Ring of Fire Chapter 36 The Third Way I, a star wars fanfic

Author's Note: Well, hello there! I know it has been along time between updates, but... is anyone actually still out there reading?

Chapter 36. The Third Way I

To the newly-made fighter pilots of Esh-Col, what Anakin had asked them to do made about as much sense as if he'd asked them to leap off a cliff on a high-grav planet and trust that they would soar. He had asked them to fly straight into what their eyes and minds saw as a wall of enemy ships, and believe that they would come out the other side.

And then he'd gone in first…

…straight in, with laser bursts exploding around him, trusting his squadron to cover him…and to follow.

"Aw, hell," somebody muttered, watching Anakin's bright yellow ship streak away. It was moving so fast and the scanner's static was so bad that they'd lose him to dark space in seconds if they didn't move fast.

So they did.

He hadn't even given them time to think.

They had flown like madmen just to keep up, covering one another as they flew hurtled though starbursts of laser fire, shooting back at twice the speed of thought. Almost before they had become conscious of it, they had arrived in the thick of a mass of gigantic vessels, watching enemy ships flash past them nose to tail as they streaked through the spaces between them.

There were so many of them.

"Split up!" Anakin had ordered over the comm., and the refugees-turned-freedom fighters obediently had spread out between the enemy warships, randomizing their speed and trajectories while doing their level best to look and move like nothing more interesting than motes of space dust or debris.

To their utter surprise, it had worked – for the most part. The calls of the wounded and dying had peaked just before their squadron slipped behind the invaders' forward perimeter. Once inside and spread out among the droid ships, the little fighters had been practically ignored.

One moment to breathe had been allowed, perhaps two; and then Anakin's voice had cut across the comms. again."Form up in threes! ..."

…and again, the pilots had been forced to suspend disbelief as they steeled themselves to do the seemingly impossible.

He had shown them in detail the cunning maneuvers and precisely targeted fire that could disable even the largest ships. They had practiced their teamwork over the plains of Esh-Col and in space until they could practically read one another's minds.

But the reality… the reality of having to fly and maneuver and form up and target and protect one another at feverish speeds in the narrow spaces amidst the nightmare forms of vast enemy ships … was too much to grasp. They couldn't think or speak. They could only act and react, trust, and follow in hard-bitten silence.

Belief only arrived when the first of the behemoths succumbed to impossible shots on weak points that no ship's designer could have imagined being so precisely targeted. The successful attackers watched in astonished silence as the giant ships began to list and roll. Some broke apart, pieces hurtling into their neighbors and increasing the carnage. So incredulous were the first successful pilots that they had nearly forgotten to get out of the way as the destruction took its course. A few died for their disbelief, smashed to oblivion by debris from the very ships they hadn't imagined they could destroy. Several more succumbed to retaliatory fire. After that, the pilots moved like charged particles in a vacuum chamber, straining the limits of their ships and their nerves in maneuvers that defied rationality but kept them alive, while increasing the havoc among the droid vessels exponentially with each pass.

Anakin seemed to be everywhere at once. If a shot failed, another might come out of nowhere, hitting the target with deadly accuracy. Lagging fighters found themselves quickly herded out of danger zones. Standard formations of three might unexpectedly be joined by a fourth on a particularly difficult target, only to have the bright yellow ship disappear just as quickly again.

Anakin himself seemed as elusive as his ship. The easy, accessible comrade from Esh-Col had vanished. He fought in silence, barking just enough terse orders over the comm. to direct the seeming chaos.

That's because this is real, the ones who chanced to wonder about the change in Anakin's demeanor concluded. Life and death. Here and now. So they followed wherever he led, causing radical losses in the left prong of the droid invasion force.

Nearly half of it was gone before it ever reached Nowhere.

"Well, Padmé? You won. Now, where to?"

When Padmé didn't reply, V'ar turned to look at her, about to repeat her question, but then stopped, surprised. Padmé was curled up in an uncomfortable-looking seat with one hand tucked under her chin, seemingly deeply asleep at last – for the first time since they had left Esh-Col.

But the Force around her felt as if she was in deep meditation.

Did Padmé practice meditation? V'ar didn't know.

She looked around for Padmé's ever-present Handmaiden, hoping for advice, but Dormé was nowhere to be seen. As soon as the decision had been made to return to the battle arena, Dormé had vanished somewhere into the ship, disapproval written all over her face. She had yet to return. V'ar didn't know how long Padmé had been asleep… or… whatever she was doing.

After hesitating briefly, V'ar decided to choose their destination without consulting with Padmé. The pilot and crew were already deeply upset by their ship's unescorted return to the least safe place in the Star System. They needed a specific objective to aim for.

We can't just drift out here.

"Activate the scanners," V'ar murmured to the pilot. "Let's identify our options."

She didn't need scanners to know where she longed to be. On her own, nothing could have stopped her from being in the thick of the fighting with Anakin and the pilots, wherever they were. But she had Padmé to consider… baffling, stubborn, wholly unpredictable Padmé.

What was she going to do with her?

The scanner displays showed shifting bands of mayhem across a vast swath of space. There were no safe places--there were no 'places' at all. There was no haven anywhere, except…perhaps… V'ar's golden eyes unfocused briefly while she listened to the whispers that echoed through the Force. When her gaze sharpened again, she instantly zeroed in on a distinctive formation of ships near the bottom of the heaving scanner display.

She pointed to a tiny blip of light that lay behind the main lines of battle yet, somehow seemed to be near its center. "Is that the Intrepid?"

The pilot checked the readouts. "Yes," he affirmed, sounding suddenly happier. "General Kenobi's ship."

"Headquarters," V'ar murmured. "Perfect. If that doesn't satisfy her, I don't know what will." Decisively she added, "Set course for the Intrepid."

He already had. The man's relief was palpable.

V'ar wished she shared it.

"Shall I hail them?" he offered eagerly, his fingers already moving toward the comm.

V'ar took a breath, knowing just how unhappy she was about to make Obi-Wan. "You had better," she said resolutely. "Perhaps the General can spare us an escort..."

For Anakin, the firefight was a relief.

Every shot that hit its mark released a bit of the pent-up energy that made him feel as though he might explode. Every maneuver that strained his little fighter to its limits liberated some of the pressure that squeezed his mind and body like a closing fist. Every success, however small, felt like an inroad of sorts against the crushing weight of the invisible enemy… the familiar, oppressive sense of darkness that pervaded this place-that-wasn't-a-place … this Nowhere.

Anakin fought like a demon – an inhuman thing, one without boundaries or limitations of any kind – against the pervading gloom that seemed as though it could choke the Force itself.

Enough.

No more.

It couldn't choke him. Not now. Nothing could stop the Force from flowing through him. He was alight with the Force. He was the Force. However difficult things became, he could not be stopped, because he had a lifeline… an incorruptible, unbreakable link to the place beyond the darkness… anywhere.

Everywhere.

As long as it lay beyond.

He hadn't been entirely honest with Padmé. The link between them – the one that he had supposedly cut off so that he could concentrate during the battle – was as strong and bright as ever. He had only masked it a little. Her living presence lay warm and safe against his neck. The sense of her being circled his chest, keeping his heart beating and allowing him to breathe. It kept him whole and strong.

Anakin fought to hold on to that feeling. That clarity. That light.

His real reason for obscuring the link with Padmé had been to shield her from his experience of the darkness; from the … violence… of the feelings it aroused in him. The closer they had drawn to Nowhere, the stronger the feeling of oppression had become.

How he hated it.

He had slipped once, and let his feelings loose. The experience had shaken Padmé badly. He would not let it happen again. He did not want her to witness the depth of his desire to destroy … it.

Every shot he fired, he fired at his oppressor.

Every mindless, soulless droid ship that he decimated was but a marker on the pathway to his tormentor's obliteration.

He fought, and he fought and he fought.

He fought to break free.

"This is all wrong," Lord Tyrannus whispered under his breath, observing the decimation of a substantial portion of the droid invasion force's left wing. In his wonder, he forgot to be circumspect and spoke in an audible whisper.

In his anger, he remembered a fraction too late the caution he always exercised with the man with whom he watched the battle.

Darth Sidious stood looking at the scanner display as though enraptured. The faint, flickering light from the console reflected on the pale skin of his face under the cowl, hinting at terrible shadows. "What do you mean, Lord Tyrannus?" he asked softly.

Tyrannus felt himself grow pale over the flush of his anger. It was an odd feeling, and one he did not appreciate. He swallowed hard before attempting to speak.

"I meant only that it is unexpected that these… people… would so successfully resist this invading force, My Lord. This same droid fleet has flattened four star systems with only minimal losses."

"And yet these… people… are carving up your fine droids with the equivalent of rocks and sticks." Sidious pointed a pale, rock-steady finger at the scanner. "Especially here, on this flank." He paused. "You find their success unusual, my friend?" His voice remained soft and even. Lord Tyrannus, who feared nothing in the Galaxy, felt a faint wash of nausea.

"It is … unexpected… My Lord."

Sidious voice hardened suddenly. "Have you lived among your droid armies so long that you have forgotten the power of passion, Lord Tyrannus?"

With an effort of will, Tyrannus managed not to snarl. His voice was even when he replied, in a reprise that even he knew to be feeble, "I have done as you asked, My Lord. I have always done everything you asked of me."

"So you have," Sidious said shortly. "And yet… look. Look at your droid fleet now."

Tyrannus didn't reply. His fleet had not been destroyed; far from it. The Rebels were struggling badly, being pushed back again and again. The battle still could be won. And yet… and yet… somehow I have let him down.

He knew failure when he saw it.

In ways that he did not yet understand, he had failed.

He could only wait to learn why and how it had crept upon him in this way.

"Do you know what that is?" Sidious again pointed at the scanner, where the most vigorous prong of the droid invasion looked torn up, a skeletal remainder of the bludgeon that had destroyed entire star systems.

Tyrannus merely shook his head.

"That, my friend…"

… oh, it is hateful when he uses that word in that tone…

"… is a footprint in the sand."

The hairs on the back of his neck prickling, Tyrannus studied the display more closely. "Do you mean… Skywalker? You believe he is behind this?"

"Yesssssss…" Sidious' answer was a hiss.

The comm. link leapt to life in the ensuing silence. "The enemy codes have been broken, My Lord. Details of the rebels' communications are ready for you."

Sidious only smiled.

"Boss, you there? Boss, we got trouble!"

Anakin was furiously dodging turbo laser fire when Bram called out over the comm. The signal was faint, but something in the man's voice hit a nerve.

"What's wrong?" Anakin grunted as soon as his lungs re-filled after a gut-crushing roll.

"The droids are closing up their formation, Boss. We're getting squeezed."

Anakin could see for himself that the spaces between the droid ships were growing smaller. "We knew they would. It's time to retreat and to re-group for another run. What's the problem?"

"We've got nowhere to go, Boss."

"Where are you, Bram?

"Near the perimeter. It's a combat zone. Seems the Nowhere people attacked. When we try ta' move outta here, they fire on us 'cause we're comin' at 'em from the droid side. They don't know who we are."

"Wait for me." Forgetting all about going unnoticed, Anakin gunned his starfighter to speeds it had no business reaching but reached them anyway. Dodging and weaving through the narrowing spaces among the droid ships, he swore an endlessly inventive string of heinous oaths with a fluency that would have shamed a Cixassian. Most of the curses were aimed at the man who had no doubt ordered Nowhere's forces to strike.

The man who had pleaded for coordination.

The man with every right to say "I told you so."

"Who is Obi-Wan?" Bram asked through the comm. after a pointed silence. Even over the bad link, the other pilots' voices swelled to a fever pitch in the background.

"Someone who didn't believe in us," Anakin growled. "Someone who didn't trust that we could deliver what we promised. Hang on. I'm nearly there."

Screams echoed over the comm.

Anakin shot out of the droid fleet like a beam from an ion canon, straight into the wildfire of a pitched battle between the interchangeable droid ships and the mismatched, unequal, unpredictable battle group that could only have come from Nowhere. Slipping between bursts of deadly fire, he flew a high, fast loop around the embattled area, destroying anything droid-related that happened to get in his way. He had no difficulty making the distinction. Apparently, many of the new arrivals from Nowhere could not. Many of Anakin's pilots got picked off the moment they emerged from among the droid ships. As fast as he was flying, Anakin too was regularly targeted.

Amateurs, he thought bitterly. They wouldn't know coordination if it bit them. They needed their hands held.

"Bram, pull everybody back among the droid ships for now," he ordered over the wide comm. "I'll see what I can do."

There was only one thing he could do. He'd have to break silence and contact Obi-Wan.

There was no response from his local comm. link while he opened up the wider frequencies.

"Bram? Did you hear me?"

No answer.

The wider comm. link burst to life, clear and strong. "Kenobi here."

Anakin alternated channels. "Bram?" he called again.

"Anakin?" Obi-Wan demanded. "Is that you?"

"Sorry Boss," another voice crackled over the pilots' link. "Bram's gone. He followed ya' out there, an' he's gone. They got 'im."

Far away on the transport ship Patriot, Padmé suddenly sat up straight, her eyes wide and glassy.

V'ar glanced over from the comm. where she was still trying to connect with Nowhere's central command. "What is it, Padmé?"

"I don't know…" Padmé sounded vague and subdued, as if she were far away. "Something happened…"

"To Anakin?" V'ar asked sharply, only to regret her lack of tact when Padmé seemed to crumple from the inside out.

"No!" Padmé moaned, and then again, "I don't know…"

"I'm sure he is fine." Ignoring the tug in her stomach that belied her words, V'ar went back to the difficult task of trying to get through to Obi-Wan on the comm. For some reason none of the links the Patriot's pilot had tried were accepting transmissions.

Padmé rubbed her eyes. "Where are we?"

"On our way back to the heart of Nowhere. As you insisted."

"How nice for us," a new voice snapped, and the missing Handmaiden emerged from the passageway just beyond the bridge. She had exchanged her rough robes for an efficient-looking one-piece garment, accessorized by a number of equally efficient-looking weapons. She handed a holster containing a pair of sleek-looking blasters to Padmé, who still looked dazed.

"Take this, My Lady."

Padmé merely nodded and laid the weapons across her lap without protest. With a brief, hard "what's going on?" glance at V'ar – who only shrugged – Dormé sat down next to her mistress, casually but purposefully taking hold of her wrist near a pulse point and looking into her eyes.

"I'm through as far as the wider comms. net, but I'm only getting chatter. It's chaos. I can't get direct access to anyone, much less General Kenobi," the Pilot reported, his voice tight with anxiety.

Padmé kept staring straight ahead at nothing.

"All right," V'ar decided. "We will go back to basics. Transmit this text exactly as I give it to you on the emergency frequency…" She leaned over the pilot's shoulder to enter a series of numbers and symbols that would make sense only to one other person. If the Force was with them, the message would find its way to him.

Anakin's chest was so tight that every breath had to be a conscious act. The wall of oppression around him was closing in, pressing on his heart and his mind and even his will. He flew on instinct alone; a projectile, a beam of pure energy that could penetrate any defense and any target. Relentless forward motion had propelled him safely through the darkness thus far – the pure power of the will and desire to break through, to finish this, to come out on the other side. He was unstoppable. On his own, he could have slipped though the mass of deadly fire that surrounded him with the ease of thought.

But his squadron couldn't follow him without being destroyed. Anakin was forced to circle back toward the droid formation, skirting the vortex of destruction in the battle arena, waiting for help from Obi-Wan Kenobi – of all people – while the comm. crackled weakly.

Unable to go forward or backward, Anakin streaked around the battle arena in spirals, dodging, protecting and searching for a pathway out. With the fierce momentum that had propelled him toward his single-minded goal suddenly thwarted, the path he flew began to mirror the motion of the invisible darkness that circled him relentlessly.

Hefelt ready to explode.

Furiously he tried the faltering comm. again.

Every shred of skill Obi-Wan had gained in a lifetime as a Jedi was barely enough to maintain simultaneous awareness of all the people and events that competed for his attention. There was no way to prioritize; in the crisis of the battle, they were all equally important. He fought hard to hold it all together; to keep his balance. The lives and future of countless beings depended on his equanimity.

The relief he felt when Anakin finally broke silence again rocked his precarious calm.

"Anakin," he demanded, making a huge effort to keep desperation out of his voice. "Where are you?"

"Trapped," Anakin spat through the static. Obi-Wan's heart lurched despite his tight inner control. "Your people have us pinned…"

"Got him!" the Comms. Officer crowed. Anakin's coordinates finally appeared on the main scanner screen.

He was practically inside the Droid formation, with Obi-Wan's own reserve Forces on top of him and cutting off his squadron's escape.

"Hold on, Anakin…"

"My people are dying here! Get off our backs!"

"People are dying everywhere!" Obi-Wan retorted. "Now hold!" He barked a few succinct, specific orders, and very quickly the scanner screen showed a visible path beginning to open through the reserve Forces near Anakin's position. An escape path.

"Anakin, get your squadron out now. Our reserves will cover you."

"We haven't finished what we started here! Just keep your people off us!"

"You've done enough, Anakin. I don't know how you did it, but you've practically destroyed a whole prong by yourselves. The reserves can take care of the rest…"

"Just let us finish this!"

He sounded desperate. Almost crazed. Obi-Wan's first rush of relief vanished. He hesitated, uncertain how to proceed.

On the Victorious, two Sith Lords stood in silence, feeding on the vortex of dark power that they had raised.

One found it sweet; the other, for the first time in his life, bitter.

A wholly unexpected ray of light burst into Anakin's consciousness.

Anakin! What's wrong?

Padmé… are you all right?… How …

I'm fine. Everything is fine. It's you… I heard you… I felt you…

For a precious instant, space and time folded into one another, and it seemed to Anakin that Padmé was right there with him.

The pressure eased.

The feeling of a spectral hand on his shoulder and a familiar presence by his side gave Obi-Wan a sorely-needed boost of reassurance. He took a steadying breath, as one would when dismantling a detonator. Easy does it….

"You have done everything you can there, Anakin." Obi-Wan paused, treading lightly. "No one else could have done it." He swallowed, his mouth like dry ash. "Now I need your help to hold the center. It's coming apart. Get your people out of there. Bring them forward."

No answer.

"Please, Anakin."

Still no answer.

Every soul on the battle bridge turned to stare at Obi-Wan, as though for a moment, time had stopped. He did not notice. He only paid attention to the comm., and to the spectral presence that never left his side. It whispered to him. Then he said carefully, "Work with me, Anakin. We'll finish this together. Once and for all."

Padmé, we lost… I lost… Bram… and so many more…

It's all right, Anakin. It's all right. They are all here because they want to be. They trust you. We all do… me, most of all.

But Obi-Wan…

He needs your help, Anakin. We all do. Let's just finish this… so we can go home…

The comm. link to the Intrepid crackled with static but Anakin could feel, like a prickling on his skin, how intensely Obi-Wan awaited his answer.

We shouldn't be connecting like this, Padmé. Not now.

I'm not going anywhere. I want to stay with you.

So great was Anakin's need for her, that he capitulated.

"Anakin?" Obi-Wan urged again over the comm.

"All right," Anakin agreed, subdued. "I'm on my way."

As if a spell had been broken, the battle bridge once again exploded into frenzied activity.

The Comms. Officer rushed to Obi-Wan's side. "This old-style message arrived over the emergency channel, General. It's an unknown code…"

Obi-Wan stared at it. Took it. Read it.

P. refuses to leave the battle arena.

Bringing her to you.

Request escort.

There was no signature, and no need for one. He closed his eyes briefly. Not again. Please, not again.

The Force beside him shifted. Courage, it seemed to whisper.

Obi-Wan opened his eyes and yelled for Pell.

When beside him Sidious suddenly blurred into motion and called for Tarkin, Lord Tyrannus tried with all his might to discern why. What had his Master perceived that he had not?

In vain he sought clues on the instruments on the console in front of him and in the Force.

The perfectly temperature-controlled air around him seemed to freeze.

Feeling lighter, Anakin rounded up his squadron and led them adroitly through the opening provided by the very ships that not long before had sought their destruction. Obi-Wan had kept his word. The allied ships under Obi-Wan's command protected every last one of the squadron's remaining ships, and quickly closed ranks behind the fighter group to shield it from the remaining droid ships. Relieved to be out of their entrapment, and crediting Anakin for their escape, the Pilots of Esh-Col followed him without hesitation along the invisible boundary between the invaders and Nowhere, through space that for the moment looked clear of fighting.

At least, to the Pilots it looked clear.

To Anakin, the empty space they traversed felt more dangerous than the battle arena behind them. On one side a huge, heavy wall of darkness moved relentlessly toward Nowhere; a black tidal wave of mounting power and fury, surging forward or ebbing back in response to the fluctuating energies that struggled to stop it.

Anakin knew that dark wave. He knew it well. Tendrils of memory and awareness deep inside his body resonated with its vibrations, even as he struggled to escape it.

Pushing back against the dark inundation on the other side was a ragged landscape of unconnected energies and activities – a cacophony of forces and feelings and intentions with little in common other than their palpable collective resistance to the looming darkness. That resistance – the drive to fight, to defend – resonated with Anakin's nature even more than did the darkness. He didn't want to be engulfed by it any more than they did.

But Obi-Wan had been right. Nowhere's forces were chaotic. The rebel fleet was dedicated and fierce, but it did not fight in unity. The dark forces had the advantage of perfect synchronization. It gave them enormous power.

"Up ahead, Boss," one of the pilots broke over the comm.

"I see it."

Anakin had perceived the battle in the Force long before the melee at the center of Nowhere's defense perimeter showed up on the scanners. The dark tide was gaining momentum. It was there, surrounding him no matter where he turned; the pure expression of a single abiding will.

You will serve me.

If the comm. link to the others hadn't been open, Anakin would have screamed with rage.

Desperately he turned his awareness back to Nowhere's floundering defenses, assessing their strengths and weaknesses. The only way out for him was through their victory. He had no choice but to throw himself into their fight.

"How long you reckon they can hold out, Boss?" somebody asked. The picture that was beginning to reach their scanners was discouraging.

"Not long enough," Anakin muttered, but his attention was not on their destination. He knew that, like the image on the scanner, the battle in space was merely a flimsy representation of the true battle. The real battle waited for no one. The Force was independent of time and distance. If there was to be any chance of marshalling enough combined strength to oppose the dark wave, to turn the tide, the way to fight and win did not lie in the battle up ahead. The time was now. The place was in the Force itself.

Driven partly by the terror of failure, but even more by his absolute, utter refusal to submit, Anakin hurled his consciousness beyond any sense of his body, his ship, or anything that was corporeal, allowing his mind and senses unfettered access to the Force. His ship continued on course. His body continued to fly it efficiently. But he, himself – with full awareness – leaped beyond it, into the essence of nature itself - the common linkage between all things that lived.

He became one with the Force.

Far away in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, the most ancient of the living Jedi Masters dropped his gimer stick and sank to his knees on the floor of the empty Council chamber. His small, hunched body breathed on in a profound state of meditation while his consciousness flew on wings of light into the eternal mystery that bound the universe together.

In the realm beyond ships and weapons, or space and time, the landscape that was Nowhere glimmered with thousands of individual points of light.

Jedi.

The Jedi, living and dead, were massed in the Force to counter the darkness. The knowledge aroused neither sympathy nor antipathy in Anakin; he had leaped far beyond the mundane concerns of existence. He cared only for the light they brought, and for its potential in countering the darkness.

Anakin sank into that light and began drawing it toward him, breathing it into himself with an almighty effort of will, and then releasing it again into the void. The individual points and flares of light coalesced as they entered his heart and mind and consciousness, and then flowed away again in a vast mighty beam that spread out over the invisible landscape of Nowhere in a blinding wave.

But this wave in the Force was not an inundation from outside, as was that of the dark forces. It acted not as a will imposed from the outside, but as a reminder to each and every individual in Nowhere's forces of the will within.

Each individual's response as the wave of light washed over and through them was another spark lit, spreading ever outward as each individual consciousness surged up to meet the overarching flood, building into an avalanche of light.

The thousands of Jedi lights merged into one.

By the time the wave of light had spread to the furthest reaches of the Nowhere, a spectral Jedi hand rested on each and every rebel Pilot's shoulder, bringing guidance, encouragement, and a profound link with every other pilot in Nowhere's vast array of fighting forces. While most of the mortal pilots were unaware of the Jedi presence, each one experienced a heightened and related sense of tingling excitement, of clarity, of purposefulness, of confidence in knowing what must be done. Most did not understand that they were linked to one another, but it didn't matter. They began to fight in unison, as their enemy had all along.

Unlike the mindless, soulless enemy, they fought with excitement, passion, and a powerful new sense of hope.