The engine scream became a roar.
It cut through the red haze of blaster fire and smoke like a blade through cloth.
Kael did not look back this time.
He simply felt it — the vibration through sand and armor, the shift in air pressure as three LAAT/i gunships burst low across the battlefield, repulsors howling just meters above the ground.
They came in hard.
Green laser cannons opened up first — tight, controlled streams that carved directly through the densest B1 formations pressing against the walker perimeter. The skeletal droids did not scatter; they were torn apart mid-step, torsos splitting, limbs cartwheeled into the air as the strafing run ripped a clean corridor through their ranks.
Missiles followed.
Compact salvos streaked into a cluster of B2 super battle droids forming up near the foundry ramp. The impacts detonated in a chain of concussive bursts, armored frames flipping backward under the blast pressure. One OG-9 spider droid attempted to reorient its heavy cannon upward — the second gunship vaporized its central chassis in a concentrated beam that left only a smoking crater where it had stood.
The difference was immediate.
The suffocating pressure around the Republic pocket loosened.
Clones who had been bracing behind walker hulls lifted slightly, rifles still firing but no longer drowning in overlapping red arcs. Blue bolts now struck into formations that were breaking, not advancing.
Another strafing pass came in from the opposite vector, lasers raking across the foundry's lower ramp and slicing through the conveyor-fed trickle of fresh droids. A line of B1 units stepping into the sunlight was obliterated in one sweeping pass, their metallic forms collapsing in heaps of twisted parts.
For the first time since they'd stalled—
The droid tide faltered.
Smoke rolled across the sand in thick curtains, illuminated by green laser fire and the fading red glare of destroyed plasma batteries. Geonosians that had clung to scaffolding took flight in disorganized retreat, some cut down mid-air by the trailing edge of a gunship's cannons.
Kael felt the shift in the rhythm of the battlefield.
Not victory.
Opportunity.
He turned toward the foundry as two heavier shapes descended through the smoke.
LAAT/c carriers.
Their larger frames pushed heat and dust outward in violent gusts as they stabilized just above the ground. Thick magnetic clamps disengaged, and two AT-TE walkers dropped the final meters into the sand with heavy, earth-shaking impact.
The carriers did not linger.
Repulsors flared bright, and they peeled away under sporadic anti-air fire, banking hard toward the rear command zone as the newly delivered walkers came alive.
Their dorsal mass-driver cannons rotated immediately, targeting optics flaring as they locked onto pre-designated structural coordinates.
Kael raised his voice over open comm.
"New walkers — target western vent stacks and lower support joints. Use intel patterns from destroyed factories. Collapse it from the base."
Acknowledgments came instantly.
The first mass-driver round fired with a deep, resonant boom that seemed to punch the air itself.
The projectile struck the lower structural seam along the foundry's western flank. The impact did not explode outward; it punched inward, cracking armored plating and exposing internal support struts beneath.
The second walker fired moments later.
This shot struck higher, along a weakened vent assembly identified in earlier reconnaissance reports from other sectors. The blast sheared through exhaust piping and destabilized the upper frame, sending a cascade of metal fragments and superheated debris spilling down onto the ramp below.
The foundry groaned.
A sound deeper than blaster fire.
Structural.
Another volley from the gunships tore across the lower entrance just as a fresh group of droids attempted to advance from the interior. The impact detonated fuel cells along the conveyor line, setting off a secondary chain reaction inside the factory shell.
Kael stepped forward slightly, blade still ignited, watching the damage accumulate.
"Again," he said.
Both walkers fired in near-unison.
This time, the shots struck in perfect sequence — lower joint, then upper vent column.
The effect was catastrophic.
The entire western quadrant of the foundry buckled inward. Support beams snapped with a shriek of tortured metal. The upper structure tilted, then collapsed downward in a thunderous cascade of debris.
The falling mass crushed the ramp below it.
Droids attempting to exit were buried beneath tons of collapsing structure. The shockwave rippled outward, scattering nearby B1 units and knocking over a B2 that had just regained its footing after the strafing runs.
Flame burst from ruptured interior conduits as the foundry's internal systems failed in sequence. Black smoke poured upward, thicker now, darker.
For a long moment, no fresh droids emerged.
The conveyor lines went still.
The roar of concentrated artillery faded into scattered blaster exchanges as the remaining Separatist units near the perimeter either retreated or were cut down in the aftermath.
Relief did not come as cheering.
It came as space.
As air.
As the sudden absence of a wall of advancing metal.
Clones remained in defensive posture for several seconds longer, rifles trained on the smoking wreckage to ensure no final surge came through.
None did.
The foundry burned.
Kael lowered his blade slightly, violet light still humming but no longer intercepting a constant storm.
Behind him, medics were already calling for transport back toward the command zone. LAATs began cycling in from the rear, not for assault now, but for evacuation — wounded first, then rearmament.
The battlefield around them was quieting into the kind of silence that follows overwhelming force.
Not peace.
Aftershock.
They had taken the hardest factory.
And it had cost them.
The foundry burned behind him.
Metal groaned as interior supports gave way in delayed collapses, smoke boiling upward into the already scarred sky. Blue bolts still cracked here and there as clones cleared the last stragglers, but the suffocating press of red fire had broken.
Kael let the violet blade hum a moment longer.
Then he deactivated it.
The glow withdrew into the hilt with a low, steady fade. He clipped it back to his belt without ceremony, the metal lock engaging with a quiet click that felt strangely loud in the aftermath of artillery.
Around him, the battlefield shifted from assault to aftermath.
LAATs descended in controlled intervals, repulsors kicking up thick spirals of red dust as medics waved them into improvised landing lanes. Clone troopers moved through smoke in staggered lines, no longer advancing, but lifting, carrying, stabilizing. Some leaned against walker hulls as others checked seals and power cells, armor scorched and cracked from hours that had felt like days.
The smell had changed.
Less ozone.
More burnt circuitry.
More blood.
Kael walked through it without haste.
His armor, once matte black, was now coated in desert dust and ash. Fine red sand clung to the seams of his gauntlets, streaked across his chest plate, and dulled the faint violet tracers along his shoulders. Heat scoring marked one pauldron where a bolt had grazed too close. He felt heavier than he had when the assault began — not in body, but in weight carried.
Ahead, medics worked in tight clusters.
White armor lay scattered in shallow depressions behind shattered rock and walker carcasses. Some troopers were upright, leaning on brothers as field injectors hissed and bacta patches sealed over fractures. Others lay still while IM-6 units hovered close, mechanical arms adjusting bandages and administering stimulants.
"Stabilize him before transport."
"Seal that fracture — now."
"Pressure there, hold it."
Voices overlapped, but did not panic. The clones moved with grim efficiency, the urgency quiet and practiced.
Kael saw him before he reached the cluster.
4377 lay partially propped against the blackened hull of the destroyed walker, two medics crouched at his sides. His helmet was gone — shattered entirely. The faceplate had cracked open from the impact, and fragments of plastoid scattered in the sand nearby.
His face was exposed to the desert.
Dust clung to his skin. Blood traced a thin line along his jaw and into the edge of his collar. One side of his armor was scorched darker than the other, chest plate spiderwebbed with hairline fractures from the blast.
He looked smaller without the helmet.
More human.
Kael knelt.
The medics glanced up immediately.
"Is he alive?" Kael asked, voice steady.
"Yes, General," one replied without hesitation. "Concussion. Fractured ribs. Armor absorbed most of the blast. He's stable."
Kael exhaled slowly.
"Injured," he said quietly, eyes still on the commander's unmoving form. "I can work with."
The medic resumed adjusting a support brace beneath 4377's shoulder.
Kael leaned closer.
For a moment, he simply studied the commander's face — the faint tightening at the corners of his eyes, the shallow but present rise and fall of breath.
He reached out and tapped the trooper's shoulder plate, firm but controlled.
"Commander."
No response.
He tapped again, slightly harder this time.
"Commander. Stay with me."
The battlefield noise receded slightly around them — not in reality, but in focus.
"Come on," Kael added, lower now. "Stay with me."
There was a faint shift in 4377's breathing.
A twitch at the corner of his mouth.
The medic paused, watching closely.
Kael kept his hand on the trooper's shoulder.
"Commander."
A slow inhale.
Then—
A small, strained sound.
4377's eyes opened halfway, unfocused at first against the brightness of the desert sun and the haze of dust overhead. He blinked once. Twice.
His gaze settled.
Recognition flickered through the disorientation.
"…General?" he managed, voice rough and barely above a breath.
Kael didn't move his hand.
"I'm here," he said simply.
For a moment, the commander just looked at him — as if recalibrating the world back into place.
Kael held the commander's gaze for a long moment.
The battlefield behind them still crackled — distant secondary detonations from the collapsing foundry, sporadic blue fire clearing the last pockets of resistance. LAATs were already cycling down in measured intervals to retrieve wounded, their repulsors kicking up drifting walls of red dust.
But here, in the shadow of a ruined walker, the noise felt muted.
4377 blinked again, awareness returning in pieces.
"…General?" he repeated, voice steadier now but still strained.
Kael studied him — the blood at his jawline, the dust caked into the fine lines of his face, the fracture running across his chest plate.
Then, without announcing it, Kael reached up and disengaged the seals at his own collar.
The beskar helmet lifted free with a soft hiss of released pressure.
The desert air hit his skin immediately — hot, dry, carrying ash and the metallic scent of burnt circuitry. His blond hair, flattened slightly at the crown from hours beneath the helmet, shifted faintly in the rising heat currents. A few strands fell forward, brushing his forehead before he pushed them back absently.
His face was angular and sharp in the harsh light — defined cheekbones streaked faintly with dust, jaw set but no longer hidden behind obsidian glass. His blue eyes were clear despite the smoke and fatigue, steady as they met the commander's.
No visor.
No distortion.
Just a man.
4377's brow furrowed faintly in confusion.
"You left the line?" he asked, trying to shift upright before the medic gently pressed him back down.
Kael's expression didn't change.
"I've lost enough men today," he said quietly.
It wasn't dramatic.
It was a fact.
"And I'm going to need you going forward," he added. "Hard enough fighting this war. I'd rather not do it without someone reliable."
There was no embellishment in his tone. No attempt to inspire.
Just honesty.
Around them, nearby clones paused in their work — some applying bacta patches, others standing guard with rifles still raised — and glanced subtly toward the exchange. Not intruding. Just listening.
Kael's gaze moved from the commander to the troopers around them.
"We'll do better next time," he said, voice carrying enough for the nearby squads to hear. "I'll be better prepared. Smarter about it. We won't lose more good men because I underestimated something."
He looked back at 4377.
"Not after what you all did to get us here."
The wind shifted slightly, carrying a fresh plume of smoke across the ruined field. The foundry behind them groaned as another internal support collapsed inward.
The medic finished sealing a rib brace and nodded. "He shouldn't move much yet, General."
Kael's eyes dropped briefly to the shattered remains of 4377's helmet lying in the sand — the plastoid faceplate cracked clean through, visor completely destroyed.
Exposed.
Vulnerable.
Without comment, Kael extended his own helmet toward the commander.
"Wear this."
4377's eyes widened slightly. "General, I can't—"
"You can," Kael interrupted gently, not harshly. "I can manage."
There was no ceremony in the gesture.
No speech about symbolism.
But every clone within sight understood.
Beskar was not standard issue.
It was personal.
Heritage.
Trust.
4377 hesitated only a moment longer before accepting it. He moved carefully as the medic assisted, lowering the heavier Mandalorian helmet over his head. The fit wasn't perfect, but it sealed.
The dark visor now concealed his features, violet tracer lines faint against the dust-coated black.
For a second, he simply sat there — breathing steady behind the borrowed protection.
Then, through the helmet's external speaker, his voice came clearer.
"…I finally have a name for you to call me."
Kael's brow lifted slightly, curiosity flickering in his blue eyes.
"Oh?" he said. "I'd like to hear it."
A brief pause.
"From now on," the commander said, "call me Talon."
The name settled into the space between them — sharp, precise, earned.
Kael allowed himself the smallest hint of a smile.
"Well then, Commander Talon," he said, rising to his feet and offering a steady hand to help him up once the medics cleared it, "let's get out of here."
In the distance, another LAAT descended to retrieve the wounded.
The battlefield was shifting from destruction to evacuation.
Talon nodded once beneath the beskar helm.
"Yes, General."
The LAAT settled into the sand with a controlled hiss of repulsors.
Dust billowed outward in heavy red waves, briefly obscuring the smoldering battlefield behind it. The gunship's hull bore fresh scoring along its flanks — blackened streaks from near-miss plasma and flecks of shrapnel embedded into its armor plating.
Its side doors were already open.
Clones moved first.
The surviving troopers from the perimeter advance climbed aboard in tight, efficient motion — some stepping under their own power, others half-supported by brothers whose armor was cracked and dust-streaked beyond recognition. Two medics guided a stretcher up the ramp, the wounded trooper secured in mag clamps, chest rising in shallow rhythm beneath a bacta patch that glistened faintly in the harsh light.
There were fewer of them than there had been hours earlier.
Fewer helmets.
Fewer rifles.
More space.
Kael stepped toward the ramp last among those still standing.
He had not reclaimed his helmet.
The desert wind pushed lightly through his ash-blond hair as he mounted the short incline, boots thudding against the LAAT's metal deck. He paused just long enough to look once more toward the ruined foundry — smoke spiraling upward, structural remains collapsing inward in delayed groans.
They had taken it.
And it had cost them.
He stepped inside.
The troop bay was wide but felt smaller than its capacity now — a cavernous metal chamber built to hold thirty armored bodies, its interior lined with fold-down bench seats and reinforced panels. Cables hung from the ceiling in thick, braided lengths, handles swaying slightly in the shifting air from the repulsors. The floor plating bore scuff marks from countless deployments, magnetic clamps embedded along the edges to secure stretchers during turbulent flight.
Clones settled into the side benches without ceremony.
Some removed their helmets for the first time since landing, revealing faces streaked with dust and fatigue. Others kept them on, heads bowed slightly as they steadied their breathing. The medic team secured the injured along the rear section, mag clamps locking with a heavy click as the stretcher was anchored in place.
Talon climbed aboard with assistance but refused the stretcher offered to him, settling against the inner bulkhead instead. The Mandalorian helmet he wore now looked foreign atop clone armor — black against white, violet lines faint beneath dust.
Kael took a position near the side opening just before it sealed.
The blast doors closed in stages, hydraulic seals locking with a deep metallic thud. Light from the desert narrowed into thin slits before vanishing entirely.
The interior dimmed.
Repulsors intensified beneath the hull.
The LAAT lifted.
The sensation was immediate — a subtle drop in the stomach as gravity shifted and the gunship rose into open air. The cabin vibrated in a steady rhythm, the low hum of engines resonating through metal decking and into bone. Cables overhead swayed more aggressively now, handles clinking softly against each other with each micro-adjustment of flight vector.
Through narrow view gaps near the door seams, Kael caught glimpses of the battlefield below.
From above, the destruction looked almost abstract.
Burning walker carcasses cast long shadows across the sand. Black smoke plumes marked where factories had once stood. Scattered flashes of red and blue continued in the distance — smaller now, concentrated further from the initial landing zone as the front lines shifted outward.
The battle had not ended.
It had moved.
Further into the canyon networks.
Deeper into the industrial sprawl.
Distant explosions rippled across the horizon, each bloom of fire a reminder that other Jedi and other clone columns were still fighting through their own pockets of resistance.
The LAAT banked slightly, engines roaring louder as it climbed above the heaviest smoke layer. The interior trembled under the maneuver, and several clones reached instinctively for the overhead handles to steady themselves.
No one spoke loudly.
The energy inside the cabin was different from the descent hours earlier.
Not anticipation.
Aftermath.
A trooper across from Kael stared down at his hands, flexing gloved fingers slowly as if ensuring they still obeyed. Another leaned back against the bulkhead, helmet resting in his lap, eyes closed but not asleep.
Talon sat upright despite the medic's warning, visor angled slightly downward as he observed the cabin. When his gaze met Kael's across the narrow space, he gave a small nod.
Alive.
Kael leaned back against the side wall and allowed himself one measured breath.
Below them, the wreckage field stretched like a scar across Geonosis' surface — red sand marred by blackened metal and fallen armor.
It had taken all of that to destroy a single foundry.
And the war had only just begun.
The LAAT banked again, heading toward the established command center — a cluster of landed Acclamators and reinforced perimeter lines now visible through breaks in the smoke.
Behind them, the distant thunder of artillery continued.
Ahead of them, recovery.
The LAAT descended through thinning smoke and leveled out over the Republic command zone.
From above, it looked less like an organized military position and more like a city forced into existence by war. Acclamator-class assault ships stood in staggered formation across the desert floor, their immense hulls casting long angular shadows across red sand churned into mud by troop movement and repulsor wash. Their ventral ramps were lowered, disgorging fresh squads and receiving the wounded in constant rotation.
LAAT gunships cut through the air in intersecting lanes — some lifting off with infantry reinforcements, others landing in tight windows between artillery repositioning. The sky was no longer empty; it was layered with traffic, engine trails, and distant streaks of fire marking where the battle had shifted deeper into the canyon networks.
The LAAT carrying Kael and his surviving troopers banked sharply and settled into a designated landing corridor near the base of one of the Acclamators.
Repulsors flared.
Dust roared outward.
The side doors unlocked with a mechanical hiss and folded open.
Sound rushed in — shouted orders, the whine of engines, the distant thud of mass-driver cannons still firing in sectors beyond their view.
The survivors disembarked without hesitation.
Stretcher teams moved first, lifting the wounded from magnetic clamps and carrying them toward waiting med units and portable bacta stations. Clone troopers stepped down into the command zone in uneven lines, armor cracked, scorched, and painted red with desert dust.
There were fewer of them than had boarded the assault ships hours earlier.
Kael stepped down onto the sand last.
Without his helmet, the sun struck his face directly — harsh and bright. Sweat had dried into faint salt lines along his temples, and the flattened crown of his blond hair shifted slightly in the command zone's wind currents.
He turned to face the troopers gathering near the LAAT.
"Medical," he said, voice calm but firm. "All of you. No exceptions."
Some hesitated instinctively — discipline pulling them toward rearmament and reassignment.
"You've done more than enough today," Kael continued. "That factory is gone because of you."
The words were simple. No grand speech. No theatrics.
"You've done a tremendous service to the Republic."
Several helmets tilted slightly at that.
He glanced toward the distant horizon where smoke columns still marked active sectors.
"I don't know what comes next," he admitted. "But I hope I'll fight alongside you again."
There was a brief pause.
Then one trooper — still streaked in soot, visor cracked along one edge — straightened.
"It was an honor, General," he said.
Others echoed it, quieter but no less sincere.
"Honor, sir."
"Always, General."
They dispersed toward the medical stations after that — some limping, some steady, all carrying the weight of the day in their posture.
Nearby, medical droids were already assisting Talon.
The Mandalorian helmet sat incongruously atop clone armor as two IM-6 units carefully stabilized him and guided him toward a mobile triage platform. The desert dust had dulled the violet tracer lines, but the helmet still looked foreign among the white ranks.
Kael approached as Talon was eased onto a hovering stretcher.
The commander looked up at him through the dark visor.
Kael allowed himself a faint smile.
"We'll see each other again, Commander," he said.
Talon's posture stiffened slightly despite the brace holding his ribs.
"I imagine," Kael continued, glancing briefly at the sprawling command zone — officers moving between Acclamator ramps, Jedi figures visible in the distance speaking with clone commanders, tactical holotables already being erected in the open sand — "that after this battle, there's going to be a long stretch of assigning commands, reorganizing units, and deciding who goes where."
Another LAAT lifted off nearby, its engines rattling the ground.
"They'll want structure," Kael said. "Order."
His eyes returned to Talon.
"So we may need to be patient."
A beat.
"But rest assured," he added quietly, "I'll ensure you remain my clone commander."
There was no flourish in the promise.
Just certainty.
Talon gave a small nod from the stretcher.
"Of course, General," he replied.
The medical droids adjusted the hover controls and began moving him toward the interior of the Acclamator, where bacta tanks and surgical bays awaited.
Kael watched for a moment longer.
Around him, the command point continued to pulse with motion — troops rushing forward to reinforce distant fronts, officers shouting coordinates, gunships banking toward new objectives. The battle had shifted, not ended.
Geonosis still burned.
But here, in the shadow of the landed assault ships, the first bonds of a war had been forged — not in ceremony, but in dust and fire.
And Kael Vizsla stood at the center of it, bareheaded beneath the desert sun, knowing that this was only the beginning.