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The signal that the Jedi was taking to the field came through Cody's HUD about 30 seconds before the wind picked up.

"Down," Cody screamed over the howling. The two teammates next to him heard and ducked but Waxer at the end of the line either didn't react fast enough or hadn't heard him. The gust hit him full force and nearly ripped him away from the protection provided by the downed AT-AT. Boil caught Waxer's shell and managed to hold on. 

The five of them huddled against the transport as dirt, droid parts and all the other detritus of combat was whipped into the air. 

Cody was no stranger to storms. Kaminoan storms were practically the standby for such things, but Jedi were something else entirely. Back in training, when he and his batch had been told about the beings that created bodies out of wind and water, that spoke through fire, or the rustle of tree branches, Cody hadn't had any real frame of reference. He'd seen forests but only in holos. Wind and water were easy enough to imagine, but what a child's mind could conger up was closer to dumpy human shaped clouds then the reality. 

The temperature picked up. The clouds above darkened and thunder joined the roar of wind. Had Skywalker joined the fight or...? Cody peaked around their shelter in time to see another flash of lightning.

Red lightning.

Kriffing hells and deeps. A Sith was on the field.

Given the tightly spinning vortex that was pulling what might have been green smoke out of the earth, Cody went ahead and guessed it was Ventress. Technically energy readings needed to be taken and processed, but Ventress and Kenobi had fought before. The first time Cody had ended up stuck in a tree with the circuits in his armor fried. He knew her as well as anyone in the GAR.

Cody ducked back under cover and signaled to the rest of the group. With two force-beings on the field, he and the rest of the mare mortals would do best to fall back to cover as quickly as possible. The rest of the squad acknowledged the new orders and started spreading the word. Most of the veterans were already moving. They dragged the shines along, or in some cases pointed them in the right direction.

Cody held his position, watching the progress with one eye while peaking over the leg of the AT-AT every minute or so. 

Any fight between two force users was a sigh to behold. Flashes of lightning were countered with spouts of water, or sudden flurries of hail. Two columns of wind, one stained red, the other a blue-gray, circled each other, pulling up trees, downed transports, and unlucky buildings to toss at each other, like children playing a nasty game of catch.  

The green mist from Ventress' cloud shot at Cody's Jedi as if fired from a high powered hose, and Kenobi fell back, the spiral of wind he'd formed giving way to a downpour that dropped water in thick heavy drops. The ground under the fight became a mudslide, small streams forming, half of them running back up hill towards the enemy.

His HUD beeped. a message appearing in the corner of his vision. "Planetary instillation locked down. Enemy forces in upper atmosphere."

Cody cursed in basic, and then Mandoa for good measure. It was a trap. They were pinned down and with Kenobi already on the field he couldn't clear a path for them to get ships in the air. Not unless...

Cody's hand came to rest on a silver and blue rod he'd clipped to his belt six hours ago before any of this had started. The core of a Jedi. A way to draw them in (tempt them) talk with them (plead and threaten) and keep them in one place long enough to reach an agreement (trap them until they have no other choice) 

The senate, and the Kaminoens didn't have a high opinion of Jedi. Their trainers, the bounty hunters and Mandalorians, managed to be even more skeptical.  

Kenobi wasn't like that. Kenobi wanted to protect them. He kept the skies clear for them whenever he could. Cody might be fooling himself but he thought that Kenobi... Obi-Wan... cared.

"Commander, two more SDs just came out of hyperspace. What are your orders?" a brother's voice came through his helmet.

Cody ran through objectives and threat assessments and the potential lives lost and came to the only reasonable conclusion. "Fall back, prepare for bombardment." He could barely hear his own voice over the storm.

That was the other problem. The lightning rod on his belt might be the best way to hold a jedi in one place, but if you didn't care about collateral, there was a much easier way to kill them. One shot from an orbital arc lancer could scorch the atmosphere of a planet, killing any Jedi who wasn't prepared. 

Would they sacrifice Ventress to take out Kenobi?

He couldn't risk it. 

Cody sealed his helmet, and pressurized his armor. He took a breath to let his ears pop. Then he stepped out of cover. 

The wind hit him like a speeder. Cody braced himself, ducking down until he was bent nearly double. Instinct had him wanting to squint and duck his head even though his helmet kept his vision mostly clear.

The battle between the two force users had scoured a stretch of landscape down to the bedrock. Kenobi had rerouted the river, shooting waves of water into the air like high-powered rifle shots. Ventress had risen higher trying to escape his range. Anytime the water got high enough to reach her she froze it and send it back down as hail.

Cody's HUD automatically mapped out orbital telemetry from the information the retreating ships were broadcasting.

He didn't have much time.

Something long and brown came whipping through the air towards him. Cody batted it out of the way. He needed to get closer, needed to get Obi-wan's attention. If he could do that then maybe…

He scanned the battlefield. The empty riverbed stretched across the landscape. Cody glanced up one more time, and made a run for it. The wind whipped all around him. One moment it pushed him back, the next it sent him sprawling forward. More detritus was tossed through the air. Some of it hit him. His armor stopped most of it. As for the rest, if he made it through today he was going to be sore as hell.

Ventress dove, dropping to the ground, and spreading her influence into the dirt. The topsoil mixed with the water in the air becoming bullets of mud. Cody switched to inferred, and hoped he was still going in the right direction.

His foot landed wrong. Cody lost his balance, tipped. He ducked his head as he fell, turning it into a roll. The world spun around him. He was falling in the wrong direction. His stomach tried to rebel, but Cody swallowed down the bile. He hit something that collapse under his weight. Mud splattered across his visor. His HUD tried to compensate, and did a piss poor job as usual.

Thunder cracked directly overhead. A second later the orbital alerts turned red. Cody was out of time.

He slapped at his belt until the lightning rod came free. A switch had the device powering up, the kyber at it's heart humming in a resonance that vibrated up his arm. Making his best guess at where the sky was, Cody stretched out his arm and cranked the power to max.

Cody had no way of knowing if the spirit above him was his Jedi or the Sith. He didn't know if he was about to summon a very angry storm spirit set on ripping him and his brothers apart or save the life of a being he cared deeply for.

A boom echoed off the hills, not thunder this time but a sonic boom as something entered the atmosphere at speed. A screech split the air a moment later, like dry branches snapping over and over again. The lightning rod sparked. Cody lost feeling in his fingers. He couldn't see if he was still holding on. Couldn't tell if he'd made it in time. His HUD was flashing and beeping and even with all his training, he couldn't pick apart the meanings.

Rain. Cody gulped in a breath, then two. Rain was falling. Large drops washed the grime from his visor, leaving a rippling liquid haze in their wake. The water the two force users had been throwing around, returning to where it belonged. The wind gusted equalizing, before settling back into a breeze that Cody couldn't feel through his armor.

Cody was sprawled halfway down a riverbank that was slowly refilling. Dirt and mud and everything else that had been tossed into the air was coming back to earth. The distant thuds seemed like whispers after the cacophony he'd been surrounded by. He propped himself up on one elbow. HE still had the lightning rod, still powered up and glowing a soft sky blue that washed out the colors of everything around him.

Cody wasn't alone. At the top of the back stood a figure wrapped in mist. Their head tipped back looking up at the sky. A second missal lit up the atmosphere and Cody let out the breath he'd been holding. The figure was male presenting with a neat beard, and straight shoulders. It was Kenobi's usual form, when he was forced into something solid. Even then, power rippled around him. The cloak he seemed to be wearing lifted as if being tossed by a breeze that touched nothing else. When he lifted a hand, palm up, the rain passed through it, causing glowing patches on his palm.

Rolling onto his side, Cody groaned. Obi-Wan looked down and even in the bad lighting Cody could see the concern on his face.

"Cody? What are you doing out here? You should have retreated with the rest of the men." Obi-Wan came down the slope, completely ignoring the mud and the uncertain nature of footing.

Cody managed to get to one knee. He gestured with the lightning rod. "Trap. Had to get you out." He slapped at the seal on his helmet, releasing it and twisting until his head was free. The rain was freezing, and felt like the clearest, cleanest thing he'd ever felt. He sucked in a breath, and focused on getting his pulse under control.

"Ventress?" Cody asked a minute later.

Obi-Wan turned and looked at the sky. "I don't know. It's hard to feel her when I'm like this, but-" He shook his head. "I'm fairly certain she managed to escape. She broke off just before you pulled me in. Thank you for that, by the way." He turned his gaze back to Cody. There was a smile on his face. It made funny things happen in the region of Cody's heart.

"Well, yeah. No problem." Cody shifted, and had to pull one foot out of the mud. Why did he had to look like such a mess every time Obi-Wan was around in human form?

It took an effort to get up without fumbling the lighting rod. Then more effort to make it up the slope without falling on his ass. Obi-Wan stayed with him, hands, tucked into the sleeves of his misty robe. For the millionth time Cody wondered what that cloak and those hands would feel like. Would he even be able to touch them or would his fingers pass through like the rain. The Jedi seemed to make their own rules when it came to such things.

"There are two more star destroyers in orbit," Cody reported, forcing his mind back to the task at hand. "Looks like this was a trap. We'll need to wait and see if they think you're dead or not."

Obi-Wan frowned. When he reached forward Cody froze, a lump forming in his throat.

"You have-" Obi-Wan's hand came up and brushed his cheek, smoothing away a bit of grime or mud. His touch was soft, like warm water. Cody could feel it even after Obi-Wan had drawn back.

"Cody? Are you alright?"

Cody cleared his throat, and reached for his helmet. "I'm fine," he said, hiding whatever his expression was showing. Obi-Wan didn't need him falling all over himself and embarrassing both of them. Obi-Wan wasn't human. Cody wasn't sure if force users could even feel things in that way. "We should get back to the others."

Obi-Wan tipped his head to one side. There was concern in his eyes, but he nodded. "Back to it." He paused, then, "You know, when all this is over we should sit down some time. Talk."

Cody nodded. It was only a pipe dream, but it was a nice image. It was enough for now. Enough to keep going, while Obi-Wan was beside him, while they were both still alive.

Cody tapped his com and signaled for a pickup.

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