Cejanr (A Rexsoka SWTCW Fanfic)

33

Rex ducked and rolled under the shrapnel of a nearby bombshell as he ran through smoke and fire. His head and shoulder ached a little, but they didn't have time to heal all the way. As soon as Kix would let him he was back in the field, he was on the front lines.

He slid behind some semi-decent cover and scanned the area around him, straining his ears to hear the rhythmic clanking of battle droids among the cries of the wounded and the creaking of the branches on the giant trees that covered Kashykk. There was a lull in the battle, and he reached up to touch his chest plate, under which sat Ahsoka's ring. He blew out a breath and reached out through the force as best as he could without being overwhelmed by the pain that radiated off of his vode.

Nothing. Not that he could feel. No movement. No danger. he shakily got to his feet and staggered out to scan the area better. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Anakin appeared beside him, oil and blood spattered across his robes.

"Sitrep, Captain. What do you have?" He said wearily. Rex pressed his lips together behind his helmet.

"Not much, sir. We were losing ground rapidly when they just... pulled back." He said with a frown. Anakin closed his eyes, then snapped them open and shoved Rex aside just as the clone felt the electricity run down his spine in a single clear signal of DANGER. No duh.

A mortar smashed into the place they were just standing, sending deadly shards everywhere. Rex's blasters were knocked out of his grasp and skittered a few feet away. Dust was thick in the air and even with the filters on his helmet it seemed to coat the inside of his mouth and lungs.

He coughed a little and quickly pulled his blasters back to his hands with the force, hoping nobody saw. It was unlikely due to the smoke, but still a risk. He started firing in the direction the mortar came from, switching to thermal view due to the debris in the air. Two tanks had slipped through the intertwining foliage around them and come up in a flanking maneuver.

One of Rex's personal tactics, again.

"Captain, get the first tank. I'll take the second. Use all opportunities." Anakin called softly, using the code they had come up with. Use all opportunities. Use the lightsaber and stay out of sight.

Rex nodded and immediately dropped to his belly, crawling over the mesh of woven branches that kept him from falling two hundred plus feet to his death. He squashed his vertigo for what had to be the hundredth time that morning and pressed forward, sliding under the tank on the left. Once he was in position, he maneuvered his lightsaber hilt into position and fired it up, crawling as fast as he dared to slice up the bottom of the tank before powering down the blade and emerging.

He dove away from the tank as it erupted in a fireball. He slid the hilt away and froze when a blaster clicked into place by his head. He stared at the feet of the droid he had nearly headbutted before hearing a metallic clank and the robot fell backwards. A durasteel knife stuck out of its skull. Cavalry.

The girl ran forward, slid, snagged the knife and rolled to her feet in the blink of an eye. She alternated between firing off rounds and cutting down the droids with her melee. The droids really were terrible for close combat.

He rose to a knee and kept firing, from there, cutting through swarths of the clankers at a time. The clones pushed forward. The B1s fell back. Then they were gone. Rex did some mental math, and decided on a gamble. He reloaded his 17s and spun on his heel.

"Captain, where are you-" Anakin asked as Rex raced by him.

"They're gonna come up behind us and on our left. We'll be nearly encircled." He called over his shoulder, cutting Anakin off. Anakin frowned, but another mortar took out nearly two squads from behind them. Just as Rex had said.

It was a tactic he and Echo had drawn up, a splitting of forces to flank draw their fire to one side and attack them from another. Repeat until no more seppies remain.

Only now, it was being used on clones.

Rex fired to where they had come up behind them, counting under his breath. It was all down to timing. Once they were engaged in full assault on one front, he spun and rolled some droid poppers off to their left. As they detonated, there was a mini fire ball as tanks collapsed on each other. Rex turned to their backs and reached for more droid poppers.

He was out.

But Kix wasn't. He hit the plunger on a detonation stick in his hand, and there was the flash of blue as several EMPs went off. Then there was utter silence. Even the wounded were quiet. Rex glanced at the medic, who shrugged.

"I saw what you were doing, and I'm not going to leave the wounded undefended." He put in, slightly defensive. Rex grinned behind his visor.

"Nice thinking."

Reinforcements arrived and they collected the wounded, heading back to the fort they had set up in. Anakin tugged on Rex's arm as soon as they were out of active combat and nodded to an alcove a little ways away.

"We need to talk. How did you know their plan off attack? We'd've been dead without you tossing those poppers, but how did you know to throw them there?" Anakin asked seriously, lowering his voice even though they were alone. "Rex, if you have any intelligence, you know you have to report it in."

"I know, I know. And I have no concrete evidence. You know I'd tell you as soon as I knew anything." Rex supplied, dancing around his suspicions about Echo's death.

"You're avoiding the question. How'd you know?" Anakin pressed. Rex hesitated.

"It's an old battle strategy I learned a while back. You flank your opponents forces then pull away to attack from another side, killing as many as possible." He said after a second. It wasn't a lie, not really. But it also wasn't the whole truth. "I just felt the droids and used that against them."

Anakin sat back and nodded. "Alright. If you know anything else about the stuff they're using, tell me?" He asked. Rex nodded.

"Of course."