General Grievous had found himself in a tough spot. The day had held promise, as he led an attack on the tiny, Republic planet of Hoosthregard, a traitor to the Separatist cause, and an economy that survived on the building of Republic cruisers and battleships. Hoosthregard had been protected intensely by the forces of the Republic, but battles close to the surrounding systems had spread forces thinly. The strategy was simple; distract the Republic by attacking civilian-filled planets and concentrate on crippling the Republic's space force. It would make assaults and defences more difficult and costly for the enemy.

The natives of Hoosthregard are tall, penguin like beings with long legs and four, feathered arms with claws instead of flippers. They are an intelligent, economic people that humans who held talents in business, engineering and motor mechanics would get along well with. However, they certainly were not the warring type. That's what the legions of clone troopers were stationed on their planet for, or rather, whoever they could spare.

The battle began at night, with Grievous's troops approaching the dark side of the planet. It was not long before they were intercepted however, and a space battle began. Grievous held the advantage at first, holding two more battleships than the enemy's fleet of three for the first hour of the assault. One of the Republic ships finally imploded, while another was on the verge of being crippled.

"We have them," General Grievous triumphed, holding a fist up as if he were clutching an enemy in his hands. But he had spoken too soon, four Republic cruisers emerged from hyperspace at both flanks, surrounding Grievous's fleet. His forces on two planets had ultimately been defeated, and the Republic was able to spare their forces to defend Hoosthregard. They unleashed everything they had on Grievous's ship first. They hit a cannon as it was about to shoot, and it imploded, sending a chain reaction of explosions to the ship's main engine. After the General had recovered from the force of the impact almost knocking him off his feet, he called for the retreat. It was too late for his battleship however. While three other Separatist cruisers began to fly away, Grievous's ship and another already heavily damaged ship were being pulverised. There would be no salvaging of this ship. Everyone began to move to the escape pods, whereas Grievous headed to his personal ship in the cargo bay. It was further away, but it held his body guards and proper supplies on board. He felt the battleship shake with destruction as more explosions erupted in the minor engines of the ship. Grievous managed to start up the ship straight away, and he propelled it out of the cargo bay. Just as he exited however, an explosion at the doors of the cargo bay spun Grievous's ship forward and fried his thrusters.

A Jedi knight on board the Republic ship, a human woman by the name of Sahree Pellanor-Jinn, scanned the battle. Sahree was a petite brunette by the age of 28, and she had medium length hair with a fringe that sat just above her eyes. She made up for her short stature by possessing a stocky physique. She spotted Grievous's ship emerge from the cargo bay just as the explosion happened.

"There!" she pointed, notifying clone commander Tazer, "That is the General's ship."

Commander Tazer looked to where she was looking, "I have a visual. Shall we pursue?"

"Heavens yes! His engines appear to be damaged. Do not let him enter hyperspace, push him back and aim whatever weapons you can spare on him to slow him down," Sahree ordered, "have my ship ready in two minutes! I'm going to get this murderer myself."

"Not without me, General Pellanor-Jinn," Tazer announced. Sahree turned and flashed the clone commander an excited grin.

Grievous had trouble figuring out how to get his ship moving after the blast. His right hand thrusters were completely trashed, so he had to quickly learned how to move using the left ones only. His goal was to get out into open space, for his hyperspace drive was still intact. If things couldn't get worse for him, the Republic aimed one of its blasters on the General's ship. Still trying to figure out how to manoeuvre the ship swiftly it its condition, he took heavy damage from two shots from the Republic cruiser. There was no way he was going to get past them. Instead, he headed towards Hoosthregard. He would navigate around its atmosphere to clear airspace on the other side. His actions did not go unnoticed though. Sahree and four clone ships had exited the ship to capture the General.
Grievous noticed them on his behind. His ship's battle droid aimed their lasers on them so he could concentrate on avoiding his attackers. A clone's ship managed to get caught in the crossfire, and blew up. The debris spiralled into another ship, forcing the clone to dodge it into Grievous's fire. The clone's ship was too damaged to continue and was forced to retreat.

They had made it past the last cruiser participating in the battle. Grievous was now flying dangerously close to Hoosthregard's atmosphere. If he flanked left too much, his ship would be powerless against the planet's gravity. The Jedi and her remaining soldiers followed him.

"Careful not to enter the atmosphere boys, we want to stay on his tail," Sahree told the clones. A shot from Grievous's ship forced a clone to move, and he was caught by the atmosphere and began to slow down.

"Sorry ma'am, I'm being pulled in by the gravitational force of Hoosthregard, I'm not going to be able to catch up."

"It's alright, just keep following our position in case the General does the same," Sahree ordered, "it's just you and me now Tazer."

"Yes ma'am, the hunt is afoot!" Tazer said ambitiously.

"Concentrate your fire on his left thrusters. Once we get them we'll slow the bird down," Sahree ordered, "we have approximately six minutes before Grievous enters clear space, so fire like crazy."

"Like crazy? Will do ma'am," Tazer said, and the two of them aimed their fire on Grievous.

Meanwhile in his ship, Grievous felt the pressure begin to weigh on him. There were only two ships behind him, but his ship was nearing the point where entering hyperspace would be suicide. He hoped that his droid would be shooting the ships behind him, forcing them to dodge into the atmosphere. But they had already discovered this tactic with the loss of their third clone ship, and dodged to the right, keeping away from the atmosphere.

Then, something no-one expected happened. A large, metal, piece of space-junk emerged from no-where, and knocked Grievous's ship, destroying what was left of his thrusters and damaged his heat shields. The space-junk flew back to Sahree, and a piece of metal sticking out sliced a chunk of her right wing, and moved onto Tazer's ship, wiping him out completely.

"TAZER!" Sahree called out in despair. But he was gone. Sahree pushed down her sadness for her lost comrade and friend, and directed her focus back on the mission.
With Grievous and Sahree now being forced into the atmosphere, it became not a chase, but a battle for survival. Sahree was spiralling, with no wing to keep her steady. Even in her panic, she was able to spot Grievous's ship a hundred meters below her. It was a flaming ball with pieces of metal sticking out, but the brakes had been put on so it was slowing down, but not enough. Sahree concentrated on her ship. Instead of battling against the spin, she steered into it, and then gradually worked to get it under control. By the time she was under control, she had to prepare for a crash landing. She slowed it down to a safe pace, but she knew her ship was going to take heavy damage from the flora on the ground. She buckled herself in and prepared for impact.

Closer to the ground she came, and closer. She saw Grievous's ship crash violently in her proverbial vision, but she ignored it. Then, touchdown. Her ship rocked and took down multiple trees. It began to roll, tossing Sahree's limbs around, and continued to roll for a good two hundred meters before it came to a stand still.


Author's Notes

This is the first actual story I've submitted to this site. I found myself completely obsessed with General Grievous so I've studied his character on-screen. I think I've done a good with capturing his character well, but that's for you to decide. I had originally wanted to use Shaak-Ti for my protagonist, but the I found myself creating a new character as the story progressed. Fear not, even though she is a woman, there will be no romance in this fan fiction. If I did that, I would be going against my first fan fiction, which was me raving about how people live their fan-girl dreams through fan fiction, which is really annoying and crappy to read. Sorry for any bad grammar, spelling mistakes (that doesn't include Australian spelling) or incorrect star-wars referencing, but there should be NONE because I proof read this thing a dozen times.
The story is set probably in the early days of the Clone Wars. Whether it takes place in the MASSIVE gaps between appearances in the cartoon series, or before the series itself is for you to decide. I hope you don't find Sahree's character a little too bland, but I tried to give her the same sense of humour Obi-Wan Kenobi possesses in the cartoons. I didn't want to make her special or cool in any way. She is a Jedi knight, loyal to the Republic and her Jedi order, but at the same time struggles with restraint, like a lot of Jedi who fight in the Clone Wars do.