SWRC: Tales of the Clone Wars (Book 2.5)

Chapter 3 Jedha Incursion.

"Captain," said Neeran, calling Tye over to her side.
"Yes Commander?" asked Tye.
"Split your men up into groups of four and send them to scout out the city," ordered Neeran.
"What about you?"

"There are some people I need to meet in the Temple here," replied Neeran as she began to move off. "Report anything you find to me."
"Yes, sir," said Tye as he turned back to his brothers to relay her orders.

"Scars, Felix, Sirus, Fax," said Tye, selecting his squad members. "You, Loki, Lino and Lee are coming with me. The rest of you split up into fours and scout out the city. Anything you find is to be reported to me."

Tye saw C.T about to go with a group that Tye could almost foresee dying under his command and said, "C.T. You're with Kye, Dye and Aye."

C.T shot him a disgusted look but complied with his Captains orders and went over to his former training team mates. Tye sighed as he watched C.T join his assigned group and knew that something had to be done about their relationship, but that was a problem for another time.

"Come on," he said to his seven chosen soldiers as he replaced his helmet on his head. "We've got a lot of work ahead of us."

<Elsewhere on Jedha...>

Neeran wandered through the city until she came to the ancient Jedi Temple on Jedha known as the Temple of Kyber, named after the Jedi's kyber crystals that are used in their lightsabers. Neeran knew it housed the Guardians of the Whills, a group of warrior monks that had defend the Temple on Jedha for over a millennium to everyone's knowledge.

And what she needed, was their knowledge.

"You seek a knowledge that Jedi do not seek after lightly," said the member she had been directed to who was in fact one of the leaders of the order of the Guardian of the Whills. "To see into the future is a rare gift that not all can possess."
"I have it and I need to know what these visions mean," said Neeran, wanting some answers to her questions instead more Whills riddles. "The fate of this galaxy could be at stake."

"The galaxy moves as the Force wills it," said the leader. "We can't alter the way these things move in our lives. That is not what visions are for."

"Useless!" exclaimed Neeran, throwing her hands up and making to stall off when her com-link suddenly chimed.
"This can't get any worse, can it?"

<Near the Holy City ports...>

After searching the city seemingly endlessly, Tye and his seven fellow troopers had finally come upon a successful lead in the form of a smuggling crew.

Though they were not any Separatist droids like they had been searching for, something about the ship had put Tye on alert.

And to say the actions of the ships crew below weren't suspicious either, would have been a severe understatement.

"Commander," called Tye through his comm several metres back as Felix led Loki, Lee, Fax and Lino to engage them. "We've found a source of Separatist aid. Permission to engage?"
"Granted," came the reply from Neeran. "Proceed with engagement."
"Understood," said Tye, motioning for Felix to engage and silencing his comm as he signalled Scars and Sirus to go around and out flank the ship.

Tye closed his eyes for a moment under his helmet before following after Felix who had already confronted the smuggler crew.

"Where's the rest of the crew?" asked Felix smugly, looking down on the smuggler crew that seemed a little too small for the ship they had.

"Spread out and find them," ordered Felix, seeing that they were going to get no reply from the smugglers below.
Loki, Lino, Lee and Fax went to descend upon the smugglers below when the sound of something tagging a crate followed by a yell of, "I didn't do it!", caused Felix to look over in that direction in disbelief.
"Or maybe they'll just telegraph their position 'cause they're idiots," muttered Tye with a slightly amused tone.

"Idiot!" shouted someone hidden. "Now they're gonna know about the Seppie involvement!"

And that was all the eight clone troopers needed to hear from the smugglers...

The six troopers in front of them, plus the added blaster fire from their two hidden companions, simultaneously opened fire upon the smugglers below.

Tye hadn't even needed to order them to begin as they had all moved in unison, although those on the higher ground had to get down to where the smugglers were trying to flee for their lives.

One in particular caught Tye's attention.

He was a young man, possibly late 20's, with dark eyes and greasy black hair that was in an extremely short ponytail with bangs and other loose strands of hair covering his face. He wore a simple grey technician tunic and overalls with a pair of goggles resting around his neck and had a partially revealed photograph his breast pocket that he had hastily stuffed back into his pocket after the sudden arrival of the clone troopers.

The man started to crawl away until a pair of boots stood in front of him. He cautiously looked up and came face to face with Captain Tye of Orange Company and the business end of his blaster. Fear washed over his face for a moment before he seemed to resign himself to his fate, but that fate was never to happen for Tye had seen something that had made him stop.

"You have a kid?"

The man looked up at him and nodded rapidly. Tye withdrew his blaster and asked, "What's your name?"
"E-Elran," said the man. "Elran Rook."
"What's his name?"
"My son?" asked the man, and Tye nodded. "Bodhi Rook. He's five."

"Go home to your kid," said Tye, motioning for Elran to get a move on. Elran stood up and went to leave when Tye caught his arm and said, "I will warn you though. If I or any of my company catch you doing something like this again, we will not hesitate to shoot you."

Elran gulped and Tye released him.
"Keep that in mind."

As Elran disappeared into the depths of the city, Felix came up to him and said, "You're just letting him go? After all the trouble we went through?"

"If we go around killing everyone we meet and suspect, we're no better than those we're fighting Felix," replied Tye, not taking his gaze off from where Elran had disappeared to. "There's a fine line between doing the right thing and stuffing up royally. We walk that line ever day we fight in this war."

"The captain is right Felix," said Scars. "That man wasn't at fault here."

"I don't think he was the only one," said Sirus, looking down at another body that Tye could identify as another parent caught up in the mess of the war. Tye sighed and holstered his blaster.
"We can't save everyone. But we can try."

Tye looked back over the scene that they had created and felt that something was off. Felix, Scars and Sirus were standing next to him but Lino, Loki, Lee and Fax were standing off to one side apart from each other and that was when Tye identified the problem.

"Get down!" yelled Tye as he pushed Loki to the ground and bore the full brunt of the blaster bolts fired at them.

"Captain!" yelled several voices mixed with "Take cover!" and orders being sent out for assistance and Felix's curses mixed through it all as Tye felt his conscience fade into nothingness.