When the Cavalry Comes.

III

Ahsoka... Well... The breakneck chase that she had led through the corridors would have made any of her instructors snap and growl. She was glad to make a friend that was close to her side. Even if it was a half-crazed togruta jedi who was extremely fast. They had ended the 'tour' in the mess hall with dinner. She ate with Neon and Ahsoka, and Rex eventually suck his head out of the command center to grab a bite with them. She liked the captain, when he wasn't a tough-as-nails military CO.  

Whiteout hated her, some some odd reason. Of that, she was absolutely sure. She didn't know when she had realised that he hated her, it could have been when he tried to trip her when she got her rations like a cadet, or when she had found her helmet with bright green where the others had blue.

In the three days since arriving at the Resolute, it had been drills, drills, drills. They were going to launch a siege on Umbara, and everyone, both captain and shiny, was going through the training again. She had heard that Umbara was like nothing she'd faced before. She spent most of her down time now going over everything about Umbara, the language, the people, the tech, everything.

There wasn't much.

Umbara was an enigma to most of the records. She had found a lot of tall tales, and almost no actual reports. It was a shadow world, with very poor visibility and a lot of mist. Som scary flora and fauna too.

"Burning the midnight oil, Cav?" She nearly jumped out of her skin. Ahsoka leaned on the frame of the library door, backlit by the lighting in the halls. "Gosh, turn some light on vampire." She said, flicking on the overhead lights in the room. Cavalry squinted, the light so much brighter than the small holotable that she was using. She let out a playful hiss at Ahsoka.

"I'm attempting to study Umbara, but there's a pretty big gap in the records." She said, and the togruta came to stand next to her. Ahsoka was three years older than her, but she was actually shorter than Cavalry. She supposed that 5'7 was fairly tall for a normal human female. Most of the clones still towered over her.

"Anyway, I hate to break up the study session, but me and some of the clones were going to pull some pranks on the other officers. What do you say." Cavalry raised her eyebrows at Ahsoka's offer.

"We leave for Umbara in two days, do you really think this is the time to-" Ahsoka cut her off.

"If you're going to be a stick in the mud, that's the fastest way to get pranked." The padawan gave a malicious grin. "Are you in, or out?" Cavalry pretended to think for a second.

"I'm in." This was going to be the best night ever, and she knew that she would most definitely regret this.

"Good. Me and Fives have a treasure trove of contraband items just begging to be used." Ahsoka skipped of the library. "Meet me in the weight room at ten standard time." She called over her shoulders. Cavalry looked at a chrono on the wall. It was just after nine.

She opened up the search engine and went through her notes again, trying to learn anything she could. Information was valuable. It would be imperative that she got all there was to learn. On a whim, she looked up biographies of Umbaran senators. The little amount of flash training she had received had told here that there were a few of them, but she couldn't remember much else. She wished she had made a better effort to remember that stuff.

She made her way to the weight room fifteen standard minutes early. Ahsoka was already there, practicing her lightsaber strokes against a special target that would stand up to her lightsaber, when it's power was on low, at least. As time ticked by, more and more clones left and a few more came in. Ahsoka looked around, and then at the chrono.

"Good we're all here." She said, a manic grin spreading across her face. Cavalry took a count of who all was there. Hardcase, Neon, Bomb, and Scatter she recognised, along with a few more who introduced themselves as Tup, Jesse, Fives, and Kix.

"Well, are you guys ready to brave the storage closet?" Ahsoka asked. Jesse groaned,

"You mean we actually have to open it?" He complained.

"Don't worry,  me and Ahsoka got it taken care of." Fives said, leading them out of the weight room. They didn't have to go far, and Ahsoka opened the door while Fives stood in front of it, bracing himself for something. That something became apparent as the Captain, bound and gagged, fell out of the closet. He was grunting and squirming as Fives dragged him away and set him up against the wall  by the closet.

Ahsoka pulled out an innocent looking crate from the back of the closet. Mist poured out dramatically as she pulled the lid open. Rex was squirming and grunting through the rag that was tied around his head.  Fives removed the gag.

"Don't bother yelling Rexie, there's no one down this hallway to hear you." Ahsoka patronized. "May I present the most dangerous weapons to ever fall into clone hands. Whipped cream, a ball of nylon cord, neon paint, spray goo, airhorns, butter, rubber chickens, and the worst of all." Ahsoka pulled out a jug of something. "Triple. Shot. Espresso."

They all bathed in the glorious light of the espresso jug, and Rex had gone very, very, pale. Ahsoka passed the neon paint to Jesse, Fives, and Kix. They each got special markings on their faces, apparently from other prank sprees.

Cavalry and the others got simple yellow marks under their cheeks, with promises that they would earn their own special colors with time.

With that, they set off. The night was young, and they were out for mass destruction.