Jedi Fugitive (The Bad Batch)

31:

Elite Squad Trooper 2 backed slowly towards the exit of the training room, unnoticed by the clones battling the droids below. Even the commander had joined the fray, working with the traitors rather than against them. The bodies of her squadmates littered the floor among the destroyed droids.

What had she missed? Somehow, that stupid little girl had managed to knock her out in the hall below the training room, and now she'd come back to this. She could even see the yellow flash of lightsaber blades out of the corner of her eye, the Mandalorian girl the commander had brought in, the one he'd insisted was unimportant, wielding them. This was out of hand. It was time to cut losses.

A single droid noticed her movements towards the exit, diverting its attention away from the clones fighting for their lives. She fired before it even had a chance to raise its own guns, taking it down with two well placed shots to the chest and fully pulling back from the training room as others began to notice her, their shots scorching sooty marks into the pristine white hallways.

She'd slammed the button to close the door and was already halfway down the hallway before it had fully shut, opening her comm channel to the ships in the sky.

"Admiral, the commander has lost control of the situation," she informed Rampart on the bridge of the lead Venator.

"Pull all remaining forces out," came the immediate reply. "Let the clones die together."

"Sir, you should know. There's a Jedi with them."

On the cruiser in the sky, Rampart pinched the bridge of his nose. Almost nothing had gone according to plan. The Elite Squad were all dead, their clone commander apparently choosing to aid his former squad rather than evacuate with the others. And then the sole surviving member of the experimental civilian squad just had to tell him there had been a Jedi with the clones. It could only be that Mandalorian girl CT-9904 had brought in with the rogue clone sergeant. He didn't think that CT-9904 had been unaware of the girl's true nature. The commander had lied to him.

"It's no matter," he said finally to ES-02. "She will die with the others."

"Affirmative, Admiral." The channel went silent, and Rampart resisted the urge to sigh heavily. Of course there would be one throwing a wrench into everything he had meticulously planned out. It had to be that girl CT-9904 had brought in with the leader of the rogue clone squad. He had told him she was inconsequential, but clearly that was not the case. He wouldn't have been surprised if the clone commander had known about it and intentionally kept it from him.

And yet he hesitated in informing Admiral Tarkin of the unexpected development when the other admiral inquired after the situation of Kamino. The correct procedure would have been to report it to him, let it travel up the chain of command until it reached Lord Vader, or better yet, the Emperor himself. Let him handle the matter, as he had insisted so adamantly.

But it was of no consequence now. Rampart sighed and pulled his hand away from his face, tucking it behind his back and reassuming his collected air. If the Emperor knew he had had a Jedi so close to him and allowed her to slip through his fingers alive, the punishment would be more than severe. He was not willing to endure that. It wasn't as though it mattered anyway. The Jedi would not be a problem for much longer. There was no need to inform the Emperor.

"Move into position," he ordered the clones piloting the cruiser. They complied, the large windows of the Venator's bridge providing a complete, unobstructed view of the planet below as the ship began to loom over Tipoca City.

A small smile began to curl the edges of Rampart's mouth. Soon he could leave this forsaken place and forget it had ever existed to begin with.