Jack felt the Force move through his body while he started meditation. He felt the clones around him feeling nervous.
They were ready to fight but at the same time some of them felt worried, and others even feared the upcoming confrontation. Not that they were not ready but because the odds were against them.
It was only the start of the war and confidence in their own ability was only just at that point.
The only harbor of calmness around seemed to be Obi-Wan who felt like an anchor in those wast tides of emotions.
Meditating in such a situation felt like swimming in an ocean. Many waves constantly trying to submerge Jack underneath the water surface.
And if he did not put enough effort into staying afloat, he felt that the deep darkness beneath the waves, down at the bottom of the ocean, would at some point pull him down and swallow him whole.
Just as easily as breathing. He would not die, that is what he was sure of, but he felt it would still be not an option he would choose to go for. At least not until he knew the outcome.
But to prepare himself and enable a greater chance of winning to his fellow soldiers it was a necessity. He didn't like to put everything into the hands of fate and all the outcome on chance.
So he slowly calmed himself and started to spread his senses more.
Soon he could feel the clones nearby along with himself swimming in that ocean increasing in presence and when he reached out to them all, a small thread of energy started to connect each and every one of them like a network.
All the emotions of worry, adrenaline, and restlessness started to assault Jack and hammer at his mental fortitude. It even broke his concentration somewhat and he started frowning a little.
But when he also seemed to connect to the calmness that was Obi-Wan, everyone seemed to get affected by it and all went back to become a calm pool of water. only small manageable waves swinging them up and down on the surface.
With the emotions being in order, it brought a relieved sigh out of his mouth and he opened his eyes after having boosted the morale of the soldiers.
"Battle Meditation? That is a rare ability you possess there." Obi-Wan already noticed Jack's try to connect with everyone and already had positioned himself near him and placed a hand on his shoulder, helping him in keeping everyone calm.
Jack himself only noticed this now and nodded after looking to the side towards Kenobi. "It is actually my first time performing it on such a large scale. Looks like it is harder than I thought. Without your help, it would have been a little bit overwhelming, to tell the truth."
"Hmm, don't mitigate your merit. It is still a good thing to have calmed down our men. We can use everything we can gain as an advantage here. Sadly, we can't affect the enemy since they are mostly droids. Let's move and position ourselves now."
Jack agreed with positioning himself behind some rubble near the urban area that is positioned between their artillery encampment and the droid army that was approaching to destroy those support weapons.
Looking at his energy reserves, Jack could see that he used quite a bit of juice performing that technique. For all the training he did, it was hard to enlarge his energy pool without investing levels into his attributes.
At his current progress, that is him mainly focusing on his martial prowess and force theory, he had enough energy to perform most rudimentary Force abilities.
For example, things like Force enhancements on the body could be kept up for a few hours, but if coupled with increasing exhaustion and use of further force abilities, it would become rather hard to keep a level of endurance.
In actuality, it was basically what his focus on martial arts was for in the first place. But you can only do so much against an army without the Force helping out.
With that being said, Jack ignited his two lightsabers after Obi-Wan gave the clear to engage them after the shield passed their position.
Together with his new mentor he Force jumped from an elevated point from one of the rubble covers near the highway that the droid army used. Both fell straight into the middle of the mentioned army of clankers.
The tactic used by him was also just like Kenobi's. He also aimed and landed on the heavier-equipped B2 series. Also known as super battle droids.
Those packed a much higher punch with their wrist implemented blasters. And because of that, their dispatch was also more urgent.
Obi-Wan looked at him while both of them sliced through B1 droids like farming wheat. "I don't recall having given you the order to jump in with me?"
"What are you talking about, master? You clearly stated to engage the enemy." Jack answered back while blocking blaster fires and destroying more of the B1's with a whirling dance of his saber flurry.
But it did surprise Jack a little bit that he would receive such a scolding in such a moment.
"Go back to the others! Concentrate on helping out the troops. You are not ready for the frontlines yet.", yelled Obi-Wan now since their spacing got larger from each other.
Just when Obi-Wan said that Jack kinda felt annoyed by that and used the Force to grab hold of the octuptarra tri-droid that approached them and crushed all three cannons that it used.
That resulted in an uncontrolled discharge of its energy without a way to escape, resulting in an explosion from inside it. When the behemoth fell it crushed two Armored Assault Tanks underneath it.
"Very well, master...I will make sure that the others are safe, then." With that remark made and a big grin on his face, Jack made some space for himself by cutting any droid down that stood in his way and made his way towards the edge of the highway.
There he jumped down toward another pathway underneath the main one and helped out the landing troopers that were joining in on the front lines but getting pushed hard.
They were pushed back so much that they had to retreat because of the separatist tanks getting closer by the second. But before that happened Jack landed on top of one of the tanks that was closest to the soldiers and ripped the lid from its top only to look at two droids looking back at him.
"Oh, no! - WAA!" The next sound was the crisp shizzle of electronics being cut with a lightsaber.
Jumping inside Jack took over control over the tank and moved the cannon towards another AAT.
"Hey, you are aiming at the wrong position..." mechanical voices from the droids tried to use their communications to tell him he was doing something wrong. That of course was only a waste of time.
Jack could only sigh. These droids were really dumb cannon fodder. But they were still a bunch of beautiful EXP for him. Just destroying some of them already got him a level up. So he wasted no more time and used the main gun to attack the other AAT's.
The explosions getting rid of more droids was just a plus.
At the same time, he used his own wrist communicator to get hold of Rex that was taking cover not far away. "Captain Rex, come in. I am going to take some of the big guys out and then park this thing in their way so they got it harder to pursue us. Try to get rid of as many droids on the ground as possible."
"You are!? Where is the Commander!?" Rex was surprised that he got a communication.
"He is on the higher highway taking care of the main force. Keep your men safe...Oh crap...!" After blasting another AAT the droids started seeing him as an enemy and he had to bail out of the Tank.
As fast as possible he managed to evacuate that metal sarcophagus before it got bombarded by rockets.
Landing on the ground where he started receiving blaster shots from the droids he started to fall back slowly. "That was a close one..."
Good thing was that the clones behind him started to give him supportive fire now. For a while, they even managed to fortify the position and got to keep up long enough for most troops to retreat safely behind cover.
That was until 4 droidekas rolled out and placed themselves in front of Jack and battered him with a massive amount of rapid-fire while also pushing forward against him with the B1 droids. The fact that the portable shields of those things withstood deflected shots just annoyed Jack.
He wondered how Jedi could not deal with those dumb droids easily but now he knew the amount of fire was no joke. There was nearly no real window to use the Force without getting shot to smithereens.
But he still managed to pull a large metal plate from a destroyed AAT with the Force and used it as a shield in front of himself.
The only solution, for now, was genuinely to retreat. The sheer numbers of clankers started to accumulate.
"Everyone, retreat!" Rex shouted near him and then looked forward around the metal shield and gave a few shots from his blaster against a few droids that tried to get around that protection.
"Go, captain. I can hold it up for a little.", suggested jack to Rex while being busy deflecting some blasts with his left hand still holding one of his sabers.
"I can't leave you like that! I am the commanding officer here!"
"I said leave! I can run a lot faster than you guys! So make sure you are safe first!" Jack was not going to argue about shit like that and raised his voice. Really, his first battle was really now how he imagined it to be. Go figure.
When he felt that the troops were far enough back he used some of his energy and let some pillars from a few constructs nearby crumble and fall on the street before using Force Speed to run the hell out of there.
Later Jack and Rex fought their way back to Obi-Wan. But the outcome of the battle was really not going well. It seemed already pretty much decided in favor of the separatists.
"We took considerable losses, general. If we keep this up we are going to get run down."
"You both fall back to the artillery encampment and keep them safe. They can not get our main guns. I will keep the droids here."
"But general..." Rex tried to reason that it was basically a suicide mission.
"That is an order, Captain. You as well, Padawan."
Jack had not said anything and wondered how his future would really look like from here onward. With so many make-or-break situations upcoming he questioned if he would still remain sane with Obi-Wan as his commanding officer and mentor.
Just when he was in that state he felt danger and abruptly pierced a B2 droid with his lightsaber that tried to sneak attack them. Seeing it fall unmoving to the side he only nodded to Obi-Wan. "Understood, Master Kenobi."
Jack pulled Rex with him and retreated further back with the troops to entrench themselves in front of the artillery. He knew very much that Obi-Wan only gave that order to keep the soldiers that still remained safe even if it meant to sacrifice himself.
It all really depended on Anakin and Ahsoka right now. They are really taking their time, aren't they?