incoming ships and spitting with sudden static. "No chance!"

The gunships banked hard, wide bellies pale in the light cast by the station's bright illuminators.

Two more vultures careened through the magnetic field and skidded across the bay floor, sparks singing in a spray that lit the burned bodies of battle droids in a shower of gold. Wingtips caught, spun the vultures in a whining shriek of engines—by a stroke of sheer luck—directly into the droidekas.

In the next seconds, it was chaos and hell; the vultures ricocheting off the landing bay floor, the droidekas nothing more than bright spots of flying shrapnel. Tup had Rhyd down again, pressed flat against the deck plates and Jammer shouting through the comm, words that lanced at Tup's head like the bright fireballs of the vultures, but Tup had turned back to the black field of space.

It was only a glimpse, but he saw it; the Jedi fighter as it peeled away, guiding those gunships from the wreckage that was this bay.

And any chance of an assist.

"I'm—" Vith rasped, once the air stopped shivering; the sergeant's voice was a wet sound that dragged out each breath he took. "I'm open to suggestions, lads."

Ironically, their solution came from the rookie.

"There's an echo along here." Rhyd had stayed low, kneeling where Tup had shoved him to, his hands were on the deck plates that formed the bay floor. He'd ducked his head low like a particularly dazed buzz-beetle, his visor tipping back and forth.

And then the kid found it.

A catch swung a deck plate up and back—a short ladder led below. Tup mentally kicked himself. Of course a station would have a maze of maintenance shafts and tunnels; maybe even a purely maintenance-duty transrail, for all the lower grunts who worked solely on the station's innards.

Vith jerked his chin down once. Rhyd swelled at the approval.

"Time for evac and recon—" The sergeant's voice dropped on the last word, wheezing out on a gasp. Jammer hovered at the man's side, but Tup could tell there wasn't much a field medic could do. "Get in there, troopers."

"Tup," Jammer said, with a dip of his visor. "You first."

But before Tup could move, the sergeant shook his head. "Negative." For an injured man, he was still a force of determination, that same calm quality Tup had always liked about him, the moment Captain Rex had transferred him to the squad. He clasped the medic's shoulder briefly—just enough to maneuver the man onto the ladder—then shoved with surprising strength. The medic dropped the whole six feet to land with a curse. "You've got command, Jammer. Go!"

"Sarge! There's—" Rhyd broke off, voice strained.

Tup glanced up at the kid's tone, then adjusted his grip on the deece. Over the rumble of fire—still loud through his buffers—came the unmistakable metallic ripple of droid feet. And then, just as steady, the predictable pattern of their blasters.

"That's our cue!" Tup snagged Rhyd's back plating and hefted the younger clone into the hatch. Rhyd had to scramble for purchase on the rungs. "Sarge, let's go!"

"No," Vith rasped, his visor lit from the burning harvester and his blue stripes vivid against the glow. The sergeant had one arm braced on the edge of the lifted deck plate, deece trained out, and his other hand struggled to lift the last thermal det from the back of his belt. "You're a good soldier, Tup."

"Sargeant!" Frell, no. "You can make it!"

This close to Vith, Tup's filters leaked in the sharp taint of iron—and beneath, the stench of charred flesh. Tup's own helmet was reflected in the sergeant's T-visor, the tear-drop smeared with a line of black. "Help Jammer keep that kid alive."

"Sir!"

"That's an order, trooper!"

Tup hesitated, then slid the length of the ladder to the deck plates below. He could hear Vith's blaster, saw him crouch over the hatch, using the raised deck plate as a shield and his deece kicking with each shot, a glow of blue that lit the scratched and dirty plastoid.

The det was in the man's palm, cradled against his chest—his breathing ragged, failing. "Go!"

Tup gripped the ladder's rail—felt the bite of cold metal through his gloves—saw the sergeant's fingers on the det—and stumbled for the oppressive dark beyond the hatch's spill of light.

Sixty seconds later, the maintenance tunnel's walls shook and the rattling shock of an explosion knocked him forward. But he kept on.

"Count Dooku, what you have requested will not be so easily...obtained."

Each word was drawn out with a rattling click of pinchers; an affectation that pressed Dooku's patience to the point he allowed his fingers to curl around his saber's hilt, hidden in the thick folds of his cloak. He waited in silence for the Harch's limbs to shift restlessly; a fissure in the beast's confidence.

"This will take time. Resources. I must request—"

"Information, Admiral." Dooku slid his intent through his voice, smooth as shimmersilk. There could be no room for error, not with the circumstances that had arisen over the past months. "It is not a complicated matter. You will observe and report as necessary."

"Of course. Although you do understand," Admiral Trench countered, stroking the tipped points of his mandibles, "that this will delay my—our," he amended, with satisfying haste, despite the clack of pinchers, "victory. The Separatist Alliance is in grave need of these resources, my lord. Surely this matter is only an...inconvenience, rather than a necessity."

Dooku again waited, although this time, his full disapproval—that subtle shiver in the air—sent even his estate's service droids scattering.

"You will complete your objectives, Admiral. All your objectives."

A flick of his fingers and the Harch's agitated twitching dissolved in a shadow of blue.

Dooku released his tension into the Force, flexing his fingers before clenching them again. Admiral Trench provided results where required, despite the beast's arrogance. The Separatist push into the Mid Rim rested on industrial holdouts; planets and systems rich with materials to keep the Trade Federation's factories churning at full capacity.

Yet his Master's orders had been pointedly clear.

Nothing was quite as it seemed on Ringo Vinda, nor across any sector of the vast web spun by Sidious. The events on Coruscant—the bombing, the fall of Unduli's Padawan—now he saw the fruition of certain coordinated attacks on seemingly unimportant shipping lines, several months past. His Master's touch was deft, but Dooku knew the fragile difference between chance and circumstance.

No, the events on Coruscant—and Sidious' most recent order—were quite illuminating.

A blip came from his palm, far sooner than expected, and Dooku—Tyranus—knelt to the cold stone before the flickering blue.

"All is prepared, Master."

"Your general has been defeated by Skywalker before."

"Trench has taken great pains to study Skywalker's strategy. I have full confidence in the admiral's abilities."

"I need not remind you that Skywalker's immediate defeat is not the ultimate objective at this juncture."

The beat of silence after was long enough that he felt a coil of displeasure curl around his mind. Yet Tyranus persisted; it was a logical question, regardless of recent events. "A quick and decisive victory here would only forward our goals, Master. Is there a reason for such restraint?"

The displeasure tightened; significant enough that Tyranus felt it slip through his blood like the ice caked along the diamond-panes of his estate's arched windows.

But the silence answered Tyranus' own suspicion.

A shift had occurred; he felt it even now, despite the trickle of satisfaction that Sidious allowed to flow through their bond. That shift rippled out from Mandalore, sluggish and disjointed, only to pool in Coruscant, eddying against shadows that he could just glimpse in passing. And somehow, this recent wellspring came from the events on Naboo and the false death of one Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Sidious' disappointment had been shallow, dismissive, so much like a politician's indifferent platitude. In the aftermath, the entirety of the matter echoed of a test.

A feint.

But towards what end?

"Your focus is not where it should be, my apprentice," the Master said. There was no mistaking the cold fury sliding through Sidious' words; it snapped across Tyranus' thoughts with an intent that bent the count even further forward over his knee. "You will keep me appraised of the situation."

"As you wish, my lord."

With a casual nudge of his mind, the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic allowed the shades to retract. Coruscant's evening light spilled across the deep red of his chamber's carpet, his long shadow reaching far enough to fall across the outer doors.

Beyond the office, unseen but distinct in the Force, stood two Red Guards at their posts, blank and clear as transparisteel; and further, Miss Moore at her desk, a subtle tick and swirl of images as she managed his affairs. Further still was the detail of Coruscant Guards, their minds as subdued as Palpatine's drab robes.

He considered them all for a moment; touched their minds along those tendrils that flowed in mercurial shadow; felt the immediate give to that touch, an utter supplication that prickled his skin in satisfaction.

Tyranus' quite obvious concern offered the same gratification.

Sidious' newest acolyte had proven herself capable; she was expendable but necessary, and although not all had played out according to his wishes, the outcome had been surprisingly successful. He could see the effects in the Force; that well of darkness, pulling with a far stronger current now more than ever before.

The Jedi seemed content to drown themselves; the war needed little urging on his part, not with the Separatists gaining ground and public opinion of the Jedi plummeting. No, it was that shudder of indecision in the Force—all coalescing around Offee's failure to kill Ventress—which would need a certain amount of judicious attention.

Of course, he need not dirty his own hands.

The desk's inset comm blipped discreetly at a single brush of thought.

He kept his tone carefully neutral.

"Miss Moore. Please notify Director Isard that I require his attention to a certain matter. Immediately."

"As you wish, my lord."

"So how are we going to take anything with just the three of us?"

"We're still on our feet, trooper." Jammer's patience with the kid had snapped half an hour ago. Tup almost pitied Rhyd. Almost. "Stow it unless you can be useful."

"But we don't even have comms—"

"Enough, Rhyd."

A clack of teeth echoed in the corridor and Tup smothered a snort.

They'd spent the better part of an hour in the maintenance tunnels. The sheer size of Ringo Vinda meant there had to be private bays or minor transrails that could provide some means to reconnect them to another landing force, but so far, their search had been futile.

Uncomfortable, too; Tup's back and thighs had cramped to numbness too many corridors back to count, but the tunnels never stretched any higher than a tall Sullustan. Whoever decided to build maintenance corridors with Jawas in mind deserved a swift kick up their fekking shebs.

On top of discomfort, they'd realized—after about ten minutes of trying to raise the Resolute or any other ship in the fleet and meeting only a fizzle of ear-splitting static—that their long-range comms were jammed.

Which was always a sign of great things to come.

Could use some of Kix's luck, right about now.

Tup wisely kept that thought to himself; he was pretty sure Jammer had lost his last share of leave-creds to the other medic.

"Kid does have a point, Tup." Jammer's voice was quiet in Tup's ear; their short-range comms hadn't been affected, at least. "Got any ideas on getting out of this mess?"

Tup hesitated, one eye on the juncture they were about to pass and the lines of Aurebesh along its frame. Jammer might have been Vith's second, but for all that he was a good medic, he didn't have Fives' quickness or Vith's steadiness when it came to leadership. Tup could tell by the way Jammer's fingers clenched around the deece in his hand, the man was as adrift as Rhyd.

"You good at slicing?" Tup asked, off the private channel.

Jammer cut a look at Tup, then at the wall Tup's hand had lifted to rest on—and at the cresh-cresh stenciled in plain black.

The medic snorted. "The long-necks had me as a data-shadower before they figured out I was even better with a scalpel."

"Think you can stow that scalpel," Tup asked, patting the familiar symbol, "and brush up on signal-hopping for a day?"

"Sector 16, up ahead."

Ahsoka said it less to notify Xyre—who sat motionless in the pilot's seat—and more to fill the long, empty silence that had stretched between them since she'd scrapped the droids.

The maintenance shuttle they'd snagged wasn't as nimble or speedy as an emergency speeder, but the tiered mag-tracks of a transrail kept the klicks blurring by.

There still wasn't any evidence of the battle from the inside. Stretches of the station's hull had long lines of transparisteel panes, a clear view to the black of space beyond, and for those brief seconds, Ahsoka could see the flash of a distant firefight, bright against the curve of the planet below and too far away to make out any particular starfighters.

Anakin is out there. Without me to watch his back.

Her gut twisted. She knew just how well that usually worked out.

No—she was here because of Anakin—still watching his back, like always, despite the fact she'd told him she needed to figure it all out on her own. Plans change, right? Ahsoka reminded herself. So I let him do his thing and I'll do mine. Figure this mess out and leave. Simple as that.

Yeah. Right.

Whatever the Separatists had planned for Tup, she needed to find out and vacate as quickly as possible. As close-mouthed as Xyre was about the entire ordeal, she doubted it ended here; this was a Republic station, and if clones were being stolen for experimentation, any kind of lab couldn't possibly be located here or any system held by the Republic.

Which, ultimately, meant she was headed toward Separatist space.

Ahsoka rubbed at her arms, the callouses of her fingers catching on the smooth fabric. What were the Separatists up to? First Barriss and the nanodroids; now clones.

To add to the bizarre-factor, she hadn't seen any evidence of droids since the processing bay, a fact that itched uncomfortably at the base of her lekku. There should've been sentries, probe droids—something—posted along the transit stations they'd passed, especially after their welcoming party in Sector 12.

"Why no droids?" she asked without thinking, as they flashed past the last Sector 15 transit station and into 16. A nanosecond later, she reminded herself who her traveling companion was.

But he surprised her.

"No need. The battle isn't focused here."

Ahsoka shook her head. "That doesn't make sense. There should at least be a probe."

"Not if you have a station that does your surveillance for you. If the Separatists control the communication relays, they control the feeds, the information—every aspect of station life."

Ahsoka turned to stare at the back of his twitching ears, the itch in her lekku returning with a vengeance. "So we're just—" She craned her neck at the console ahead of Xyre. "—casually flying into a trap at three hundred klicks an hour. Nice."

Xyre swiveled to face her. "It took six hours to tap and reroute every surveillance feed from Sector 12 through 16."

So that was what he'd been up to all those hours. Should've known. "You're that good a slicer," she said, deadpan.

The seat—and its occupant—swung back to face the front of the shuttle. "Of course."

"Those droids had plenty of time to report our position. And they've had hours to figure out you've messed with the system." It took a tedious amount of time to even partially circumnavigate a planet.

"Perhaps, but the main battle is fixed between us and the Separatist command post. We pose no inherent risk."

Ahsoka snorted and turned back to the station flashing by below.

This whole sector was visibly gaudier than the last two, apparent even in the half-shadows of the emergency lights. Judging just by the outer edge of 12—the one she and Xyre had first landed in—and all of 13, those sectors had consisted of major processing hubs. The next two sectors still had multiple, huge landing bays for the harvesters and glimpses of elevated pedwalks.

But this sector—just one away from the battle—she could already spot three open shopping arcades from the height of the upper transrail, all of them tiered with walkways and sprawling banks of vegetation. Actual trees curved into arches between walkways or spilling down the sides of enclosed shops, twisted into shadow by the emergency half-light. She saw obvious nods to the sweeping towers of Coruscant in one of the arcades; the graceful lines and flowing fountains of Naboo in another; the elevated monoliths and swinging bridge-cities of Cato Neimoidia in the last, whipping by beneath her before the shuttle shot through another major transrail station and into a more enclosed area, beyond.

Casinos. Miniature resorts, enticing a new kind of clientele to Ringo Vinda.

Padmé had outlined Ringo Vinda's history—what the senator knew of it, at least, via the HoloNet and her contacts—in-between comm calls to finalize Ahsoka's ambassadorial status. "New laws—especially vice leniency laws—are being tagged onto the war bills," Padmé had said as an aside, while waiting to be connected through to Senator Garr Tau's office. "Once the first military spending bill passed, it caused an avalanche of other, smaller bills to follow." Her grimace had been plain. "One of the many things I'd been afraid of, but it's like sweeping away a flood with a vibromop."

Ahsoka had tried to keep her face carefully blank. "You've used a vibromop?"

Padmé had blinked at her, visibly nonplussed, before stifling a surprised laugh. "Of course!" She'd paused, then amended, "Well, only if I couldn't convince my sister to do it." Senator Tau's aide had chimed an alert, and Padmé had quickly covered the comm to whisper, "So, no, I've never used one," before greeting the other senator with a bright, "Good morning!"

Something in Padmé's tone had made Ahsoka connect the centers with crime families—that maybe the Hutts were trying to extend their influence while the war kept all the Jedi busy—but she'd seen Nal Hutta and Nar Shaddaa. This place lacked the gaudy bulk of a Hutt's taste.

All of it was new, too—probably fresh enough to smell the paint and newly-paned transparisteel—which meant Ringo Vinda had cultivated its interests.

With who, though?

Ahsoka shook her head. It wasn't important.

"An anomaly up ahead." Xyre's rough voice brought Ahsoka's thoughts back to the forward nav screens.

Ahsoka nudged herself fully upright and peered through the front panes. "What do you mean?"

"I mean an anomaly," he snapped, irritable as ever.

"Something's an anomaly," she muttered under her breath and ignored the flick of his ears. Ahsoka stepped forward to peer at the readings in front of him—then looked again. "An active train?"

"Powered, but immobile." He tapped at the reading and brought it into full view, but Ahsoka had already stepped close to peer at it through the front panes.

Through the half-light ahead, barred with occasional flashes of red emergency lights, she saw it in the distance: the bulbous rear of a transrail, polished to a dark shine and reflecting every flash of light from overhead and below. Another glance at the maintenance shuttle's board showed lifeforms aboard. A lot of them.

"Maybe trapped civilians?"

Xyre's grunt was singularly noncommittal.

For a brief moment, Ahsoka felt her way forward through the Force; it breathed out, distinct as the pulse of her lightsabers. But instead of any of the worry or concern she expected, she met with a miasma of helplessness, bitterness—apathy undercut by anger—all stinging her senses at once and she grounded herself quickly against it, taking a deep breath and shutting the majority out.

Wow. That was a bit much for a stuck train.

Beneath her feet, the shuttle whined as it decelerated, the grav buffers pressing against her montrals, and as they closed in on the transrail, she could see the seams for the hatches and the subdued lines where transparisteel gave way to brightly polished durasteel. The maintenance shuttle worked through an automatic docking, and as soon as the whole shuttle turned on its base and fitted the transrail's back against the now-open side door, Ahsoka had her hands along those seams, feeling for the tell-tale of a panel that would release any hatch.

"I'll manually override," Xyre said from the pilot's controls, snout swinging from one console to another. "We can lift onto another rail and bypass."

A subtle catch, a hydraulic hiss, and Ahsoka waited only long enough for the hatch to half-open before clambering into the semi-darkness beyond.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Ahsoka didn't spare him a backward glance. "They need help."

"We have a mission."

Ahsoka paused, ducking down to glare at him. He hadn't even left the pilot's seat, but the dark fur at the back of his neck bristled. "No, we have two missions. I promised Senator Amidala that I'd do what I could. And we will get these people to safety."

"Every minute we spend here is lost on the greater objective."

Ahsoka gritted her teeth but still managed to hiss, "You told me your vision is on Coruscant. Not Ringo Vinda." She jutted a finger at the windows, where somewhere beyond, the space battle still raged. "The campaign was estimated to last two weeks. Weeks. We have time—" she enunciated the word pointedly, in case his youngling-headed density kept him from hearing her, "—to help these people."

"Are you always this reckless?"

Ahsoka turned back toward the interior of the car. "If by reckless you mean I actually care about the people I swore an oath to—then yes."

"Need I remind you that you left the Order?"

Ahsoka let her back do the talking and lifted herself all the way into the transrail.

The rear car was dark, lit only by a blotchy patch of light at the far end and the emergency lights bleeding through the tinted transparisteel. It smelled of sweat and the metallic tang of new carpet and she hesitated a few steps away from the hatch, listening more than looking. Xyre pulled himself through behind her, grumbling all the while.

"Fine," he muttered, when she continued to ignore him. "We can detach the front car and carry on. If it makes you feel better—" he twisted the word oddly enough that she gave him a pointed glare, "—we can get the rest of the train working. They can manage after."

Another blast of emotion—sickly, like the odd storms of Nar Shaddaa—hit Ahsoka. She stopped, one hand upraised. "You feel all that?"

"Feel what?"

Ahsoka waited, sorting those waves of emotion. "There's a lot of very frightened people on this train," she murmured, taking stock again of the car. It looked luxurious enough, even without the lights on. Comfortable and purposefully elegant, like the rest of this sector. It was hard to imagine that degree of fear while lounging on nerf-hide chairs. "There—again."

It was Xyre's turn to hesitate. "I was never a good reader." She glanced back at him, but he didn't meet her gaze. "Different skill set."

"You? Not a people person? I'm shocked."

Another begrudged, very canine grunt. Ahsoka swallowed a laugh.

They made their way in silence through the rear car, then a second one, just as empty. But through the frosted transparisteel at the front of the second, she could see vague, moving shapes.

By the time the adjoining door slid open, Ahsoka realized who the transrail's occupants were.

Or rather, what.

Twi'leks and Zeltrons; pretty, petite Pantorans and squat Aleena; Togrutans and even a Cathar. Females and males, covered in glitter or draped in faux-jewels, squashed into outfits that looked more like second skins—and in the Cathar's case, tiny bits of studded leather.

Every one of them wore the distinctive collar of a slave.

"Skywalker can't even reach us. We're sitting with our shebs in the air!"

Fives' shout through the private comm had a grating hardness to it that set Rex's teeth on edge.

Worse, Rex kriffing-well knew their strategy wasn't working; every bit of ground they'd made over the last ten hours hadn't budged them any closer than thirty klicks to the command center, and their current hold on this particular processing bay was tenuous at best.

Rex dropped to one knee behind a cluster of downed SBDs, taking the brief cover to flick loose the empty powercell in one blaster and jam a recharge in with a quick slap against his thigh plating, his other wrist running a quick inspect along his belt. Supplies were holding at this stage, but the amount of resistance was unexpected.

If they couldn't make any hold on the station—no matter how small—there wouldn't be a chance for replenishing drops, or recharge, or any of the necessary technicalities of a large campaign.

"Fives, you were our setup. What the hell happened?"

"You fekking know what happened!" the ARC snapped off the comm, popping down on his knee next to the captain.

What always happened—that constant slip of information, a subtle drip that seemed to undermine every karking mission, like a sieve that sifted intel away and left only a pile of his brothers' dead bodies.

They needed Skywalker—hell, any Jedi—to turn the tide.

Well, not any Jedi.

Rex jerked his eyes to the side to clear the streaming data of his HUD and pull up the schemata of the drop zones, the detailed schedules and targets that had been estimated by initial intel. The 313th's Commander Doom had dropped five klicks west, along the banks of a processing hub at the edge of Sector 18. Based off the quarter report, it had been a devastating mess of a landing and during the last frayed comm call, General Tiplar had called for an immediate assist.

That was an hour ago; Torrent hadn't made any progress forward since.

Two new fatalities blinked in red along the bottom of his HUD.

Rex bit back another curse. "Give me a viable target. Something!"

"I've got an idea." Fives had angled himself up to provide cover fire for a medic, who'd darted in to drag out a wounded shiny. "But you're not gonna like it."

At the end of the bay, another legion of battle droids marched forward from beneath the cover of wide processing tubes and the heavy machinery that filtered the station's harvest into its transportable form. From this distance, the new arrivals' footsteps were drowned out by blaster fire and the calls of Rex's men echoing through his feed.

"Any option's better than this."

Fives shifted back, weight on the ball of one foot and the kama slapping against plastoid. "You trust me, right?"

Rex glanced at Fives, at the familiar angles of his brother's bucket and the reflection of blue and red plasma in that black T-visor. Another fatality number ticked along the bottom of Rex's HUD. He jerked his chin. "This plan like your usual?"

Rex could hear the smirk on the ARC's face. "You think it'd be anything else?"

"Get me Yularen."

"Out of the question, Captain."

The Resolute shuddered; below, half-hidden in the crew pit, the tacticians' voices took on a strident pitch. Admiral Yularen let his balance shift, hands still tucked behind his back and eyes trained between the station below and the holotable. Captain Appo stood at its other side, adjusting the flickering blue of a kneeling Captain Rex.

Yularen knew the Resolute. Nothing thus far in the campaign had proved an overt threat to her might—but that didn't negate the requirement of a staging area and a carved out segment of held space.

The boarding forces had no choice; they would take their sectors.

"Admiral, sir. We haven't moved forward in two. General Tiplar needs our assistance."

"I have the utmost faith in your abilities, Captain. I don't need to remind you we—" He emphasized the word, tamping down his own irritation at the lack of progress. The Separatists had a seemingly unending supply of vulture droids, lurking in the shadows of Ringo Vinda's ridged hull and dark to Republic sensors. Skywalker's squadron had been decimated, but kept on, flashing into view even now through the broad viewing panes at the bridge's front, a speck of yellow and grey that disappeared just as quickly beyond Vinda's bulk.

Yularen shook his head. The Jedi's mood had gone from outright hostility to a bizarre, harsh coldness just in the weaning hours of the campaign. A disconcerting trend; Skywalker was anything but transparent about his particular thoughts on a matter. "We need those transrails," he began again, "to hold Ringo Vinda."

"Sir, if we destroy the rails, we'll have a chance of at least taking Vinda. But from where we stand—" A low rumble rolled the captain's blue holo forward and the transmission flickered in protest. "—we're in no position to—"

The transmission crackled. Yularen studied the hunch of the captain's shoulders as Appo adjusted the feed.

"What you are suggesting would require a coordinated effort to have any effect," Yularen replied. "Those transrails are equipped with safeguards to keep exactly that from happening."

The captain's helmet tipped for a breath before straightening. Another rumble shook the transmission. "We've got a plan that might work."

"'Might,' Captain?"

"It will work, sir."

Yularen paused. "And the originator of this plan?"

"ARC-trooper Fives, sir."

Yularen closed his eyes. Of course.

"Interesting," Xyre mused at her shoulder. "I suppose we found the Separatists' preferred shield."

Slaves.

It was just like Kadavo and finally she recognized that particular mix of emotions, rank with fear and the pall of hopelessness. At least pain wasn't the overwhelming majority here, like it'd been on Zygerria's processing world.

And a question rattled through the back of her mind. Were the slaves here before the Separatists arrived?

"But an ineffectively small group." Xyre pushed past her, sublimely unfazed, and started through the car's wide main aisle. "Disconnect and we can go."

Before Ahsoka could dart forward—she'd half a mind to grab him by the scruff of his neck and maybe just throttle him for a moment—a bright pink Twi'lek male stepped in Xyre's way, enough of a snarl on his face that Ahsoka wondered if Xyre had met his match.

"That's far enough." The Twi'lek's voice lilted, thick with a Ryl accent, but so twisted with anger that Ahsoka could barely understand him. "You—you and that Jedi."

Wait. What?

"I'm not a Jedi—" she said, holding out her hands and somewhat grateful she still wore Padmé's ambassadorial robes—although her response was drowned out by his scoff.

"We were told you'd be coming." The Twi'lek flicked a disdainful glance at Ahsoka's robes. "You have been all over the galaxy, eh? Your face on every screen. You think we'd not recognize one such as you?"

Ahsoka straightened, a distinctly uneasy feeling running down her spine.

"Impossible," Xyre said, dry and toneless as ever. At least he had stopped and stood rigidly before the Twi'lek, hands balled into fists at his sides. Ahsoka almost expected his fur to stand on end. "Communications have been disabled in this sector for six hours, including internal transrail comms. And I doubt a trial would be interesting enough to play on a casino's screens." Xyre looked the Twi'lek up and down. "Nor do you seem the type to pay attention."

Ahsoka fought the urge to slap a hand over her face.

The Twi'lek's laugh was ugly. He turned from Xyre to spread his hands and offer Ahsoka a mock bow. "Yes, he is right, yes? We slaves, we do not see the galaxy? We do not listen? Do not understand? Trust me, Jedi, we slaves know more than any other, no matter who chains us."

Xyre snorted. "That is not our present concern."

The Twi'lek grabbed Xyre by the tunic and lifted him clear off the carpet.

Against her better judgement, Ahsoka intervened.

"We would like to help—to help all of you," she added, projecting her voice out toward the rest of the car's occupants, "get out of here." It took a surprising amount of pressure on the Twi'lek's arm for Xyre to touch the floor again. "Could you explain the situation here?"

That didn't go over well, either. The Twi'lek's gaze pointedly traveled from her montrals to her boots. Her fingers twitched for her lightsabers, safely hidden under the folds of her robe. "You realize what the Separatists pay for one like you?" He leaned in close, and the stifling, sweet stench of his breath was enough to send her a step back. "I would be free."

"Not likely," Xyre pointed out. "The bounty would be pocketed by your owner." The flat black of his eyes flashed for a moment. "Although I'm curious. Which corporation owns you?"

The Twi'lek's face twisted in sudden, flushed rage. "No concern of yours!"

Oddly enough, even the other slaves seemed to agree. The ripple of movement was to turn away from them. No other voice spoke up.

"With all due respect, it is my concern," Ahsoka said, again letting her voice carry. "We were sent here to make sure all civilians had left combat areas. And I assure you, the Jedi Order had no knowledge of the situation here."

If anything, the Twi'lek's face hardened, doing a fantastic impression of a pink rock formation. "You are Jedi." He twisted the word and spat it at her. "Shouldn't you be out there fighting some battle right now? It is all you are good for now, yes?"

Ahsoka hissed in a sharp breath.

Was that all anyone thought of Jedi, anymore?

And why did that bother her now, when she'd made her choice and walked away?

Funny, the most vehement response came from Xyre. "She is not who you believe her to be."

"Oh?" The pink Twi'lek leaned close to Xyre, lips pulled back in a sharp-toothed leer. "And what is she supposed to be now, eh? The pretty horn-head on a dog's leash?"

That was enough. "We're neutral parties," she snapped, "and like I said, we're only here to help—"

"The Republic keeps slaves now." The Twi'lek sniffed in disgust, head tipped back and narrow-eyed glare focused down the length of his nose. In that moment, Ahsoka felt absurdly small and she bit her tongue from saying something entirely inappropriate. "Just business. You have no reason to help any of us."

"No—"

"Yet here we are, yes? We were brought here months before the Separatists arrived!"

Well, that answered one question. But the unease that itched in her lekku dropped straight to her stomach and left her sick. Interesting how the Republic was showing, over and over, its own ineffectiveness. All in the matter of a week.

"Miss Tano, I believe we should carry on," Xyre said. He sidestepped the Twi'lek and gestured for Ahsoka to follow.

Ahsoka gritted her teeth and turned her full attention back on the Twi'lek. "You can at least tell me if the trains have individual or macro-control over each car's system."

"It wouldn't do you any good," he spat, in disdainful predictability.

Ahsoka briefly closed her eyes. "Humor me, and maybe I can at least help you."

"It doesn't matter, Tano," Xyre broke in. He'd half-turned to face her, ears flattened in thorough irritation. "They're far enough away from the battle."

"You have no say in this," she shot back.

She ignored Xyre's disgusted huff and brushed past them both. If the Twi'lek wasn't going to help, she'd figure it out on her own. Nothing in this car even looked like a control panel; it was all gleaming wood and subdued, warm lighting, so surely up ahead was a control car. "If we move back into Sector 13, we'll be far enough away to call for support from Ringo Vinda's surface."

"You—you Jedi, do you not listen?"

Ahsoka hesitated at something new in his voice—something desperate. She glanced back at the Twi'lek—and in that moment, the bitter disillusionment in his eyes echoed Barriss' own, from just days before, as she called out the Order on a betrayal of its own Code.

"Excuse me?" Ahsoka asked, blinking to reorient herself.

"You think we are going anywhere, yes? This train—it is a trap. For you."

Jammer had taken to cursing every few seconds. "Can't get a damn thing outta this fekking piece of corporate karkin' shi—"

Unlike Rhyd, Tup had—for the most part—wisely steered clear of the medic. But some things were too good to pass up.

"I take it your name wasn't from your comms experience," Tup noted, deadpan.

The pause of the man's hands from inside the guts of a comm-console should've sent Tup at least a few safe steps back, but Tup had dealt with Fives long enough to handle even Jammer's notorious temper.

"Keep it up, trooper," the medic muttered. "See how you like a hypo where the glowrods don't shine."

Tup snorted and left him and an anxiously hovering Rhyd to the overrides.

The maintenance side-corridor had curved around to dead-end at a ladder and a mid-range comms relay. It wasn't much more than a tiny, durasteel nook along the station's hull, bristling with bulky comm equipment, all in various stages of lock or emergency overrides. Jammer had gone from irritated to downright incensed after he'd buried himself under one console, then another, then another.

"Just one fekking hop to that damn receiver out there. That's all I vapin' need." A rattling crash, and the latest console's guts spilled halfway out into the relay's cramped center. "I wanna meet the dumb sheb who put this code in here, because everything's readin' just fine—except there's—no—fardling—signal!"

"You can probably thank that Null," Tup said.

Jammer answered with about a dozen curses.

A viewing pane formed one wall of the relay and Tup sidestepped the mess to study Ringo Vinda herself, her dirty brown face half-lit by the distant, pale light of the system's single star. Her nightside glittered in tiny, red-pricked bits of civilization, scattered wide; not much actually lived on Ringo Vinda.

And west of them, just visible along the station's curve, raged the firefight; bright flashes lighting up the solid might of first the Resolute, and then the 313th's Defender. A Separatist dreadnought was on fire, listing hard to the pull of Ringo Vinda's gravity, but even as he watched, the Defender took a hard hit and the white-hot flare of tibanna lit up the for'ard docking bays.

The fact that they were fighting and dying for another world of stuff—not people, really, just resources—was a bit like a raw scratch running down the back of his skull; a dull pain that mingled with the headache that had lingered since his pre-battle equipment check in Fives' quarters, that still throbbed, thirteen hours later, like some sort of insistent reminder.

A hiss of static turned Tup back to the other two.

"That's vapin' right!" Jammer's exultant shout from beneath the mostly disassembled console sent Rhyd in a hasty retreat, barely in time to avoid Jammer's swinging arm as the man rolled up and slapped his carbon-smeared bucket back on. A flick of his wrist, and he had a hand-held comm glowing a steady, blinking green. "Scramble sets are go, codes sent, and it looks like…"

Jammer hesitated, until a familiar voice piped through and the medic raised a fist in triumph—albeit, a short lived triumph, as both Tup and Jammer quickly recognized who'd picked up the signal.

"Resolute to Torrent-Squad Six, do you copy?" snapped Captain Appo. "This is Resolute to—"

"We read you, Resolute." Tup winced. Of all the brass to get in touch with.

"Status, Squad Six."

"Sergeant Vith and Roller Squads Two, Five, Eight, and—"

"Acknowledged," the captain cut him off. "Your location?"

Jammer took over. "A station comm-relay in Sector 16, ten klicks east of the original drop. We re-routed into the maintenance ducts, sir. Communications were blocked. We're—"

"Your objective—"

Tup closed his eyes. Here it comes. Appo was well-known for his unique ability to bring even a seasoned campaigner to tears.

"—has changed, Squad Six. On the half-hour, you will receive instructions on detonating a point along your sector's main transrails."

Tup glanced at the chrono, high along the edges of his HUD screen. Forty-five minutes to—wait, what?

"Sorry, sir, the—"

"The Separatists are using the transrails to move their troops between sectors. We will disrupt that flow and force a corridor-by-corridor fight."

And Tup thought a landing bay assault would be hard. What Appo was ordering amounted to taking a city one residential block after another, instead of just aiming for the infrastructure's weak spots. Apparently taking the landing bays had been harder than expected for all units.

Jammer's visor was frozen, staring at the comm-link, that green light reflected in the familiar black. He realized it, too. "Sir—"

"This attack is a coordinated effort. On the fifteen, your scramble set will be six-niner-niner-besh-trill. ARC-trooper Fives will be your contact."

Ah. Well, that explained a lot.

"Sir, we currently lack the resources for any sort of—"

"Repeat, ARC-trooper Fives will be your contact."

Jammer's irritated huff wasn't exactly subtle. "Copy that, sir."

Appo signed off with barely an acknowledgement, and the three clones stared at each other for a long moment after.

Jammer finally reached over and clasped a gloved hand on Rhyd's shoulder.

"Let's find ourselves a transrail, boys."

Which, in the end, wasn't hard; the maintenance corridors were also a maze of vertical shafts, following the curve of the station's inner hull. There were moments Tup knew only a thin skin of durasteel separated the three of them from the vacuum of space, a fact that shouldn't have itched so uncomfortably along the back of his neck, like he'd been stripped of his armor.

But at least they hadn't spotted a single droid since the landing bay.

Granted, Jammer's mood hadn't gotten any better, either.

"Up and through," Jammer barked from below, slapping at Tup's boot as Tup worked a manual override on another overhead hatchway. It wrenched open into dark hole of another transrail service walk. Finally.

"How 'bout a protein cube down your throat?" Tup muttered.

Jammer's visor flashed at him from below. "Don't start."

Tup snorted as he shouldered open the half-closed service door into the outer catwalks—and then stopped abruptly.

Something was working overtime in his squad's universal disfavor that day.

Below dropped a mass of empty space, half-lit by emergency lights, the towers of some shopping center reaching high but thrown in sharp, eerie shadow.

And in front of them, not twelve meters away, was...a transrail. Just like they needed.

But a train hovered above it, its front directly across from Tup and at least a dozen cars reaching back along the transrail, every bit of it long and sleek, with dark skin and deeply tinted windows that made Tup think of the pleasure district six levels down from 79s. The whole thing radiated a subdued sort of elegance.

It was also completely immobile.

Which was...disconcerting, considering he could see the vague shapes and limbs of countless sentients inside. Tup blinked his HUD into a heat reading, and the whole train lit up like the burning wreckage of that landing bay.

All the vapin' luck.

"I'm counting—" Jammer trailed off, his visor tracking the length of one car and likely the heat signatures within. "At least a hundred per car. Maybe more."

Tup blew out a long breath. Twelve hundred. At least. "That's a lot of civvies."

Jammer's half-hearted grunt echoed Tup's thoughts. They couldn't blow a transrail with over a thousand civilians trapped above it.

"Sir, I'm picking up traces of…of rhydonium."

"What?" Tup twisted around to follow Rhyd's line of sight; he'd crouched down on his stomach plating to examine the underside of the train. "How can you tell?"

"It leaves a slight heat signature, and trace crystals form a distinguishing chain…" The rookie trailed off, one finger in mid-air as he followed whatever he saw along the train's belly through his HUD.

Tup crouched down, but the low heat he saw, glittering in greenish-blue along the train's underside, didn't mean much to him. "Good spotting, trooper."

Rhyd's visor tipped up and Tup could practically see the embarrassed flush on the younger clone's face. Tup resisted patting him on the shoulder. Poor kid.

"Looks like sloppy work, though," Rhyd said, ducking his head back down. "That's the only reason I can see it. Stray rhydonium crystals make for a messy explosion, not as good as a concentrated, focused source."

Jammer shrugged. "Does that matter, though? A boom is a boom."

"Yeah—but if the chain reaction gets spread out far enough, it doesn't burn right."

Jammer's irritated huff hunched Rhyd's shoulders forward. "So are these gonna blow, or not?"

"Well, yeah," Rhyd quickly answered, although he added in a mumble, "It's just the principle of it."

Tup ignored the both of them, studying the outlines of the sentients aboard and the train itself, the long, smooth lines that reminded Tup of Coruscant's Veckel Tower and the Senate Plaza, every bit of it clean and brilliantly shined.

A mess, at least, had some logic to it.

"Battle droids," Tup said, standing again. Jammer glanced at him, so Tup went on. "As far as we know, nothing but droids boarded the station for the take. Miners wouldn't be careless with explosives, so I'd guess Trench used what he had."

"But why?" Rhyd asked, still on his belly but his visor angled up at them. "Why blow up a train full of people?"

"Insurance," Jammer answered, this time.

Tup agreed, but something still didn't sit right. "Insurance for what, though?"

All three were silent at that.

"Rhydonium requires an activator," Tup said, taking quick stock of the ticking chrono. They had twenty minutes before the assigned contact with Fives. "Right?"

The younger clone nodded—although Jammer caught on first.

"Deactivate whatever bomb is on there, then send it back out of the sector?"

Tup tilted his visor at the other two. "Or move a bunch of civvies ourselves back to safety."

Jammer snorted. "I'd rather herd bantha."

"And we don't have time, either." Tup tipped his chin toward the nearest support—a wide, low-slung loop that bent itself beneath the transrail and out over the empty space below. If they could get underneath, ascension cables would take them the rest of the way.

But before they could edge themselves out onto the maintenance walk alongside the station's hull, Rhyd jerked to a stop. "Sirs! Something's going on."

Tup refocused on the train itself, saw a ripple of movement, heat signatures on the move, a rush of a figure and its abrupt recoil. And then—

A fireball at the train's rear—and then instantaneous, blinding white heat hit his eyes a fraction of a second before sound did, rushing through his buffers and pressing him back against the maintenance hatch. Rhyd's shoulder smashed into Tup's chest plate and Jammer's shout was lost, and Tup's HUD-read spun sickeningly as it tried to compensate. His headache reached a new pitch—screaming in his own mind, louder than the explosion—and then the wide space in front of him settled into the gray shadows of emergency light, the warm tint of the train's interior lamps—and the bright flash of fire, sheering off the end of the train.

The battered, burning remnant of what looked like a shuttle peeled off the mag tracks and fell, end over end, into the half-light below, metal squealing as it scraped walls and showered sparks with every elevated pedwalk it hit.

He recognized the blackened, twisted metal falling with it as the remains of the train's rear car.

At the train's end, one car hung completely askew from the entire track, lights flickering in a mad frenzy as the rest of the train swayed uneasily on its own mag-lock. The low, jarring moans of straining metal almost drowned out the high-pitched screams from inside, although beneath it all, he could hear the whine of failsafes attempting to compensate.

"Fierfek!" Jammer's fumbling grip on Tup's shoulder dragged his attention back around to the front car.

"Ah, hells."

The unmistakable glow of a lightsaber slashed a line of pure light; a familiar bright green, clearly visible even through the dark tint of transparisteel. As his HUD compensated, he recognized the hand at the hilt of the saber—and the figure held at the edge of the blade.

Tup slapped blindly at the comm, still set to their jury-rigged signal-hopper. Appo answered with a terse, staticky, "This is the Resolute. Squad Six, do you not understand the parameters of the mission?"

"Captain," he began, then cleared his throat at the catch in his voice.

Appo's tone sharpened. "Report, trooper."

Tup still hesitated. He licked his dry, cracked lips—tasted sweat and blood—and forced the words out.

"We have a situation."

A/N: Darth Real Life took careful aim over the last few months. Thank you to those who are sticking with it, despite the unexpected three-month hiatus; learning the ins and outs of plotting and writing is...certainly a headache-inducing task in itself. Many, many thanks to impoeia, for her unending patience and gentle wisdom; laloga for her constant encouragement and virtual shoulder to weep on; Nyakai for sheer, brilliant humor and unassailable friendship; and every. single. reader. who has clicked on that odd little title. Grab a seatbelt or maybe a flight harness; things only get wilder from here on out.