Chapter Fifty-One: Endgame
Mere moments after Obi-Wan's go-ahead carried over the intercom, Padmé reached forward to the weapons console and flicked the power switch for the laser cannon.
"Copy that," she called out as she pulled the Dancer's control yoke back, guiding the ship into a gentle loop. "Lining up for an attack run now."
"I've got one fighter close to being down, Dancer," came the panicked voice of Roland, the Z-95 pilot. "This whole 'four-against-one' thing isn't a whole lot of fun, so if you could wrap up that attack run fast and help out, it'd be appreciated."
"I'll be with you shortly, Sawshark Eight. I've got to zap these bastards first." A twist of the yoke sent the Dancer banking back toward the enemy cruiser; as its rear quarter came into position in front of the Dancer's pointed nose, Padmé let loose a flurry of cannon fire.
The distinctive red bolts of a decidedly non-ionized laser cannon splashed uselessly against the cruiser's shields. "Oh, son of a bitch," Padmé hissed at no one in particular. "Anakin! Whatever you did down there didn't work. We're still firing plain old lasers." She peeled the Dancer back away from the cruiser; the scrappy ship streaked away from its enemy to line up for another run.
"What? Come on, everything's connected just fine." Anakin's disappointment was apparent in his voice, even through the garbled intercom feed.
"The hyperdrive is on, right?" Padmé asked as she snapped the Dancer hard to port to avoid an oncoming laser blast.
"I'm offended that you'd even ask that," Anakin shot back. "Of course it's . . . oh."
Her eyes widened til they hurt. "Skywalker, did you seriously forget—"
"I did. Stupid thing isn't even plugged in. We left the power cable back in the engine room." Through Anakin's dejected droning, Padmé could just make out the sound of Obi-Wan's stifled laughter. "Quiet, you," Anakin continued. "I am never going to hear the end of this," he trailed off.
As Padmé lined up their ship for another run at the cruiser, she could hear the muffled sounds of the two men below deck shuffling and fiddling with the forgotten power cord. When the status lights dotting her control console dimmed briefly, Padmé grinned and toggled the intercom back on.
"Just had a power surge. I assume we're good to go?"
"Now or never. Give 'em hell, Padmé!"
Give them hell she did.
Roland G'ex's attention was yanked to starboard as a brilliant blue bolt shot out from the Spice Dancer and slammed into the enemy cruiser. The first shot was followed by a veritable barrage of ion blasts ripping into the Confederacy's last hope of winning this battle.
"Holy crap!" Roland shouted. "You guys jury-rig one hell of an ion cannon."
"It looks more impressive than it is," the Dancer's pilot called back. "I'll probably have to make one more pass to bring the shields down."
"Copy that, Dancer. Still, my compliments to the crew."
Commander Cody's voice entered the conversation. "Sawshark Eight, Spice Dancer, as soon as that thing's shields are down get clear. We've got all our ordnance primed and ready to go, would hate to turn you into collateral damage."
"Don't have to tell us twice," Padmé replied. "Okay, Roland, if you'd be so kind as to guard our tail? Looks like some of your friends are getting bored."
Oh, right, he thought, fighters. Hastily checking his scanners, he saw that the target he'd been chivvying with his lasers was in the midst of a death spiral. The Bith gave it one more blast for good measure, then kicked his Z-95 into a roll, sailing across the path of his three remaining friends.
He watched, with not a little gratification, as the lead fighter frantically peeled off to avoid colliding with his Z-95, swinging wide into open space. As he wrenched his own ship back into a stable position, his sensors chimed with an alert—a second fighter had latched onto his tail and was prepping fire. Which left . . .
. . . the third one, which was doggedly setting off in the direction of the cruiser.
"Spice Dancer," he warned, "got one still in play. Hurry it up over there."
The rusted hulk popped back into view, its engines flaring as it swung into alignment with the frigate's rear quarter. "Cross your fingers, everyone . . ."
Pulse after pulse of blue hammered into the cruiser. Its shields wavered visibly, ripples of white growing larger and brighter, ramping up more and more power to cover the weak spot.
And then, with a surging crackle that made Roland wince as it flooded into his auditory simulators, they blew themselves out.
"Okay, Coelacanth," the Spice Dancer's pilot said, "that sure as hell looked like a shield failure to me. If you could give us ten seconds to get clear—"
"Make it five," Cody replied. He kept his voice stern, but couldn't quite manage to block the savage joy that leaked in through the cracks.
Reyes looked up at him, grinning. "Their shields have failed, Commander. On your command."
Staring out the viewport at the hunk of metal floating right in front of their nose, Temeura Cody spoke a single syllable. "Now."
The Coelacanth carried ten quad turbolaser batteries, forty double turbolaser batteries, and eighty concussion missile launchers. Over the course of the battle, all ten of the quads had been shut down to divert power to the Star Destroyer's shields, seven of the double turbolasers had burned themselves out, and twenty missile tubes had run dry of ordnance. Every single remaining piece of weaponry it had was pointed at the Confederate frigate sitting at roughly spitting distance.
At Cody's command, everything fired at once.
The resulting destruction was almost anticlimactic in its totality. One instant, the frigate was there; the next, a conglomerate heap of slag and shrapnel had taken its place.
"That's what you call a blitz, you stupid bastards," the commander muttered to himself, watching superheated chunks of capital ship soar through the vacuum in one massive firework.
Obi-Wan and Anakin made it to the cockpit just too late to take in the light show. It was just as well, the general realized—Padmé certainly didn't look as though things were over yet.
"Skywalker, you want to take the wheel?" she asked. "We've still got a problem."
"Um, yeah, about that." The pilot raised his right arm and waved his shortened mechanical hand back and forth.
All color drained from Padmé's face. "No." Her gaze fell on Obi-Wan, who felt himself flushing scarlet. "Tell me whatever stupid plan wound up doing this was his idea."
"Erm, well," he managed, and then threw up his hands in surrender. "You try keeping your hands steady after dueling a Zabrak through a crashed ship."
"Blame later," Anakin cut in. "What's our problem?"
The look of death still in her glare, Padmé answered. "Starfighters, three of 'em."
"Make that two," clarified Roland G'ex's voice. "Looks like one of the bastards got caught in the middle of the fireworks. Got one on my tail, the other one's headed your way."
"Look, Skywalker," Padmé said, "even minus a few fingers, you're better at this than I am, and I just blew up a frigate. So please, take the wheel."
She shifted into the co-pilot's chair, Anakin slid into the pilot's seat, and Obi-Wan settled back behind them. The cushioning of the seat felt almost ludicrously soft—curious, how rigid and unyielding it had seemed when he'd been in the pilot's spot. It felt right, the Jedi thought, to be nothing but a passenger once again.
Finally, he felt himself start to relax a little. He couldn't fall asleep—not until they'd seen Qui-Gon to safety—but maybe closing his eyes wouldn't hurt too much. Just until they'd made it to the Coelacanth's hangar.
Of course, there were still the starfighters. But after all they'd been through, two of those couldn't be any real threat. It just wouldn't be fair.
"Oh, come on, that's just not fair," Roland spat.
Predictably, the universe did not take his critique to heart. His starboard engine stayed dead.
"Ahh, Spice Dancer," he said, "I'm drifting here. Bastard took out one of my engines, I'm all out of maneuvers."
When the pilot of the Dancer spoke, it was the male voice from before. "We've got you, just hang tight."
"Not much else I can do," the Bith muttered to himself. Tugging on the flight stick did almost nothing; his Z-95 continued along its trajectory, but evasive maneuvers seemed to be the last thing on its mind. Neon streaks of plasma no longer soared past his viewport; instead, they pounded against his rear shields, his auditory simulator dutifully noting every hit. He could absorb maybe ten more seconds of punishment before the shields burned out entirely.
"Spice Dancer," he asked, trying to shove the continuous pulse of the auditory simulator to the back of his mind, "I don't suppose you're using lasers again?"
"No dice," the other pilot replied, "but if we can disable 'em you should be able to eject and get picked up. Just hang on for a few more seconds."
Looking down at his sensor screen, Roland very much hoped this guy's definition of a few matched up with his own. The red dot behind him was closing distance, and the nearer it got the more damage its shots were doing. "I've got about six, Dancer."
Shields at 29%, his computer helpfully informed him. The ship will not survive a direct hit unshielded.
"Obvious to the end," the Bith said. "Guess I have to respect you for that."
Wham. 20 percent. Wham. 12 percent.
Finally, and far too late, he shut down his remaining engine entirely, shunting power back to the shields. They leapt back up to 19 percent—two more seconds bought.
Damn it, Rin, why did you have to die on me? You could have at least saved it and gone out by hitting this guy head on—
Suddenly, a loud whoop filled his cockpit.
The blue dot of the Spice Dancer tore through his sensor screen, aiming directly for his pursuer. Through the comm, Roland heard the steady chug of the Dancer's ion cannon firing. The red dot stopped closing distance, started to fall back a little—
—and then ceased moving entirely.
"Got him," the Dancer's pilot informed Roland. "Still kicking, but he's not gonna be shooting at you any time soon. Reads as completely fried."
Shields at 8%, his computer chimed in. Feel like ejecting?
The Bith considered for a moment. "And leave you? Couldn't possibly." Speaking into his comm unit: "Thanks, Dancer, I owe you one."
Another red dot entered the bottom edge of his sensors, unlike its companion still moving fast. "Just in case you hadn't noticed, though, there's still one last bogey hanging around. Looks like he's in a hurry to catch you, too."
"Copy that. We'll handle it. Best of luck out there."
"Same to you. Sawshark Eight out." He settled back into his seat, doing his best to find a comfortable position. "Well, pal," he asked the computer, "you know any card games?"
As Anakin Skywalker wrestled with the Dancer's control yoke, he jabbed at the comm switch with what remained of his mechanical hand. "Coelacanth, you've got a fighter adrift. He'll need pickup."
"Copy that, Dancer. We see him," a woman's voice called back. "We had to shut down tractor beams during the fight, but they're starting up now. We'll have Roland in the hangar soon."
"Here's hoping we get the chance to join him," Skywalker muttered as he wrenched the yoke to port, causing the Dancer to enter a tight banking turn. "Dammit," the pilot whispered to himself.
"What's wrong?" Obi-Wan piped up from the passenger seat behind. Despite the pilot's best efforts, he could sense the Jedi's wave of emotion. A brief spike of anxiety, followed by a valiant attempt to suppress the nerves. A glance over Anakin's shoulder revealed that Obi-Wan was slouching in the passenger seat with his eyes closed.
"You sure you wanna know?" Anakin hissed through clenched teeth as he yanked back on the yoke. Dammit, you are being way more difficult than usual, he silently scolded his ship. "I'd hate to disrupt your, um. . . meditation."
"Not meditating," Obi-Wan mumbled, eyes still closed. "Just tired."
"Well then. I can't shake our pursuer."
"The point of letting you take the wheel was so that you could out-fly them, dear," Padmé cut in. In response, Anakin waved his lump of a mechanical hand in the general direction of his co-pilot. She sneered, then glanced back at the radar display nestled into the control panel in front of her. "They're tight on our heels."
"And more maneuverable than us," Anakin said. "Every time I—" he snapped the yoke forward, pitching the Dancer's nose downward into a steep dive "—pull a move, they follow it perfectly. I can't turn tighter than them."
"What about slowing down?" the worn-out Jedi in the passenger seat offered. "Do the same thing we did down in the atmosphere. That'd get us behind them."
Anakin shook his head. "That crazy reverse thing was a one-and-done. When we did it, we broke the engine housing on one side. We won't be doing that again until we get it fixed."
"How about we just don't do that ever again?" Padmé said.
He chuckled. "Fair enough." For good measure, he sent the Spice Dancer into a tight turn, with a barrel roll thrown in for some added flourish. When he leveled off from the maneuver, the pursuing enemy fighter was still right on their tail.
Adjusting his grip on the yoke, Anakin once again reached toward the comm switch. He hovered his damaged mechanical hand over it for a moment, then took a deep breath. "Buckle up, you two. I think I've got an idea."
"Hey Coelacanth, this is Spice Dancer. Requesting some assistance dealing with our pursuer."
Chief Reyes blinked. The request was a bit of a futile one. For all they were capable of, Star Destroyers were notoriously bad at shooting down starfighters. That's why nearly every one in the Republic Defense Force had cruisers assigned as support ships. And Coelacanth's accompanying cruisers had all either fled the system or been destroyed.
"Point defense isn't our strong suit, Dancer," Reyes replied. "I really doubt we'll hit a fighter that size with a turbolaser."
"Can't hurt to try," the pilot said. "I'll line them up real nice for you. Front and center."
"And how do you plan to do that, Dancer?"
"You'll see in a second."
A short breath escaped Reyes' nose. This oughta be good, the chief thought.
From the front of the bridge, she could hear the unmistakable sound of her commanding officer clearing his throat. "Spice Dancer, this is Commander Cody. General Kenobi, what's he planning?"
"I wish I knew," the general replied, voice sounding worn.
"Fine, fine. I'll spoil the surprise," the pilot cut back in. "Get ready, Coelacanth. We're going to buzz the bridge tower."
Reyes' eyes shot open, and she fought off the grin that was slowly creeping up the corners of her mouth. I like this guy. The operations chief glanced up from her station, carrying her gaze forward to meet Commander Cody's. The senior officer rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"Prepare the forward batteries, Reyes. Let's shoot down a starfighter."
The full breadth of the Victory-class Star Destroyer filled the Spice Dancer's viewport as Anakin aligned the vessel's nose with the capital ship's bridge tower.
"You know, I always expected our first run on a Star Destroyer would go a little differently than this," Padmé mused.
Obi-Wan sat up slightly, his eyes now open. "You expected to have to make a run on a Republic Star Destroyer?"
"You haven't spent much time in the Outer Rim, Kenobi," she replied. "The RDF is the closest thing some systems have to a police force. I always figured someday we'd try for a really big score and wind up running from the law. Get hunted down by one of those Venators."
"Then I'd get to fly straight at the bridge and slip the Dancer between those two towers," Anakin said. "Someday, maybe." He paused, then turned to his wife. "They still right behind us?"
Padmé returned her focus to the radar display, nodding as she spoke. "Dead center. A little too close, though. Might want to put some distance between us and the fighter. I'd hate to have the gunners on the Coelacanth miss and hit us with a turbolaser blast."
Wordlessly, her husband reached forward and dialed up the Spice Dancer's throttle. Padmé clenched a fist as the ship creaked and rattled in response. One of these days we're going to push her too hard and she'll rattle herself apart, the co-pilot silently worried. Just, not today. Please?
"Okay, Spice Dancer, we're ready here on the Coelacanth," the Star Destroyer's operations chief called out over the comm. "Turbolaser fire commencing!"
Padmé resisted the urge to close her eyes as green spears of plasma leapt out from the dorsal surface of the Coelacanth. She watched on radar as the blasts—close enough and large enough to actually show up on sensors—sailed past the Dancer.
"The first volley missed," Padmé said. "Let's hope round two is better."
It wasn't. As the Dancer grew ever closer to the bridge, another useless round of turbolaser fire completely whiffed the pursuing enemy starfighter.
"This isn't working," Obi-Wan said from the passenger seat, his voice growing shaky.
"Thanks for that insightful analysis," Padmé spat back. "We've got time for one more."
"Barely," Anakin interjected. "It's now or never."
Another volley of shots lit up the radar screen in front of Padmé. Most of them flew uselessly past the fighter, but one smacked it square on the ventral shields. And one was all they needed.
"Direct hit!" came the victorious cheer of the Coelacanth's ops chief.
"So why are they still following us?" Padmé shouted, frustration and desperation bubbling within her. The enemy fighter was still on radar.
"Hang on!" Anakin grunted as he snapped the Spice Dancer into an impossibly tight turn, yanking the ship away from Coelacanth's bridge tower. Padmé felt the force of the turn as her body was pressed back into the co-pilot chair. When the pressure finally lifted, she leaned forward for a closer look at the radar screen.
"It's lost shields. How the hell did it take a direct hit from a turbolaser and only lose shields?"
"It wasn't shooting at us," Anakin said, the sound of realization dawning in his voice. "The pilot must have known what we were trying to do and diverted a bunch of power to the ventral shields. The clone bastards are smarter than I thought they'd be. The hit likely burned out the energy cells, though. Those shields won't be coming back up. Same goes for anything it shunted power from."
"So now it has no weapons?" a hopeful Obi-Wan asked.
"No energy weapons," Padmé said. "If that fighter has missile tubes on it—"
A high-pitched whine—a missile lock alert—pierced the air within the Dancer's cockpit.
"Oh, crap!" Anakin shouted. The sound of wrenching metal squealed over the auditory simulators as a missile slammed into the back of the Spice Dancer. Padmé was thrown forward from the impact, her seat restraints digging into her shoulders as she held a hand forward to avoid slamming into the control console.
"We're so screwed," she muttered, reaching up to rub her whiplashed neck.
"Not so fast," Anakin said. "They're unshielded. We just have to trick them into hitting something."
"Oh, I don't like where this is going," Obi-Wan said as he dragged himself back into his chair—he'd evidently been thrown to the floor when the missile hit.
"I'm going to do a strafing run on the Coelacanth. I think I can get them to crash into it."
"Anakin Skywalker!" a harsh voice called out over the comm. This new speaker's tone dripped with irritation as she continued: "That has got to be one of the stupidest goddamn ideas you have ever had." The speaker paused, and when she spoke again her voice was decidedly more mellow. "And I think it's absolutely wonderful."
"Sir!" Reyes cried. "There's another ship coming in."
"One of ours?" Cody barked. "Because I'm just about fed up with more bad news, Reyes."
"No, but it's not a clone signature either." The chief leaned over the sensor screen, her eyebrows screwed up in concentration. "It's . . . a racecar?"
Frowning, the commander strode over to her console. "Chief, if this is a joke I'll have you demoted faster than you can—" As he leaned closer, he abruptly cut himself off. "I'll be damned. That thing is spaceworthy?"
"And broadcasting wideband on our frequency. How'd they—"
"The clones found me harder to kill than they'd have liked, Commander."
Cody and Reyes started at each other, then down at the mic. "Wait," the latter said, "Rin?!"
"Wait," Anakin sputtered, "Liz?!"
"Shut up, Skywalker, and don't move."
Dumbfounded, the pilot did as he was told. The enemy fighter loomed closer on the sensors. "We've got another missile lock—" Padmé began.
A resounding WHAM echoed through their auditory simulator.
It took Padmé a moment to realize that the sound hadn't been a missile colliding with the Spice Dancer. Something hurtled past the yacht's viewport—something big, metal, and burning.
"It's the fighter!" she managed. And dammit, it's still hanging together—
With a bloom of energy, the clone spiraled into the Coelacanth's hull. There was a bright white flare of accumulating shield energy, and then a fireball.
All three crew members exhaled at once.
"And that," said Liz smugly, "is how you buzz a Star Destroyer."
The auditory simulator let off a whoosh from starboard—the bright red racing craft had pulled into formation alongside them. Padmé craned her neck forward to catch a glimpse into its cockpit—a red-eyed Liz happily made an obscene gesture with her remaining arm. As her eyes faded to blue, the gesture changed into a wave. Grinning, Padmé found herself returning the greeting.
"How the hell did you get out of there?" Anakin asked, himself leaning as far forward as he could without endangering the Dancer's course. Utter disbelief was still etched across his face.
"Oh, I managed to squeeze my way through a hole in the wreckage. The ship was still there when I got to the hangar. And I met the most lovely traveling companion!"
Padmé squinted—a very large, very toothy reptile was sitting beside the droid, looking as bemused as his facial structure would allow. "Don't think we've had the pleasure?" she said.
"Rin Hatchko," the Barabel replied. "Ship went down, this one picked me up."
"So it all worked out for the best after all!" The droid's eyes snapped crimson. "No thanks to you, you bunch of f—"
In the midst of the sentence, a fountain of sparks burst from the co-pilot's console, almost setting Padmé's eyebrows on fire. She reared back, batting hot particles away from the sensor screen. "Another fighter? Are you kidding me?"
"Padmé. PADME," her husband said.
"WHAT?"
She felt the weight of his metal hand grasp her shoulder as best it could with fingers missing. When she turned to look at him, he said, perfectly serious, "The comm unit just shorted out."
For a few seconds that felt like an eternity, the two stared at each other.
And then everyone started laughing at once.
Padmé could feel tears forcing their way out of her eyes and down her cheeks. Anakin lifted his hands from the control yoke to avoid his tremors crashing them into anything. Obi-Wan made muffled noises of mirth and pain, his chuckles presumably scraping his broken ribs together. The co-pilot could sympathize—spasms of laughter hitched at her midsection until everything began to ache.
Finally, things started to ease down. Padmé looked at her husband, his face a mix of weariness and boyish satisfaction and something new, something she couldn't yet quantify. She looked at Obi-Wan, utter exhaustion and long-expected serenity melded into such a characteristically Kenobi-ish expression that it was almost a caricature. And she looked at her own reflection in the instrument panel—a face that was covered in dried blood and tears and engine grease, that hadn't slept properly for at least 48 hours, but was, in this moment, deeply happy.
Obi-Wan coughed, rubbed at his beard, and then said, left eyebrow raised the barest fraction of an inch: "I don't suppose you'd grant an extension on that 6,000 credits?"
The laughter, once set off again, took a long time to stop.
A note from the authors:
The journey of Star Wars Episode I: The Looming Force is nearing its end. Thank you so much for joining us for this adventure! More exciting things are on the way.
On Thursday, November 15th, an epilogue to Episode I will be posted, bringing the story to its conclusion. After this, there will be a brief hiatus while the two of us authors collect our thoughts and prepare to bring you the continuation of this story: our alternate Star Wars Episode II.
Before we begin posting Episode II, you can look forward to a collection of one-shots which take place after The Looming Force. Titled "The Skywalker Legend: Fragments," this group of short stories will explore some of the events taking place between the first and second episodes of our prequel trilogy.
Make sure to follow our author page so you don't miss any of this upcoming work! Thanks again for following along with this story from a galaxy far, far away. May the Force be with you.
Your authors,
GoodHunterAnais and Slippin_Jimmy
