Star Wars: A Thing Of Beauty

Light the Fire

Jinang wakes up in a little cot, which would normally be very cramped but he's small enough that it's actually quite cozy after a hard day of fighting. He sits up, a blanket slipping off his bare chest tattooed with a claw mark that matches similar ones on his shoulders, ribs, face, hands and feet. He turns on a radio and starts getting dressed, braiding his hair. The padawan is under the wing of an LAAT somewhere deep in the Felucian jungle, rain pouring down on the temporary camp set up around him. While Jinang was getting ready, he listened to the "Galactic Core News," which is a major station that is proudcast nearly everywhere in the Galaxy. A news anchor talks about the state of the clone wars a little bit, and then moves on to a terrorist bombing in the Jedi temple of Coruscant. The immediate thought was that it was a separatist attack, but evidence pointed to a Jedi being the culprit, named "Ahsoka Tano" - the padawan of Anakin Skywalker. Jinang was startled by this news, but comes to his own conclusion that someone - probably the separatists - are behind this, trying to frame Ahsoka because she's close to one of the best Jedi in the order and they'd like to destroy Anakin's reputation. Before the anchor was done spouting anti-Jedi nonsense, he shuts the radio off and gets going. Kal and several clone troopers are gathered around under a tent covering a portable holomap table, and everyone is soaked from the rain and all muddy.
"Everything in order, men?" Jinang says, brushing his wet hair out of his face with his hand. "We all set?"

"Almost, commander." The 110th clone trooper, Crackshot answered. "I'm about to move out with my sniper team and you'll be all set to storm the base."

"Before we head out I want to make something clear." Jinang says firmly. "This place we're attacking, it's got innocent miners working there. They're native to this place and in exchange for their own land, the natives agreed to work in a mining operation so the separatists don't trample all over their homes... If a single Felucian native is killed by one of us, I'm gonna be really pissed. So be extremely careful with this op. No playing around. No short cuts."

Jinang is leading an operation way out in the field where most of the action is taking place, and today they're attacking and destroying another mining operation after destroying a couple of protection squads of commando droids. While the attack of the mining operation goes down, Shara is leading an assault on the separatists aerial defenses above that will also preventing reinforcements. Riyarra requested that another Jedi come to replace Aayla so she wouldn't be alone while the other three were out, but her request has been denied for now. Jinang's operation is poised go quick and smooth though. Intelligence shows that general Grievous and the dark deciple Zorsia are no where near this mining camp, and there isn't a B3 ultra battle droid around either, not like the last mining operation they interrupted...

While the rain continues to pour, the separatist battle droids are prepared for the attack coming from the south, guarding a wide, open clearing in the jungle where at the center of the flattened land are large mining machines being operated by the little Felucian natives, who resemble bipedal, long-necked turtles. The republic strolls up to the front lines of the separatists defenses "Fire!" - A B1 battle droid yells from the top hatch of a tank, followed by "roger-roger!" Echoing amongst the other tank pilots. B2 battle droids step forward to defend against the attackers, and suddenly, snipers start taking out a few tank pilots before they retreated into the tanks for cover. The fight was immediately a very heated and intense one, with Jinang's idea being that he'd draw the defenses away from the Felucian natives. Unfortunately that means that the jungle is going to take a lot of damage from the cannon fire from tanks going both ways, clones and droids blasting away, and a couple of Jedi doing some damage in the front lines. Jinang and Kal work very well together, with styles that synergize well with each other. Jinang is more offensive while Kal is more defensive, and they cover the weaknesses in each other's strategies making them highly efficient against regular B2 battle droids.
The battle was over quickly, in just under an hour, and shortly after securing the clearing in the jungle, Shara contacted Kal and informed him that the battle in the air went well. Jinang had all of the turtle-like Felucians rounded up near the dig site, just to make sure they are all safe and accounted for. The padawan finds the Felucian who would know the most about what's going on to talk to him and figure out what happens next. Unfortunately, none of them had any idea why they were digging into the ground. They were essentially just threatened to have their farms overrun if they did not comply. But once the tunnel was finished they were supposed to be under separatist protection.
"Well you're under my protection now." Jinang says sternly. Infuriated by the treatment of these people. "I'll have a squad of troops escort you back home. You'll be given some food and supplies to compensate for whatever you lost from not being able to farm, and the newly established republic outpost will keep the seps outta your business."

The Felucians were happy to go home, but they wished that the republic and the Jedi weren't here either. And Jinang understands why: The hyperlanes make this planet valuable and that ties back to money, plain and simple. And that means that the republic and the separatists will ravage this world in a battle against each other in order to control more money than the other.
"Commander Jinang." A clone trooper says, approaching the padawan as he sees the Felucians being escorted back home. "You'll want to come see this."

By the entrance to the tunnel, inside a large, portable, durasteel building used to store raw minerals gathered by digging, there was an interesting encounter with a third party attacking the droids that were guarding the resources. A bunch of B1 battle droids chopped up into bits and a super tactical droid that's head is nowhere to be found.
"These droids were cut by a plasma charged, bladed weapon." Kal says, looking at the scene with Jinang. "And this was done very quickly and efficiently."

"That kinda tech is really expensive." Jinang says, noticing that there were no blasts fired. "And with this level of speed and skill... It's gotta be a high-priced bounty hunter."

"Fennec Shand?" Kal asked, while Jinang kneels down and looks at the droids. "Cad Bane maybe?"

"I don't think so." Jinang says. "I don't think blades are their thing. This is definitely at their level though..."

"They took the super tactical droid's head, too." Kal adds. "Meaning they're after information and they think they can bypass those clankers' crazy firewalls."

"I'll make a report to my master." Jinang says, taking out his commlink. "She needs to know about this..."

Jinang tries contacting his master and Kal heads back out into the rain to keep things moving along with the troops. But Riyarra doesn't pick up... He tries a couple more times and then he calls a venator in the orbital blockade to see if reinforcements were requested, and they were... The Jedi temple was attacked by Grievous and the Malevolence and they were able to jam communications from the rest of Felucia but not the orbital blockade. Jinang rushes to jump into an ARC-170 as fast as he could and sped off without hardly any warning. He flies the starfighter at its top speed, going alone so it's faster, but also because he doesn't want to leave those Felucians all on their own. Smoke is coming from the temple which he can see in the distance. The Malevolence was just being chased off by a couple of venators and he nearly crash lands outside the hangar and leaps out of the ship immediately.
"Where's Riyarra!?" He yelled at the closest clone trooper. "Right now - where is she!?"

"I don't know, sir." The trooper answered. "She went dark not long -"

Jinang runs off and starts frantically searching around in a panic, and he finds lightsaber marks and follows them. The trail shows a very destructive battle that looks like a tornado went through the area. It leads into the jungle where some troopers are standing on guard, and just at the bottom of a hill by the edge of the treeline, Riyarra Agdol lies dead in a puddle of water. Jinang was paralyzed for a second, before letting out a loud, anguished scream. He falls to his knees and nearly tumbled down the hill but a trooper caught him.
"C'mon sir..." The trooper says, trying to get Jinang away. "You shouldn't look."

"Let me go!!" He yelled, pulling away.

The padawan gets away and runs down the hill, tripping and falling right by his master.
"No - no - no - no!!" He cried, panicking as he crawled over to Riyarra's face. "Master, no! Nooo!"

Her hair fell out of the ponytail and is floating in the puddle, with many injuries from a very intense fight. Jinang just breaks down, sobbing on his knees. His master was like a mother to him, and she is gone now.