Hello and welcome back to the Rebirth of the Light Series. As always, thank you to all those you who wrote replies to the last chapter, to all old readers for holding on in between posts; and to any new readers who are just joining us, welcome!
Just a general update: summer is finally here! I have an entire summer for the first time in four years in which I am not taking additional college courses, so there should be more posts in the future. I know I say that at the beginning of almost of every post, but as long as I keep on believing it, the more likely it is a post will actually get written.
So, here's to summer! Let's pick up with Anakin and Strike Squadron and find out what's been going on with them. Then, if the post doesn't get too long, we'll check in with the twins and the Master Kenobi/Mrs. Skywalker team. On a side note, we won't be hearing any more from the young Jedi who snuck into the Jedi Temple until Glimpses, as there is already too many OCs running around.
Chapter Nine:
Individual Journeys
Five Years After Rebirth of the Light
Gut-wrenching despair tore at his insides even as adrenaline coursed at light-speed through his system. Voices were shouting in his ears, but Anakin could barely make them out over the sound of his own thudding heart beat and the tug of the Force. He vaguely recognized Tash's voice, repeating a call sign over and over, as if the recitation would bring its owner back from the depth of the black hole the unlucky pilot had veered into.
"Strike Eight! Strike Eight, do you copy?! This is Strike Two, do you copy?"
"That's enough, Strike Two," Sabe's voice, cool and professional. "She's gone. Keep focused, or you might be next."
"That's two of my squadron, Ulin. We should pull back while we still can."
"There's no pulling back," Anakin interjected before Sabe could snap a response. The Force flowed through him, filling him in a way it hadn't since before his seduction to the Darkside. Every cell sizzled, jazzed as total awareness flooded his every sense. The creak of the remaining twelve X-wings, the whirl of Artoo's dome, the harsh breathing in his ear of Piett and the others, all counting on him, all looking to the Jedi to see them through this nightmare that had already claimed two of their own.
It was incredibly exhilarating, and that only added to that tug of terror his insides were experiencing. It would be so easy to forget about the others, to shake off the responsibility of their lives and just take off, racing through the Maw, into its unexplored depths, pitching himself against the worst the galaxy had to offer.
"Jedi Skywalker is right," Sabe's voice again, calling him back from that terrifyingly real possibility. "We complete the mission. Keep it together, Strike."
Keep it together, keep it together.
Anakin closed his eyes, gripped the controls and released his feelings into the Force. He was their way out of this alive. They needed him to stay calm, to keep it together. Focus, he told himself strictly. Stay in the here and now.
"You okay, Skywalker?"
He opened his eyes to see Piett's X-wing fly up beside him on the port side. The young man alternated between keeping his eyes peeled on the mess of stars and not-stars space that were black holes ahead of them, and glancing worriedly at Anakin from behind his flight visor.
Behind them, Tash and Sabe's fighters swayed in perfect unison, following in the safe path they cut. The others trailed out behind them. A single miscalculation on anyone's part, and the gravity pull of the nearest black hole could reach out and grab any of them. Further back in line, the fighters had rearranged to make up for their losses, ensuring every pilot had a wingman to watch out for each other.
All of them looking to him. Anakin felt that claw in his gut twist again, felt the despair creeping up on him. Darkness tinged the edges of his vision. From between clenched teeth, he forced himself to acknowledge his wingman's concern.
"Fine. Keep your port wing tipped upwards, Piett. Counter balance, make sure Strike Two does the same behind you. Keep close."
"Copy that, Strike Sixteen."
Behind them, the other fighters made adjustments, swooping past the pull of just another hole. The ships cried out in protest, feeling the gravitational pull, and Artoo gave a low whistle and trembled in his socket.
"Everything's fine, Artoo."
Artoo spat out a series of beeps that said everything was definitely not okay. Apparently, he wasn't fooling either of them.
Someone over the comm. said he was doing a great job, but Anakin wasn't paying any attention. His nerves felt fried, his eyes were dry even as his face was drenched in sweat. There was no
time to relax, no single moment to steal in order to regroup. There was only the pull of the next hole, the nearly-invisible path painted before him, the steady shifting of the controls under his hands. For the thousandth time, he wished he could pull off his gloves, could feel the texture of the throttle and gears against his palm, even if the skin on both hands was only sensitive to such things with the aid of electronic synthesizers. Underneath was just more gears and wires. Too little control. He had too little control over his own hands, over the situation, over his own life and destiny. Even when he no longer had a destiny, he didn't seem to have any control.
Focus! Anakin whipped his tumbling thoughts back to the moment, to the subtle shift in course that kept them all alive.
X-wings swooped around another dead space, seven pairs with wings almost touching, hulls scraping hulls, fingers tense on the controls. Every pilot sat as though even the movement of a single bone in their bodies might propel them into a course from which they could never escape. It very well might. Breath fogged viewports, eyes remained fastened on the fighter in front of them. For a few, their lips were trembling, though none of their squadron mates would have blamed them for it.
He could feel them each through the Force, feel their fear, and their determination. If not for that last emotion, Anakin was sure the despair and terror would have already dragged him down, the exhilaration taken over. These rebels were strong. Stronger than he had ever been. And Anakin found his salvation in that, but only just. Like his relationship with Padme and Obi-wan, it was their faith in him that kept him steady. He couldn't stand on his own. Not yet. He just wasn't ready for that. There was still too much he couldn't face, couldn't handle…
"Whoa, hey! Who tilted the galaxy?"
Broken from his dark thoughts, Anakin refocused as Tash's voice shouted over the comm. He glanced at the radar screen in front of him to find that Strike Two had veered off slightly from the safe path he and Strike Fifteen were carving for the others. Tash's X-wing tilted too far to port, and had drifted away from his wingman.
"Strike Two, even out. I said to counter balance by lifting your port wing. Swing about starboard, starboard!" Strike Two continued to drift to the left at an angle. "Tash, do you copy?!"
"I copy," the pilot replied. Anakin didn't need the Force to hear the quiver in the other's voice. "Switching power to the port thrusters."
A burst of ion flared hot behind Strike Two's port engine, but the Force was already telling Anakin everything he needed to know. It wasn't going to work. The gravitational pull of the nearest black hole was already at work, dragging the X-wing and Tash with it away from the squadron.
"Strike Two! Tash! Pull starboard! Drop all shields, full power to the port engine!"
"Copy that, Strike Leader." The X-wing continued to swing to the right, the roar of its now-single operating engine rising into a whine. Over the comm., other voices began to shout. The Force felt like it was burning away his nerve endings, dancing like fire across his skin and down into his brain. Anakin could feel as every little part of the wayward X-wing switched from resistance to capitulation of the gravitational pull.
"Swing starboard! Swing starboard! All power to your port engine!"
"Pull up! Tash, pull up! Out run it!"
With a series of beeps and whoops, Artoo offered a string of calculations to off-set the X-wing's drift, but Anakin was too busy to glance at the translation on the screen.
His hands jerked the controls before he had any real plan, but then, he didn't need one. The Force was his guide, shouting orders louder than any of the voices of the squadron. Anakin ground his teeth, swerved out of formation, and made for his friend. He could hear himself telling Piett to take the lead and the other man's astonished response, but none of it really registered.
His mind was set on putting himself between Tash and the hole. If he could suddenly break the pull, maybe the other X-wing could break free. After that – well, after that, he would need a new plan.
"Strike Two, incoming, forward starboard!"
He lowered his port-side wings and locked the ship's s-foils in attack position. At the same time, Anakin cut back on the thrusters, so the other ship might catch up with him. It was a mere hundred meters or so between the trail of fighters now and their wayward companion, but Anakin didn't need a computer to calculate the distance for him, or to direct his movements. Even as Artoo squealed behind him, they cut toward Strike Two at a dizzying speed.
In an instant, Anakin knew something had gone wrong. They were above Tash in the blink of an eye and he was about to drop down on the fighter's left side, efficiently cutting off the gravitational pull on the other fighter. If not for the sudden warning in the Force, he would have done just that, and come crashing down on the other fighter that had abruptly swooped in to scrape wing against wing with Strike Two.
"Pull up, Strike Sixteen! Anakin, pull up before you kill us all!"
He reacted instinctively, pulling back and to the right on the throttle. It was a knee-jerk reaction, and no one else would have been able to pull it off. In an instant, he was down and to the right of the wayward fighter, close enough to see the white of Tash's good eye turned towards him in desperate appeal.
It was the other pilot, however, that he was now more worried about.
"Sabe! What the hell are you doing?! Return to formation!"
"Negative, Strike Sixteen."
The sudden appearance of the third fighter, positioned between Strike Two and the gravitational pull had had the desired effect, to an extent. It had given Tash more control over his fighter, but the hole still had a hold, and Anakin could feel the ships shuddering under the stress.
But that seemed a moot point now, when it was Sabe between the fighter and the hole. It took less than an instant for panic to flood through Anakin, for every awful scenario to play itself out in his mind's eye. He could almost see her fighter disappearing into the empty darkness, could feel the weight of her death seeping into his bones.
And Obi-wan! Oh, Obi-wan! What would he say to him?! How would he explain this to his friend, explain the loss of the woman his brother had only now allowed himself to love, how it should have been him, that he had been only a few seconds too late to take her place. And underneath it was the searing knowledge of Siri's death, of how she had fallen in the Jedi Purge by his hand, and now here he was again, only desperate but unable to change fate.
The despair lurking in him reared up, ridden bareback by the panic and the fear, trampling him under it.
"Strike Leader, disengage – !"
"Stuff it, Anakin, or else tell me how to get us the hell out of this situation."
Anakin gritted his teeth, blue lightening dancing over his fingers. "Disengage, Sabe! That's an order!"
"I give the orders around here, Skywalker. Get back in the front or give me a hand, but either way, blow your orders out your exhaust pipe."
If only she knew how close the Darkness was, how easy it would be to just reach out and tear all three of them away from the hole. All it would take was a taste, just a single burst of power, real power, and then they would all be safe. This wasn't just about his ego, about being the hero. It would just be so much easier if she would just get out of the way!
The power danced over his fingertips, sizzling along the lines the Force had traced over his body, making his nerves dance, his eyes blaze.
Voices were shouting in his ears again, Sabe and Tash and half the squadron, Piett desperately requesting directions on where to fly, what to do. But none of it mattered. He shut them all out, listening only to the call of the Force. It raced through him, his heart beat with an inhuman rhythm, matching the great incandescence that was the song of the universe.
With a almost surreal ease, his hand came away from the controls and reached out…fire tingled at the ends, without pain, without heat…nothing but raw power, his to command, to control…
He had control over the situation. Over all of it! All he had to do was reach out and touch it. They would be saved, all of them. The squadron safe from the Maw, the galaxy safe from this Death Star. Sabe safe, kept from death. How Obi-wan would thank him, how they all would cheer…
NO! With the force of a whiplash at light-speed, Anakin came back to himself. The Darkness lingered at the edges of his senses, tingling with anticipation. How easily it had come to him, promising him all of his old needs: fame, glory, power. But he wouldn't give in, he wouldn't. There was another way.
With a deep breath, he released his sudden death hold on the Force and allowed it to flow through him. The Light broke like a Thanatian dawn across his soul, wrapping him in the secure knowledge that everything would be fine…
With a sudden jolt, Anakin felt the entire fighter underneath him shudder and bulk, as though it had been tossed. The voice of the Force simultaneously died to a whisper, then faded altogether as the real world rushed back in. Systems were going wild, Artoo was screaming bloody murder, and sirens wailed in his ears, drowning out the Force.
"Artoo, regain control of the piloting systems. Get us stable!"
The droid was going crazy, and for an instant, Anakin feared the worst. He had no idea what had been happening, what he had done, but suddenly he had no control, the stars before him mingled with the dark spaces that marked the black holes, and terror tore at his senses that had been left raw from the contact with the Darkness.
The Darkness…
Even as the fighter stabilized and the sirens fell silent, Anakin felt the blood rushing from his face. Where one moment there had been the Force, guiding him, the Darkside had rushed in to replace it the moment he had let his guard down. How easy it had been to embrace it, easy as it hadn't been since the attempt on the lives of his children five years ago. And what had it cost him, before the Light had come to his aid?
"Sabe?! Sabe, are you there?"
"I'm here, Anakin. Are you okay?"
Out the side of his viewport, he could see Strike Leader flying as his wingman on the starboard side. Her ship looked the worst for wear, but holding together. And behind her, Strike Two was flying back to rejoin the squadron, which was still flying in formation with Piett in the lead. He glanced away from the Strikes and looked to the young woman in the cockpit of the X-wing, found her staring at him in a way that made his heart leap.
"I'm alright. W-what happened?"
"I was going to ask you the same thing. Tash and I both switched full power to our port thrusters at the same moment and then there was this sudden…jolt and we broke hold. We thought you were with us, but we slammed into your fighter a moment later."
"The Force…" he muttered.
"The Force my ass," she snapped, already veering back to the squadron. "You disobey or try to override my orders like that again, Anakin, and Jedi or no Jedi, I'll put you in your place so fast, it'll make the Sith seem like a Alderaanian vacation! You copy?"
"I was only trying to protect you – "
"Do you copy?!"
"I copy." And he did, with a wonderful, unexplainable sense of relief.
His hands shook on the controls as he geared the fighter back into formation, Sabe taking up position behind him. He had lost all connection with the Force for the moment, everything was centered on his very physical presence. Belatedly, Anakin realized he was shaking all over, and there was a strange feeling of giddy detachment.
Shock, he thought to himself. I'm going into shock. This can't be good.
"Snap out of it, Skywalker!" Sabe's voice was there again, keeping him sane, helping him keep it together. "Piett's a damn good pilot, but we need you to get us out of this mess."
"Right, right." He replied. Focus! I've got to focus!
And just as Anakin felt himself regaining control of himself, just as the Force was returning and his senses began to operate normally, the patchwork that was the view before them of stars and no-stars gave way to something else.
It was small at first, then grew larger. A gray speck that became gray objects, and finally developed into the shape of a space station, and what looked like a metal corpse of a hollowed-out planet.
"This is it, Strike Squadron," Tash's voice, sounding steadier than Anakin would have ever expected. "Lock s-foils in attack position. The Ties will be on us any moment now."
And then they appeared, tiny objects that grew into enemy fighters headed straight for them. Not many, barely three full squadrons, but enough to threaten the Strikes with their decreased numbers.
With a determination he had to wrench out of the depths of his soul, Anakin set his shoulders and steadied his hands on the controls. He put all thoughts of Obi-wan and Padme, of the twins and of his own failings out of his mind.
He grinned, but it lacked all the smugness of the expressions he had worn in previous star battles. "Just like old times, right, Artoo?"
The loyal little droid twirled his own call to arms, and then the fighters engaged.
Whew! Okay, so this post isn't very long, but the next scene is low-key compared to this one, so I'll write it next time.
And yes, I realize Sabe's actions probably wouldn't have worked, but I really don't know enough about fighters and black holes and physics to come up with something even remotely believable, so just go with me on this one.
Caslia
