An hour earlier, inside Steel City on Dexen Satellite.
Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano led Torrent Company 2 from the front, continuously breaking through toward the city center. Fierce gunfire and explosions rang out all around them, growing more distant by the moment. This showed that the main battlefield was also getting farther and farther away from them.
"Looks like our offensive has been pushed back. We're an isolated force now!" said a soldier from Torrent Company 2.
"The Separatists actually had troops hidden away. That General Kalani is unbelievably patient!" Anakin Skywalker said through gritted teeth.
Indeed, ever since this supposedly sentient Super Tactical Droid had arrived on Onderon and begun directing the Separatists' military command, General Kalani's most prominent quality had not been brilliant command, but patience.
Because of that patience, he had cast a long line and captured the Galactic Republic's internal agents, including Mina Bontri. Because of that patience, he had arranged the Thor Mech ambush and destroyed the Rebel Alliance's main force.
Even after that, he had continued to hold back. Through a policy that appeared strict on the surface but was loose underneath, he had successfully stirred up a wave of popular resistance against the Galactic Republic on Onderon—otherwise, how could anyone still have the chance to go drinking themselves senseless in nightclubs after a robot commander declared martial law?
Otherwise, how could General Akhenaten Tandin's recruitment quota of five hundred thousand have produced only two hundred thousand recruits without him receiving any punishment?
Anakin Skywalker had sensed that something was wrong before, but he had not been able to pinpoint why. It was only after King Ramses Dundrup returned to the throne that he understood the truth.
Afterward, when the Galactic Republic fleet invaded, it was once again General Kalani's patience that allowed