Chapter 36: Battle for Coruscant
It had been a few days since Buffy told the Council about the prophecy. She sat with her fellow Masters in the Council chambers only half listening to the business being discussed as she kept thinking back to the lines of the prophecy she had not told the Council about the dark times, the Sith ruling the galaxy, and her daughter. She was startled out of her thoughts when she heard someone say her name.
"Master Naberrie, Master Kenobi and Jedi Anakin Skywalker will go to retrieve the Chancellor from General Grievous ship." Mace said.
Buffy stood and walked next to Obi-Wan, "Before we leave, Masters. I have a request. I would like to move Dawn out of mine and her apartment and in to Padme's in the Senate Complex. The apartments here at the temple are not conducive to the rest a pregnant woman needs."
Yoda looked around at the fellow Masters, all of whom nodded in agreement to the request. "A wise suggestion you make. Agree with you we do. Allow her to stay with Senator Amidala for the rest of her pregnancy we will."
Buffy bowed. "Thank you, Masters," she said as she turned and followed Obi-Wan and Anakin out of the Council chambers.
An hour later they were flying above Coruscant towards Grievous' ship with all guns blazing.
Antifighter flak flashed on all sides. "Arfour," Obi-Wan said on internal comm, "can't you do something with the inertials?"
Obi-Wan's cockpit speakers crackled. "There isn't a droid made that can outfly you, Master."
"Sorry," Obi-Wan muttered, kicking into a dive that slipped a turbo-laser burst by no more than a meter. "Was that out loud?"
"Wouldn't matter if it wasn't. I know what you're thinking." Anakin said.
"Do you?" Obi-Wan looked up through the cockpit canopy to find his onetime Padawan flying inverted, mirroring him closely. He smiled up at Anakin. "Some new gift of the Force?"
"Not the Force, Master. Experience. That's what you're always thinking." Anakin replied.
Buffy laughed. "If I didn't know any better I would have thought you two were siblings instead of Master and former Padawan. You two act much like Dawn and I, do. Don't get me wrong that's a good thing. It just means that you two care for each other is all."
Obi-Wan looked over towards Buffy's fighter and nodded. "You're probably right. I tend to think of Anakin as a brother sometimes."
Dead ahead, a blue-white point of light splintered into four laser-straight trails of ion drives. "And what does experience tell you we should do about those incoming tri-fighters?" Obi-Wan asked.
"That we should break-right!" Anakin replied. "And Master Naberrie should dive to avoid being hit by us."
Buffy was already making that exact move as Anakin spoke. She dove underneath Obi-Wan as he banked right. But Anakin and Obi-Wan were inverted to each other: breaking right shot him one way while Anakin whipped the other. The tri-fighters' cannons ripped space between the three of them, tracking faster than their starfighters could slip.
Obi-Wan's onboard threat display chimed a warning: two out of six of the droids had remote sensor locks on him. The others must have lit up his partners. "Anakin! Buffy! Slip-jaws!"
"My thought exactly." Anakin said.
They blew past the tri-fighters, looping in evasive spirals. The droid ships wrenched themselves into pursuit maneuvers that would have killed any living pilot.
The Force nudged hands on control yokes and the Jedi starfighters twisted and flashed past each other, close enough to scorch each other's paint. And the electronic reflexes of the tri-fighters' droid brains were too slow for this: one of each of the pursuers crashed into each other, vanishing in a blossom of flame.
The shock wave of debris and expanding gas rocked Buffy; she fought the control yoke, barely keeping her starfighter out of a tumble that would have smeared her across the cruiser's ventral hull.
"Are you okay, sis?" Anakin asked.
"I'm fine," Buffy replied.
"Oh, marvelous," Obi-Wan muttered under his breath. Anakin and Buffy's surviving pursuers had switched targets. "Why is it always me?"
"Perfect." Anakin's voice carried grim satisfaction. "All three of them are on your tail."
"Perfect is not the word I'd use." Obi-Wan twisted his yoke, juking madly as space around him flared scarlet. "We have to split them up!"
"Break left." Anakin sounded calm as a stone. "The turbolaser tower off your port bow: thread its guns. Buffy and I will take things from there."
"Easy for you to say." Obi-Wan whipped sideways along the cruiser's superstructure. "Why am I always the bait?"
Buffy fell in beside Anakin's fighter, "Anakin take the one on the left I got the one on the right. Once their gone we'll come back for the one in the middle."
"Gotcha, Buffy." Anakin flashed a smile at his surrogate sister. "Artoo, lock on."
Obi-Wan spun his starfighter between the recoiling turbo-cannons close enough that energy-scatter made his cockpit clang like a gong, but still cannonfire flashed past him from the tri-fighters behind. "Anakin, Buffy, they're all over me!"
"Dead ahead. Prepare to dive to clear our shot. Now!" Anakin said
Obi-Wan flared his jets and the starfighter kicked into a dive. Two of the tri-fighters behind him decided it couldn't follow and went for a ventral slip that took them directly into the blasts from Anakin and Buffy's cannons.
They vanished in a boil of superheated gas.
"Good shooting, Artoo." Anakin's dry chuckle in the cockpit's speakers vanished behind the clang of lasers blasting ablative shielding off Obi-Wan's left wing.
"I'm running out of tricks here-" Obi-Wan said.
Clearing the vast Republic cruiser put Obi-Wan on course for the curving hull of one of the Trade Federation's battleships; space between the two capital ships blazed with turbolaser exchanges. Some of those flashing energy blasts were as big around as his entire ship; the merest graze would blow him to atoms.
Buffy couldn't fire on it without hitting either Obi-Wan or Anakin. "I can't get a shot without risking hitting either of you two."
The tri-fighter was under no similiar restraint.
Obi-Wan flew through a storm of scarlet needles. "No wonder we're losing the war," he muttered. "They're getting smarter."
"What was that, Master? I didn't copy." Anakin replied.
Obi-Wan kicked his starfighter into a tight spiral toward the Federation cruiser. "I'm taking the deck!"
Anakin nodded, "Good idea. I need some room to maneuver."
Cannonfire tracked closer. Obi-Wan's cockpit speakers buzzed. "Cut right, Obi-Wan! Hard right! Don't let him get a handle on you! Artoo, lock on!"
Buffy nodded, "Arfive, lock on," she commanded. Buffy reached out into the Force using it to guide her.
Obi-Wan's starfighter streaked along the curve of the Separatist cruiser's dorsal hull. Antifighter flak burst on all sides as the cruiser's guns tried to pick him up. He rolled a right wingover into the service trench that stretched the length of the cruiser's hull. This low and close to the deck, the cruiser's antifighter guns couldn't depress their angle of fire enough to get a shot, but the tri-fighter stayed right on his tail.
"I have the lock!" Buffy said. "Go! Firing-now!"
Obi-Wan hit maximum drag on his intact wing, and his starfighter shot into a barely controlled arc high and right as Buffy's cannons vaporized the last tri-fighter.
Obi-Wan fired retros to stall his starfighter in the blind spot behind the Separatist cruiser's bridge. He hung there for a few seconds to get his breathing and heart under control. "Thanks, Buffy. That was-thanks. That's all."
"Don't thank me. It was Arfive's shooting." Buffy responded.
"Yes. I suppose, if you like, you can thank your droid for me as well. And, Anakin-?" Obi-Wan replied.
"Yes, Master?" Anakin said.
Obi-Wan smiled, "Next time, you're the bait."
Buffy laughed.
Obi-Wan's voice came over the cockpit speakers, flat and tight. "Does your droid have anything? Arfour's hopeless. I think that last cannon hit cooked his motivator."
Buffy looked down and read Arfive's reply, "I have nothing, Obi-Wan."
"Don't worry, Masters. If his beacon's working, Artoo'll find it. Have you thought about how we'll find the Chancellor if-" Anakin said.
"No." Obi-Wan sounded absolutely certain. "There's no need to consider it. Until the possible becomes actual, it is only a distraction. Be mindful of what is, not what might be."
"I should have been here," Anakin said through his teeth. "I told you. I should have been here."
"Anakin, he was defended by Stass Allie and Shaak Ti. If two Masters could not prevent this, do you think you could? Stass Allie is clever and valiant, and Shaak Ti is the most cunning Jedi I've ever met. She's even taught me a few tricks," Obi-Wan said.
Anakin assumed he was supposed to be impressed. "But General Grievous-"
"Master Ti had faced him before, Anakin. After Muunilinst. She is not only subtle and experienced, but very capable indeed. Seats on the Jedi Council aren't handed out as party favors."
"I've noticed." Anakin said.
Buffy laughed, "Mine was."
"No it wasn't, Buffy." Obi-Wan said.
Buffy sighed. "The only reason I'm on the Council, Obi-Wan is because of my experience as the Slayer and when the Trade Federation invaded Naboo. Because I've been on the front lines of war since I was 15. If I hadn't been the Slayer I doubt I would be on the Council. Master sure, on the council. Probably not."
Obi-Wan thought about it for a moment and then conceded that Buffy was probably right. They needed her expertise to help end this war. "Point taken. Still Buffy it was not handed to you as a party favor. It was debated by the Council before Master Yoda approached you about it. It was not a decision that was made lightly. Several of the Masters on the Council objected to you being on the Council."
Buffy sighed. "Point taken."
"We've got him, Master. The cruiser dead ahead. That's Grievous's flagship-Invisible Hand,'' Anakin said.
"Anakin, there are dozens of cruisers dead ahead!" Obi-Wan responded.
"It's the one crawling with vulture fighters." Anakin stated.
The vulture fighters clinging to the long curves of the Trade Federation cruiser indicated by Palpatine's beacon gave it eerily life-like ripples, like some metallic marine predator bristling with Alderaanian walking barnacles.
"Oh. That one." Obi-Wan said. "Oh, this should be easy. . ."
Buffy frowned, she had never liked Vulture droids. Like their name suggested they were a menace. "Easy? No. Knowing Anakin he'll think it might be fun."
Anakin laughed at that. "I swear Dawn tells you way too much stuff sometimes. You know me just about as well as she does. Lunch at Dex's says I'll blast two for each of yours. Artoo can keep score."
"Anakin-" Obi-Wan said.
Anakin smiled, "All right, dinner. And I promise this time I won't let Artoo cheat."
"No games, Anakin. There's too…" Obi-Wan said.
"You're on, Anakin." Buffy said interrupting.
Obi-Wan shook his head, "One of you have your droid tight-beam a report to the Temple. And send out a call for any Jedi in starfighters. We'll come at it from all sides."
"Way ahead of you." Anakin said. "There's still too much ECM. Artoo can't raise the Temple. I think the only reason we can even talk to each other is that we're practically side by side."
"And Jedi beacons?" Buffy asked.
"No joy, Buffy." Anakin said. "We may be the only three Jedi out here."
"Then we will have to be enough. Switching to clone fighter channel." Obi-Wan said.
Buffy spun her comm dial to the new frequency in time to hear Obi-Wan say, "Oddball, do you copy? We need help."
The clone captain's helmet speaker flattened the humanity out of his voice. "Copy, Red Leader."
"Mark my position and form your squad behind me. We're going in." Obi-Wan said.
"On our way," came the Clone Captain's reply
"Ten vultures inbound, high and left to my orientation. More on the way," Anakin said.
"I have them. Anakin, wait-the cruiser's bay shields have dropped! I'm reading four, no, six ships incoming." Obi-Wan's voice rose. "Tri-fighters! Coming in fast!"
Buffy sighed. This was about to get interesting.
"Tri-fighters first, Masters. The vultures can wait." Anakin said.
"Agreed. Slip back and right, swing behind me. Buffy you slip back and right of Anakin swing in behind him. We'll take them on the slant."
"Negative," Anakin said. "I'm going head-to-head. See you on the far side."
"Take it easy. Wait for Oddball and Squad Seven. Anakin-" Obi-Wan's reply came.
"Sorry we're late." The digitized voice of the clone whose call sign was Oddball sounded as calm as if he were ordering dinner. "We're on the right of Red Three, Red Leader. Where's Red Five?"
"Anakin, form up!" Obi-Wan said.
But Anakin was already streaking to meet the Trade Federation fighters. "Incoming!" He whipped around.
Obi-Wan's starfighter jolted sideways. Anakin whipped by him and used his forward attitude jets to kick himself into a skew-flip: facing backward to blast the last of the tri-fighters on his tail. Now there were only vulture droids left.
A lot of vulture droids.
"Did you like that one, Master?" Anakin said.
"Very pretty." Obi-Wan's cannons stitched plasma across the hull of a swooping vulture fighter until the droid exploded. "But we're not through yet."
"Watch this." Anakin flipped his starfighter again and dived, spinning, directly through the flock of vulture droids. Their drives blazed as they came around. He led them streaking for the upper deck of a laser-scarred Separatist cruiser. "I'm going to lead them through the needle."
"Don't lead them anywhere." Obi-Wan's threat display tallied the vultures on Anakin's tail. Twelve of them. Twelve. "First Jedi principle of combat: survive."
Buffy smiled. "First rule of being a Slayer: don't die. Maybe that's why being a Jedi came so naturally. Dawn was right once when she said I was a Jedi before I knew what a Jedi was."
"No choice." Anakin slipped his starfighter through the storm of cannonfire. "Come down and thin them out a little.''
Obi-Wan and Buffy slammed their control yokes forward as though jamming it against its impact-rest would push the fighters faster in pursuit. "Nothing fancy, Arfour." Obi-Wan said. As though the damaged droid were even capable of anything fancy. "Just hold me steady. On my mark, break left-now!"
The shutdown control surface of his left wing turned the left break into a tight overhead spiral that traversed Obi-Wan's guns across the paths of four vultures-flash flash flash flash-and all four were gone.
Buffy and Obi-Wan flew on through the clouds of glowing plasma. They couldn't waste time going around; Anakin still had eight of them on his tail.
Anakin's starfighter skimmed only meters above the cruiser's dorsal hull. Cannon misses from the vulture fighters swooping toward him blasted chunks out of the cruiser's armor. "Okay, Artoo. Where's that trench?"
Anakin flipped his starfighter through a razor-sharp wingover down past the rim of a trench. The walls of the service trench flashed past him as he streaked for the bridge tower at the far end.
"Don't try it, Anakin. It's too tight." Buffy said as she watched what Anakin was going to try and do.
"I'll get through." Anakin replied
R2-D2 whistled nervous agreement with Buffy.
"You better," Buffy said, obviously worried. "I would hate to tell our sister you died in some crazy move."
"No worries, Buffy," Anakin said and Buffy was sure he was grinning. "Easy, Artoo. We've done this before."
Cannonfire blazed past him, impacting on the support struts ahead.
"Use the Force." Obi-Wan sounded just as worried as Buffy. "Think yourself through, and the ship will follow."
"Copy that. Thinking now."
R2-D2's squeal was as close to terrified as a droid can sound.
Anakin smiled. "Wrong thought."
Buffy and Obi-Wan could only stare openmouthed as Anakin's starfighter snapped onto its side and scraped through the slit with centimeters to spare.
The vulture droids tried to follow... but they were just a hair too big.
When the first two impacted, Buffyand Obi-Wan triggered their cannons in a downward sweep. The evasion maneuvers preprogrammed into the vulture fighters' droid brains sent them diving away from Buffy and Obi-Wan's lasers-straight into the fireball expanding from the front of the struts.
Anakin soared straight out from the cruiser with a quick snap-roll of victory. Buffy and Obi-Wan matched his course-without the flourish.
"I'll give you two the first four," Anakin said over the comm, "but the other eight are mine."
"Anakin-" Obi-Wan said.
"All right, we'll split them three ways." Anakin said.
As they left the cruiser behind, their sensors showed Squad Seven dead ahead. The clone pilots were fully engaged, looping through a dogfight so tight that their ion trails looked like a glowing ball of string.
"Oddball's in trouble. I'm going to help him out." Anakin said.
"Don't. He's doing his job. We need to do ours." Obi-Wan replied.
"Obi-Wan, they're getting eaten alive over-" Buffy replied.
"Every one of them would gladly trade his life for Palpatine's. Will you trade Palpatine's life for theirs, Buffy?" Obi-Wan said.
Buffy sighed and was about to respond when Anakin did for her. "No-no, of course not, but—"
"Buffy, Anakin, I understand: you two want to save everyone. You both always do. But you can't." Obi-Wan said.
Anakin's voice went tight. "Don't remind me."
Buffy let out a sigh of resignation. Ever since she had become the Slayer she had done everything she could to save as many as she could.
"Head for the command ship." Without waiting for a reply, Obi-Wan targeted the command cruiser and shot away at maximum thrust.
Buffy nodded and turned her fighter in pursuit of Obi-Wan, followed by Anakin.
They flashed through the battle, dodging flak and turbolaser bolts, slipping around cruisers to eclipse themselves from the sensors of droid fighters. They were only a few dozen kilometers from the command cruiser when a pair of tri-fighters whipped across their path, firing on the deflection.
"Missiles!" Anakin said suddenly.
A quick snap-roll would make those vectors of the missiles intersect. And both Anakin and Buffy performed the roll perfectly and the missiles behind them went up in a silent blossom of flame.
Obi-Wan wasn't so lucky. The pair of missiles locked onto his sublights weren't precisely side by side; a snap-roll would be worse than useless.
Instead he fired retros and kicked his dorsal jets to halve his velocity and knock him a few meters planet-ward. The lead missile overshot and spiraled off into the orbital battle.
The trailing missile came close enough to trigger its proximity sensors, and detonated in a spray of glowing shrapnel. Obi-Wan's starfighter flew through the debris-and the shrapnel tracked him.
Little silver spheres flipped themselves into his path and latched onto the starfighter's skin, then split and sprouted spidery arrays of jointed arms that pried up hull plates, exposing the starfighter's internal works to multiple circular whirls of blade like ancient mechanical bone saws.
This was a problem.
"I'm hit." Obi-Wan sounded more irritated than concerned. "I'm hit."
"I have visual." Anakin swung his starfighter into closer pursuit.
"Buzz droids. I count five." Buffy said.
"I copy that," Anakin said.
"Get out of here, Buffy, Anakin. There's nothing more either of you can do." Obi-Wan said.
"We're not leaving you, Obi-Wan. You should know that about me. I don't leave people behind." Buffy replied.
Cascades of sparks fountained into space from the buzz droids' saws.
"Anakin, Buffy, the mission! Get to the command ship! Get the Chancellor!" Obi-Wan said.
"Not without you," Anakin said through his teeth.
One of the buzz droids crouched beside the cockpit, silvery arms grappling with R4; another worked on the starfighter's nose, while a third skittered toward the ventral hydraulics. The last two of the aggressive little mechs had spidered to Obi-Wan's left wing, working on that damaged control surface.
"You can't help me." Obi-Wan still maintained his Jedi calm. "They're shutting down the controls."
"I can fix that ..." Anakin brought his starfighter into line only a couple of meters off Obi-Wan's wing. "Steady . . . ," he muttered, "steady .. . ," and triggered a single burst of his right-side cannon that blasted the two buzz droids into gouts of molten metal.
Along with most of Obi-Wan's left wing.
Anakin said, "Whoops."
Buffy frowned, "Well that wasn't very smart."
"Anakin, that's not helping." Obi-Wan said.
"You're right, bad idea. Here, let's try this-move left and swing under-easy . . ." Anakin said.
"Anakin, you're too close! Wait-" Obi-Wan stared in disbelief as Anakin's starfighter edged closer and with a dip of its wing physically slammed a buzz droid into a smear of metal. The impact jolted Obi-Wan again, pounded a deep streak of dent into his starfighter's hull, and shattered the forward control surface of Anakin's wing.
"Careful, Anakin," Buffy said.
"You're going to get us both killed!" Obi-Wan said.
Sparks flared into space, along with an expanding fountain of gas that instantly crystallized in the hard vacuum. "Blast," Obi-Wan muttered. "I can't see. My controls are going."
"You're doing fine. Stay on our wings." Buffy said as she slipped in on the other side of Obi-Wan.
Easier said than done. "I have to accelerate out of this." Obi-Wan said.
"We're with you. Go." Anakin replied.
Obi-Wan eased power to his thrusters, and his starfighter parted the cloud, but new vapor boiled out to replace it as he went. "Is that last one still on my nose? Arfour, can you do anything?"
The only response he got came from Anakin. "That's a negative on Arfour. Buzz droid got him."
"It," Obi-Wan corrected automatically. "Wait-they attacked Arfour?"
"Not just Arfour. One of them jumped over when Anakin hit you." Buffy said.
R2-D2 was grappling with a buzz droid hand-to-hand. R2's saw cut through one of the buzz droid's grapplers, sending the jointed arm flipping lazily off into space. Then it did the same to another. Then a panel opened in R2-D2's side and its datajack arm stabbed out and smacked the crippled buzz droid right off Anakin's hull. The buzz droid spun aft until it was caught in the blast wash of Anakin's sublights then blew away fast.
"You know," Obi-Wan said, "I begin to understand why you speak of Artoo as though he's a living creature."
"Do you?" Anakin said. "Don't you mean, it?"
"Ah, yes." Obi-Wan said. "Yes, of course. It. Erm, thank it for me, will you?"
"Thank him yourself." Buffy said with a roll of her eyes.
"Ah-yes. Thanks, Artoo." Obi-Wan said.
The whistle that came back over the comm had a clear flavor of you're welcome.
Then the last of the fog finally dispersed, and the sky ahead was full of ship.
And that immense ship was getting bigger.
Fast.
"Buffy! Anakin! We're going to collide!" Obi-Wan said.
"That's the plan. Head for the hangar." Anakin said.
"That's not-" Obi-Wan replied
"I know: first Jedi principle of-" Anakin said.
"No. It's not going to work. Not for me." Obi-Wan replied
"What?" Buffy asked.
"My controls are gone. I can't head for anything.'' Obi-Wan said.
"Oh. Well. All right, no problem." Buffy said.
"No problem?" Obi-Wan asked.
Then his starfighter clanged as if he'd crashed into a ship-sized gong. Obi-Wan jerked and twisted his head around to find Buffy's starfighter just above his tail. Literally just above: Buffy's left lead control surface was barely a hand span from Obi-Wan's sublight thrusters.
Buffy had hit him. On purpose.
Then she did it again.
CLANG
"What are you doing?" Obi-Wan asked.
"Just giving you . . ." Buffy's voice came slow, tight with concentration. ". . . a little help with your steering . . ."
"Buffy-" Obi-Wan began. He tried rerouting control paths through his yoke. No luck.
Buffy drew up and tipped her forward surfaces down behind the sparking scrap that used to be Arfour.
"Buffy-!"
"Give me . . . just a second, Obi-Wan." Buffy's voice had gone even tighter. A muffled thump, then another. Louder. And a scrape and a squeal of ripping metal. "This isn't quite . . . as easy as it looks. . ."
"Buffy! Anakin!" Obi-Wan said.
"What?" Buffy and Anakin asked.
"The hangar bay-" Obi-Wan replied.
"What about it?" Anakin said.
"Have you noticed that the shield's still up?" Obi-Wan asked.
"Really?" Anakin said.
"Really." Not to mention so close that Obi-Wan could practically taste it-
"Anakin clear us a path while I try and keep Obi-Wan in line." Buffy said.
"On it, Buffy." Anakin said and he swooped in front of Obi-Wan and Buffy, crossing left to right at a steep deflection. Energy flared from his cannons, and the shield emitters at the right side of the hangar door exploded into scrap. The blue shimmer of the bay shield flickered, faded, and vanished just as Obi-Wan came spinning across the threshold and slammed along the deck, trailing sparks and a scream of tortured metal.
Buffy wasn't far behind him and due to their closeness she couldn't manage a better landing as she ejected from the cockpit as her fighter slammed into the deck.
Obi-Wan flipped himself up into the stunningly cold gale and let it blow him tumbling away as the remnants of his battered craft as well as Buffy's exploded.