Escape from the Republic military base

After her arrest for the murder of Letta Turmond, Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano managed to effect an escape from the Republic military base where she was being held.
==Prelude==
After the bombing of the Jedi Temple killing several Jedi, clone troopers, and Temple workers, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan Ahsoka Tano discovered that Letta Turmond, the wife of a Temple worker by the name of Jackar Bowmani, had fed her husband nano-droids which then exploded when Bowmani was working inside the Temple. The Jedi placed Turmond under arrest and she was later transferred to the custody of the military at the request of Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine. While being held at the Republic military base, Turmond asked to see Padawan Tano.
Suspicious of her motives, Padawan Tano sought to personally interrogate the prisoner in order to better understand the reasoning behind the murder of her Jedi compatriots. Turmond revealed that she had been approached by another Jedi, disillusioned with the Jedi Order, who had asked her to give the nano-droids to Bowmani. However, before Turmond could reveal that Jedi to be Barriss Offee she was Force choked by Offee who had hidden herself and thereby framed Tano for Turmond's murder. Clone Commander Fox of the Coruscant Guard, seeing the chocking Turmond on the monitor screen, rushed in with two other troopers and placed a confused Tano under arrest on suspicion of murder. After reviewing the footage which had no audio, but appeared to show Tano chocking Turmond; Admiral Wilhuff Tarkin believed Tano to be guilty, given that she was displeased with Turmond being placed under military jurisdiction. Tarkin then restricted visitors, especially to Skywalker, who was forced to leave when he demanded to be let through.
==The escape==
After a brief stay in a cell, Tano noticed a security access card sitting on the floor just beyond the force field barring the door. Assuming it had been planted by her master, she levitated the card with the Force and used it to escape her cell. Proceeding through the corridors, Tano came upon lightsabers and comlink—amidst several unconscious troopers. As she was answering her beeping comlink, Commander Fox entered the security observation room and seeing Tano among the unconscious clones, immediately assumed she was the guilty party and sounded the alarm. Instead of staying to face Fox, Tano ran, trying to escape the facility. After evading several clone patrols, Tano found three dead clones, killed by a lightsaber. A chase through the facility ensued, with orders given by Fox to shoot to kill, until the arrival and intercession of Anakin Skywalker and Clone Captain Rex at which point the troops were ordered to only fire stun blasts and capture Tano alive.
All clone shock troopers were placed on alert throughout the base and the hunt continued into the landing area outside the base and past the memorial. It was there that the shock troopers spotted Tano and gave chase with increasing numbers of troopers and LAAT/i craft pursuing her. During the chase, as she deflected stun bolts, one clone fired a rocket launcher, knocking her off her feet. As she dropped her lightsabers, Tano retrieved one before continuing to run. Eventually, Tano found herself cornered, but was once more able to escape by cutting into a nearby piping system. She managed to evade the troopers before finding herself at the end of the pipe leading to a sinkhole towards the Coruscant Underworld. Skywalker managed to find her and pleaded with her to come back, saying that escaping would only make things worse. However, Tano refused to be punished for crimes she did not commit and pleaded him to trust her as she trusted him while she was searching for proof of her innocence. As Rex and Fox caught up to Skywalker, Tano jumped onto a transport descending into the underworld.
==Aftermath==
In response to the escape, the Jedi High Council ordered Tano's arrest, assigning Skywalker and Jedi Master Plo Koon to the task. Eventually, Tano was recaptured after a disguised Barriss Offee lured her into a trap, and taken back to the Jedi Temple.
As the Council debated on Tano's fate, Tarkin requested to them—on behalf of the Galactic Senate—that Tano be expelled from the Jedi Order and returned to military custody to be put to a military tribunal. Though not in total agreement, the Council decided to do as the Senate asked, expelling Tano and handing her back to the Republic military prison. Tano was subsequently put on trial before members of the Senate, with Tarkin serving as the prosecution and Senator Padmé Amidala serving as the defense. However, before the jury could render its decision, Skywalker, who had conducted his own investigation, burst into the room with Offee. She finally confessed her crimes, thereby acquitting Tano and leading Offee to be imprisoned in her place. However, Tano chose not to rejoin the Jedi Order when offered readmission, as her faith in the Order was shaken due to their disbelief in her innocence.
==Appearances==
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==Sources==
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*Star Wars: Timelines
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==Notes and references==
Category:Battles of Coruscant