I am Leal

Night falls

"Hands away from your blasters." Merrick spits at me. I raise my hands and narrow my eyes. Slowly he moves forward pointing the riffle away from my chest and onto the temple of Satine's head.

"Leal, back off!" Satine says. "Can't do that, Satine!" I growl and narrow my eyes on the traitor.

"You better get away!" Merrick snarls at me. "Too bad. I am not very good at listening." I say and take a step towards them. And again the riffle is pointed at me.

"Leal, stand down!" Kenobi orders me and my eyes flicker towards my general but go right back towards Merrick. I stare at him and try to come up with a plan.

"Stand down!" Kenobi orders me again. I tense up but take a step back. Merrick and Satine leave the room and I can just watch.

"Regroup with Cody! I'll look out for Satine and find Anakin! And Leal..." Kenobi orders me and stops by the end of it. I look at him questionably. "Nevermind!" He says quickly and I nod and run into the direction of the lower decks.

I run through the hallways when I finally see Cody's familiar markings. He stood in the corridor and ordered a few clones to get into position. I continue to run up to him.

"Leal, what happened?" Cody asks me worried and looks for any injuries. "Merrick's the traitor. He has the duchess. The general is going after them. I had to regroup with you guys. I'm fine!" I say fastly and lay my hand on his arm reassuringly.

Suddenly the ship trembles. I trip and fall against Cody. "You alright?" He catches me and helps me on my feet again. "Yeah!" I nod and he looks at me cautiously. When he can't find any injuries or else he nods.

"Come on, we need to look what that was and find the others!" He says and we immediately start running. I grabbed my blasters as we soon found the cause of the ships tremble.

Droids.

Cody and I take cover behind some pillars and start shooting. We fight as long as there isn't a droid left. As we move forwards more and more clones stood around and cheered over the defeat of the clankers.

"I think that were all!" I say and take my helmet off. Cody nods and goes around a corner. I follow him behind and can hear the voices of Satine and the generals. I sigh in relief. She was okay. I wouldn't have forgiven me if something had happened to her.

We duck under a pillar and Cody immediately speaks up. But I didn't listen. I watch as regret flashes through Satine's eyes and even the general seems to want to say something to her but because of us they can't. I knew this feeling to well and I could damn Cody and me that we interrupted them.

I grab Cody's arm and pull him away but he didn't move one bit. I roll my eyes and tilt my head but it was too late.

"I must get back to the business of diplomacy!" Satine declares and turns and leaves my general behind. "As you say duchess!" He says and bows slightly. "Some other time." He softly says and looks after her.

I sigh and punch Cody's arm. "Ow! Why?" He looks at me upset and I roll my eyes. Men!

I follow Satine and catch up with her. "I guess I have to apologize now!" I say and disrupt her thoughts. She looks up from the ground. "For what?" She asks surprised.

"I didn't watch out for you! This could have ended very badly today." I say and sigh. She just makes a gesture of refusal and smiles at me. "It is alright! I never thought it has come this far." She sighs.  "What do you mean?" I ask her.

"I thought Tal Merrick was a good friend of mine. But I have more enemies than I thought." She sighs and I lay my hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "Master Ti always says that it is a rough road that leads us to the heights of greatness."