Chapter One: The Battle of Coruscant

The space immediately surrounding the Core World of Coruscant was filled with lasers and ships. The capital ships of the Galactic Republic, Venator-class Star Destroyers, were shooting relentlessly at the Lucrehulk-class battleships, Munificent-class frigates, and Providence-class destroyers of the Separatist Alliance. ARC-170 starfighters, piloted by the Clone Army of the Republic, were chasing and being chased by Separatist tri-fighters and vulture droids. It was a scene of absolute chaos as Republic ships were scrambling to capture one ship and one ship only. The Invisible Hand, wherein two Jedi Masters and the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic were being held by General Grievous.

This ship was also the target of three Eta-2 Actis-class starfighters, each carrying an experienced member of the Jedi Order and their trusty astromechs. These Jedi had been tasked with rescuing the Chancellor and the Jedi Masters, and they were the best for the job. The galaxy watched with bated breath as the Battle of Coruscant unfolded, confident in the skills of the three Jedi tasked with rescuing the hostages.

These three Jedi were Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, and the Doctor.

The Doctor flew his deep blue starfighter around countless droid and Republic fighters, taking in the sheer number of ships and marveling that all of them had come to either protect or capture one man. The Chancellor. He was the Republic's lifeline in this war. Without him, it would barely function. The Senate had voted him so many emergency powers already that he may as well have been an emperor by the time he was kidnapped by General Grievous.

Regardless of the Doctor's feelings on the amount of power Chancellor Palpatine had, he had a duty to the Republic. He would do his best to protect their leader and retake him from the clutches of the Separatists.

The Doctor's astromech droid, R3-K9, trilled at him, giving him a readout on his fighter's Heads Up Display.

"Nice work, R3," said the Doctor. "Gentlemen, if you look directly ahead of you, you'll see the Invisible Hand, flagship of General Grievous."

"The one crawling with vulture droids?" asked Anakin.

"Yup," said the Doctor, popping the "p."

"I see it," said Obi-Wan. "Oh, this will be easy."

"Your sarcasm is very evident, Obi-Wan," joked the Doctor.

"Really? Didn't notice," said Obi-Wan. "I was concentrating too much on the vulture droids."

The vulture droids in question had left Grievous's ship, being deployed as reinforcements to the droids' dwindling fighter count. Behind the Jedi fighters, the Doctor could hear a squad of ARC-170s swoop in right behind them.

"Is that you, Oddball?" asked the Doctor.

"I copy, Blue Leader," came the voice of Oddball, a clone pilot.

"Oh, good! Lovely!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Form your squad up behind me and the boys here, would you?"

"We're right with you, Doctor," said Oddball. "Lock S-foils in attack position."

The Eta-2s and the ARC-170s did so, and the entire squad flew right into the flight path of the vulture droids coming to meet them.

"This is where we get to have some fun, isn't it, Doctor?" asked Anakin, excitement and glee in his voice.

"Oh, yeah!" shouted the Doctor, just as excited as Anakin.

"Let the vulture droids pass through our formation," said Obi-Wan, always remaining calm in the face of danger.

What happened next was complete and utter chaos. The Doctor weaved through the droid fighters, careful not to hit any of them or their lasers as they fired at the Jedi and the clones. The Republic fighters shot back, but, for some of them, the droids numbered too many. Quite a few clone fighters were shot down by the onslaught of lasers with which the droids fought. The Doctor felt a pang of sadness for each and every one of them.

When they had passed through the vulture droids, another problem emerged. Droid tri-fighters had picked them up and were firing relentlessly at the clones and Jedi. The Jedi were quick enough to avoid the lasers, their fighters not even suffering a scratch. The clones, unfortunately, were not so lucky.

"They're all over me!" shouted a pilot to his brothers. "Get them o-" The pilot's cry for help was silenced by static, and he became another casualty in this long and brutal war. The Doctor had seen a lot of that during the Clone War, and it never got any easier for him. The deaths of his men and those around him were hard things to take in, even though he knew that they were joining with the Force.

"I'm going to go help them out," said Anakin, who was apparently as perturbed as the Doctor was about the deaths of the clones.

"No," said Obi-Wan. "They are doing their job so that we can do ours." Even though Obi-Wan was leaving the clones to fend off against the droids, the Doctor knew that, deep down, the Jedi Master was affected, too, by their deaths.

The Doctor's focus was drawn to some vulture droids who had moved into their flight path and were seemingly on a collision course with them. Two of the lead droids made miniscule movements at the front tips of their wings. Four bursts of blue smoke from both fighters told the Doctor exactly what they were doing and what they had planned for them.

"Missiles!" he called. "PULL UP!" The three fighters just barely managed to swerve out of the way as the missiles streaked across the space that they had once occupied.

"They overshot," said Obi-Wan.

"Yeah, but they're coming around," reported Anakin grimly.

Sure enough, the Doctor looked back, and he saw eight missiles looping around towards the Jedi fighters.

"Split up!" ordered the Doctor. "We can divide and conquer."

"Good idea, Doctor," said Obi-Wan. The Doctor banked a hard left, taking three of the missiles off Anakin and Obi-Wan. They had a lock on him and were steadily gaining.

The Doctor quickly calculated that at the rate they were gaining, the missiles would impact in twenty-six point four-five seconds if he didn't think of a plan. He had plenty of time, then. In fact, he already had a plan in motion.

"R3!" he called after only a few milliseconds of thought. The droid responded immediately. "We don't happen to have a spare parts canister like on the Delta-7s, do we?"

R3 trilled affirmatively.

"Fantastic!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Jettison them for me, would you?"

The moment he said it, the Doctor's Eta-2 released its spare parts canister into the path of the missiles. Their targeting computers took the bait, and the Doctor soon felt and heard three explosions behind him. R3 shrieked happily as the Doctor went to rejoin Anakin and Obi-Wan.

The young Jedi Knight had already gotten rid of his missiles, but his former Master was having a bit more trouble. Obi-Wan tried to shake them off, but he was simply unable to, not being as well-versed in starfighters as his companions. The Doctor was about to shoot the missiles from behind when they suddenly sped up in front of Obi-Wan, having locked onto another target. The Doctor looked ahead and saw several dozen buzz droids, annoying little buggers that knew exactly how to disable anything mechanical, deploying from a few droid tri-fighters. The tri-fighters quickly got out of the way as the buzz droids impacted with Obi-Wan's fighter and started hacking away.

"Anakin! Doctor!" cried Obi-Wan. "I'm hit!"

"I see them!" said Anakin. "You've got buzz droids!"

"Yes, I am aware," said Obi-Wan sarcastically.

The Doctor watched as, in seconds, the buzz droids had cut through the outer plating of Obi-Wan's Eta-2 and had begun to slice into the controls. One of the buzz droids even got to his astromech, R4-P17. By the time Obi-Wan had warned the droid, it was too late. R4's domed head had come completely off, and the droid was no more. The Doctor could have sworn he heard R3-K9 gulp, or at least perform the droid equivalent.

"Oh, dear!" cried Obi-Wan. "The buzz droids are shutting down all my controls!" The Doctor could see that this was true. ALready, Obi-Wan's starfighter was flying a bit lopsided as the buzz droids went to work. He would hate to see the poor fighter after they were finished with it.

"Move to the right! I can't get a clear shot!" said Anakin. The Doctor could see what he was planning, and he knew instantly that it was suicide. Obi-Wan apparently thought the same as the Doctor.

"What?!" he cried out. "No! Anakin, you and the Doctor have a mission! You need to get to the command ship and get the Chancellor and Masters Ti and Allie!" But Anakin wasn't listening. Instead, he had begun firing at Obi-Wan's fighter, hoping to take out the buzz droids. He did hit most of them, but he also shot off the port S-foil. Obi-Wan's fighter rocked from side to side as his fighter fought to try and stabilize itself.

"In the name of the Force, Anakin!" cursed Obi-Wan.

"Anakin, hold your fire!" ordered the Doctor.

"I agree, Doctor," panted Anakin, shocked that he had almost killed his best friend. "That was a very bad idea." The fighters continued on, the Doctor and Anakin both working out new ways to get to Grievous's ship and save Obi-Wan at the same time.

An explosion sounded off just past the fighters, and Obi-Wan's cockpit started to fog, the heat of the explosion impacting against the cold glass of the Eta-2's outer cockpit. A few buzz droids were knocked off the fighter by the intense wind with which the fog was brought about, but there were still a few who kept working. They didn't care about the cold because it didn't slow them down. They only cared about their objective, which, at this point, was destroying Obi-Wan Kenobi.

"I can't see a thing," said Obi-Wan. Anakin, having apparently formulated a plan, accelerated towards Obi-Wan's fighter, unlocking his S-foils in the process.

"Anakin, what are you doing?" asked the Doctor, wary of the plan, which seemed to be just like Anakin's other plans; reckless and dangerous. Then again, some of the Doctor's own plans were reckless and dangerous, as he recalled.

"It's okay, Doctor. I've got this," assured Anakin. The Knight then proceeded to ram his wing up against Obi-Wan's fighter, destroying a few buzz droids and knocking off a few more.

"Hold on, Anakin," said Obi-Wan, scared by the plan his best friend had come up with. "You're going to get us both killed."

"No, it's okay," said Anakin. "I know what I'm doing."

"I beg to differ," countered the Doctor. "Although Obi-Wan's fighter does to be in need of more scratching, it seems," he added cheekily.

"Doctor, please don't encourage him. Anakin, you need to get out of here!" ordered Obi-Wan. "There's nothing more you can do!"

"We're not boarding the Invisible Hand without you, Obi-Wan," said Anakin seriously as he moved to side-ram Obi-Wan's fighter again. The Doctor saw that all but one of the buzz droids had been crushed to death by the attack. This one buzz droid hopped over from Obi-Wan's starfighter to Anakin's starfighter. It crawled over the cockpit and faced down Anakin's loyal astromech droid, R2-D2, with its whirring buzzsaw. R2 responded by drawing an electric probe from the top of his head.

"Get him, R2!" encouraged Anakin. The buzz droid moved forward, but was pushed back by a shock from R2. The buzz droid threatened R2 with another instrument, but the brave astromech was not fazed in the slightest. The Doctor then thought of something that would definitely help his astute little friend. He had just remembered a little known fact about the circuitry of buzz droids that he had come across during the course of the war.

"R2!" called the Doctor as he watched the duel of the droids ensue. "Lock on to the droid's center eye!"

R2 beeped affirmatively, and soon electrocuted the buzz droid in its center eye. It convulsed for a moment, then flopped over, dead. The buzz droid's carcass flew off Anakin's starfighter, unable to hold on to it any longer.

"Yeah! Nice job!" shouted Anakin.

"Great work, R2!" called Obi-Wan.

"Brilliant job!" said the Doctor.

Now that the issue with the buzz droids was resolved, the Doctor and his companions could now focus on more important issues, like the fact that they were closing on General Grievous's flagship. They were so close to getting to the Chancellor and the Jedi. They just needed to avoid the multitude of lasers coming from the ship and somehow manage to take out the shield in about a few seconds time. No big deal, the Doctor figured.

"Boys, we're closing on Grievous's ship," reported the Doctor.

"Doctor, I do believe the shields to the hangar bay are still up," said Obi-Wan.

"I'll take care of that, Obi-Wan," said Anakin confidently as he fired on the generator holding the shields intact. After a few shots, the shield generator short-circuited and exploded, deactivating the hangar shields. Almost immediately, the Invisible Hand's computer system recalibrated for the sudden loss in pressure. The Doctor felt a wave of dread wash over Obi-Wan as a blast door extended out from one side of the hangar and threatened to shut the hangar on the Jedi completely.

"Oh, I have a very bad feeling about this," said Obi-Wan as the three Eta-2s hit maximum speed and rushed into the hangar at the very last second. The Doctor and Anakin both made it inside just as the hangar blast door closed completely. The battle droids that hadn't gotten sucked out into space were steadily trying to get back on their feet. As they did so, they didn't notice the Jedi fighters skidding towards them. The Doctor definitely hit at least three before he jumped out of his starfighter and joined Obi-Wan in cutting apart some of the others.

"Blast them!" called one of the droids as the Doctor, Obi-Wan, and Anakin mercilessly cut them down and sent their blaster bolts redirecting right into them. The two remaining astromechs, R2 and R3, had deployed from their respective starfighters and were wheeling in between the laser bolts, ignored completely by the battle droids, who were focusing more on the Jedi than the astromechs.

"Locate the Chancellor and the Jedi, you two!" ordered the Doctor. The astromechs began immediately searching the database in the ship's computer for the most recently-captured prisoners and their locations while the Jedi finished off the battle droids. Their collective four lightsabers formed an impenetrable defense that easily defeated the weak offensive put up by the battle droids in seconds.

As the last of the droids collapsed in a heap, R2 and R3 each displayed a hologram of the Invisible Hand with red lines going through the ship and stopping at separate points.

"Looks like the Chancellor has been taken to the observation platform here," said Obi-Wan, pointing to the topmost spire of the ship.

"The Jedi Masters have been taken down to the holding cells in the lower levels of the ship," observed the Doctor.

"How do you know they haven't been executed already?" asked Anakin.

"I know Grievous," answered the Doctor. "He's just captured two Jedi Masters of the High Council. He'll want to make a show of their executions, and that will only come after he escapes. Remember Master Koth?" During the second year of Clone Wars, General Grievous had gotten his hands on Jedi Master Eeth Koth, who was a Council member at the time, but had since retired and been replaced by fellow Zabrak Agen Kolar. He personally contacted the Jedi Temple to show off his capture of Master Koth, and he would likely do the same with Stass and Shaak Ti's execution if the Doctor didn't rescue them first.

"Sounds logical," concurred Obi-Wan. "We'll split up, then?"

"That looks to be the plan," agreed the Doctor.

"I sense Count Dooku," warned Anakin. The Doctor had picked up the Sith Lord's arrogant demeanor when he landed in the hangar bay almost instantly. Anakin was right. Count Dooku was on board this ship, no doubt waiting to strike at anyone who went to rescue Chancellor Palpatine.

"I can sense a trap," said Obi-Wan, who seemed to be following the Doctor's logic.

"What's our next move?" asked Anakin.

"Spring the trap, of course," said Obi-Wan with a smirk.

R2 and R3 beeped and trilled, respectively, waiting for orders from their Jedi commanders.

"I need you to stay with the fighters, R2," said Anakin.

"You, too, R3," said the Doctor. "Take this, and await my command." The Doctor threw a comlink to R3, who caught it with an extendable arm-like device on his chest.

"Here's a comlink for you, R2," said Obi-Wan, throwing one to R2 as well. "We'll contact you for further instructions."

R2 and R3 both beeped affirmatively, patiently awaiting their orders as the Jedi made their way to their respective captives. Their paths were side-by-side for quite a few hallways until they reached a series of elevators. Knowing that he would have to go down, the Doctor went to bid farewell to his companions, who would be going up.

"Well, I suppose this is where we go our separate ways," said the Doctor.

"Indeed it is," said Obi-Wan, who, smiling, added, "May the Force be with you, Doctor."

"May the Force be with you," said Anakin, also wishing the Doctor the best on his journey.

"And to you both," said the Doctor as he pushed the down button on the elevator.

When it came, he stepped into the empty car, closed the doors, and was soon off to rescue Stass Allie and Shaak Ti by himself.


Hello again! For those of you who have been reading the story so far, welcome back! If this is your first time reading one of my stories, welcome! This is, obviously, the first chapter of Star Wars (Starring the Doctor) Episode III: Revenge of the Sith! I hope you enjoyed it! I certainly had a blast writing it!

As per my newly-accepted usual, the next chapter will go up next Friday. Until then, please feel free to leave a review telling me what you think of the story so far!

It feels like forever since I last posted, even though it's only been a week. It's probably because I've had very long days with an unacceptably low amount of sleep in between. This weekend will certainly give me some much-needed R&R in preparation for next week, which I'm sure will be just as crazy as this past week.

Since I've gotten into a habit of talking about new Doctor Who episodes, I figured I might as well continue that trend by talking about Episode 3 (not to be confused with Episode III) to kick off the first full chapter of Episode III (not to be confused with Episode 3). Personally, I loved this episode. I like the fact that there's something even the seemingly all-knowing Doctor doesn't know exists or doesn't believe in, namely Robin Hood. The fact that Robin Hood is one of the central characters of that episode is a really neat character-building device for the Twelfth Doctor. I especially like the scene at the end of the episode wherein Robin Hood and the Doctor are talking about legends and how Robin Hood will become so much of one that he doesn't seem real, even to a time traveler like the Doctor. And the Doctor is the same way. He's lived so long and done so much that he himself has become a legend in the manner of Robin Hood. The moment that he realizes that is my second-favorite part of the episode.

My favorite part: The scene in the beginning of the episode where the Twelfth Doctor fights Robin Hood in a sword duel with a spoon. That was just awesome. No other words can describe it.

And Clara is adorable. As always. And I'm still really sad that she's leaving after Series 8. On the bright side, at least I like Danny Pink. Hopefully, we'll see more of him in Episode 4 (not to be confused with Episode IV because he's nowhere in there).

Anyway, that about does it for this author's note. Until the next chapter, my friends!