Chapter Thirty-Eight: Finality

The glow from the blades filled the space, illuminating the snarl on Vadim's features.

"Jedi," he hissed. His eyes narrowed to slits and his red-tinted skin furrowed into a sneer.

"Drop the weapons, Vadim," Luke told him, pointing his blade at Vadim's neck as the Jedi circled the two like birds of prey. With Luke's blade near his throat, Vadim began to back up slowly with the Boss, though the sneer on his features did not disappear.

"We suggest you cooperate," Anakin growled to them, watching them closely. Vadim's hand was hovering near his belt, frozen there. "Trying to escape would be… unwise."

The tension was almost palpable. Neither side wanted to relinquish control, and though the Boss and Vadim were outnumbered, they were making no moves to surrender their weapons. Anakin prepared himself mentally. He knew that this would end hard.

"You're in over your heads, Jedi," threatened the Boss in his deep, smooth voice. As his hood turned, his face was revealed, revealing skin the color of murky purple, the facial horns of an Elomin, and a grisly sneer. Though beside him Vadim was tense, ready to strike, the Boss' features remained calm and dangerous. His appearance was menacing, but it was a different type of dangerous – a sophisticated dangerous, of all things, was written on the curve of his brow and the turn of his shoulder. This was a type of man who had wealth and power for weapons. And somehow that made him all the more threatening.

"Drop the weapons," snapped Anakin again.

"Over my dead body, Jedi," snarled Vadim with sudden vehemence.

"Weapons," snapped Jade. "Now." They could all sense it; the Force was suddenly crying out, urging them to-

Suddenly, before anyone had truly realized what was happening, the Boss had whipped out something from his belt. A second later, though it felt like slow motion, Anakin was being lifted in the air and thrown back at the touch of an invisible force. His vision flashed both white and orange as he flew through the air, and he couldn't hear anything until he struck against the steel of the building nearby and crumpled to the pavement.

The Boss must have thrown a small explosive device, because when Anakin leapt to his feet he saw the Boss and Vadim both taking off, heading in opposite directions.

"E chu ta!" swore Anakin as he saw they already had a head start. "Luke!" he yelled to his son, who was likewise springing to his feet. "Go after the Boss!"

He didn't wait to see if his son had heard; he was already tearing after Vadim at full speed. He could see the assassin ahead of him, ripping through the alleyways only about fifty meters away. Anakin put on a burst of speed. He was just as fast, and he knew it. He began to use the Force to tear down pieces of the pipe on the alley walls, having them strike the assassin as he fled down the alley. Water from the burst piping began to spray everywhere, splashing from puddles beneath Anakin's thundering boots and clouding his vision.

Vadim had little trouble leaping over the fallen pieces, but they slowed him nonetheless. Anakin was able to clear the fallen pieces easily in his wake, and soon found that he was catching up to the fleeing figure. Adrenaline began to pulse through him with each pounding step. His heart thudded wildly in his chest as he pushed his body to go faster, faster. He would end this, and he would end this today.

Then, when he was only about ten meters away, he saw his chance. There was a pipe hanging above the alleyway that was dangling precariously at head-level. If he could tear it off just in time, he might be able to knock Vadim in the head. At this point, he did not care if the blow would potentially kill the assassin. Dead or alive, it didn't matter. What mattered now was stopping him before he could get any further. What mattered now as keeping his family safe.

Stretching his fingers towards for the pipe, Anakin reached toward it with the Force, and, with timing that would have made Obi-Wan proud, tore the thick pipe off just as Vadim was about to pass underneath.

It did not have quite the finality that Anakin had hoped, because Vadim seemed to have anticipated Anakin's move beforehand, but the pipe still ended up striking Vadim in the ear, knocking the Devaronian off of his feet and sending him skidding to the ground.

Anakin was on his tail in a second, and just as Vadim was struggling to rise to his feet, Anakin tackled him and brought him back to the ground. They both grunted as the pavement came at them hard. Anakin felt the air being driven from his lungs.

Before he could make the same mistake of wrestling with the muscular male again, Anakin ignited his lightsaber and sliced off Vadim's left hand, and then his right. The Devaronian screamed in pain, trying to twist away from him, but Anakin forcefully drew the assassin's stumps of arms behind his back, twisting them painfully. He tried not to remember that fateful day on Bespin as Vadim's cries of pain echoed in his head.

"Whom are you working for?" he demanded, putting his mouth right by Vadim's ear. When only hisses of pain answered him, he pulled harder and asked more forcefully, "Whom are you working for?"

"Devaronian authorities," the assassin ground out painfully. "They hired me."

"Why?" Vadim was silent once more, so Anakin pulled roughly on his arms once more, and Vadim cried out in pain. "Why?"

"Aarg! They- they don't want the…" He sucked air into his lungs abruptly. "Slave Bill passed!"

"Why?"

"…Antal 4's slaves mined secret metals," he gasped. His voice was low and pained, and he gasped between pauses in his words. "They smuggled the metals to Devaron… Devaron used them for infrastructure- Aack!" he said in pain. "Devaron agreed not to tell the… Republic if… they continued to trade."

"Where did the slaves come from?" When Vadim was silent once more, hissing. Spit and blood flew from his mouth, but Anakin pushed his face closer to the pavement. "Where did the slaves come from?" he demanded.

"Devaron… bounty hunters provided them with… new slaves."

"It was all about illegal trade routes, then?"

Vadim did not reply to that, though more because Anakin suspected he was too much in pain. Knowing that it would be best if he took care of the assassin now in order to keep him safe for Mothma's people, Anakin abruptly extinguished his blade and hit the assassin in the head, hard, with the hilt of his lightsaber. Vadim was out instantaneously.

Anakin was just climbing off of the still body when Leia came sprinting into sight, followed closely by Han. She stopped short when she saw Anakin climbing off of Vadim's still form. Her eyes widened in shock.

"Is he…?"

"No," Anakin told her, checking the pulse on his red skin. "Unconscious."

"Is that…" started Han, who looked green. His eyes glanced to the dismembered hands. "…His-"

Anakin nodded again, closing his eyes so he didn't have to look at the severed parts. It reminded him too much of Bespin, too much of the time when he had done the same to his son.

Suddenly finding that he was weak in the knees, Anakin bent down slowly and sat against the alley wall. He didn't care that the pavement was gross and slimy. Somehow, his exhaustion had sunk past his pride. He leaned his head against the wall for a moment and closed his eyes. It was over. It was all over. His family was safe. They could go home and be safe.

Luke and Jade came running into view a minute later, and both seemed to be rather taken aback at the sight of Vadim unconscious upon the pavement.

"Is he…?" Luke asked Leia.

Leia shook her head. "Unconscious."

Luke's eyes located the two severed hands upon the pavement. He, like Han, seemed to be slightly pale at the sight of the hands, although Anakin guessed that the uneasiness stemmed more from personal experience than from simple queasiness. "Did you… cut off his hand?" he asked Leia in disbelief, apparently interpreting her sober expression in the wrong way.

"…Father did," Leia told him.

Luke's eyes flickered to Anakin, who met his eye and found he had to look away. Even though he and Luke had forgiven one another, it was something that Anakin knew he would always be ashamed of. It was something they rarely talked about.

"Kid, what about the Boss?" Han asked Luke. He, like the others, seemed to sense the touchiness of dwelling on that topic.

"Dead," Luke told him.

"Dead?" echoed Han.

"Mara cut him in half," explained Luke.

"Cut him in half?"

"He was about to drop another explosive," Jade added, her eyes flashing defensively.

"We would have all gone up if she hadn't," Luke told them. Anakin glanced toward him suddenly. What was that emotion he sensed from Luke? Defensiveness? Was that too strong of a word? Perhaps it was his respect for Jade. Respect Anakin was not sure was well deserved.

"Well," Han said, clearing his throat. He obviously seemed to think lowly of Jade's apparent aggression. "That's that, then."

"Mothma's people are on their way," Leia informed them seriously, cutting over her fiancé's sarcastic words. "They'll take in Vadim, and we'll be able to head home."

"What will happen to him?" Jade asked her suddenly, after a beat of silence. Anakin looked sharply at her, her concern startling him. She was not behaving like the Jade he remembered, who would have shrugged off the fate of another with her usual coldness. Anakin frowned at the question, unsure how to interpret it.

"He'll stand trial," Leia answered her. "We have enough proof to arrest him, and if he cooperates, he will have an easier fate."

"What happened, then?" Luke asked, and his eyes turned to Anakin. "Did he talk?"

Anakin tore his suspicious gaze away from Jade and nodded. "Devaron had a secret relationship with Antal 4. Apparently Antal 4 provided them with riches that Devaron needed, and Devaron provided them with new slaves. Although I couldn't get much more out of him than that, I'd assume Antal 4 most likely took a portion of the metals for themselves as well."

Silence accompanied his words, as each tried to come to terms with the truth. "Devaron was involved after all," Leia said softly, shaking her head and looking over at Vadim's still body. Her tone spoke of regret and disbelief. "I can't believe a planet would condone slave labor for the sake of its economy." She gave a small sigh. "Turns out they were even more corrupt than we expected."

"…Well," Han added, deadpan. "I can't say I've ever liked the planet. So no grief there."

Silence settled over the group… and then, as the ridiculousness of Han's statement sunk in, it was suddenly as if the sun had emerged on a rainy day. Brilliant, relieved smiles seemed to cross over everyone's faces, spreading contagiously from one to the next. It was the burden of months of stress being lifted from their shoulders.

"We're done. We got him," Luke said in relief, seeming to scarcely believe it himself – that it was all over, and that all those months of hard work and dead ends had finally paid off. He shook his head in amazement, although the smile could not seem to be wiped from his face.

"Took long enough," complained Han, as Leia, laughing at the lopsided smile spreading across his face, planted a kiss on his cheek.

"You're just happy I won't complain about missing Senate meetings again," she giggled.

Han chuckled at that, and the two soon dissolved into a playful argument about who had had the worse plight over the past months. Anakin, though exhausted and still seated at his place on the pavement, could not help but smile at his their playfulness, remembering what it had been like at their age. Although he knew that their future would bring hard times, as it did with everyone, he only hoped that they would remain as close as they were now. …It was ironic... five years ago he would have never imagined that he would be here. They had come so far.