Ten minutes. It has been ten minutes since he arrived in-system; ten minutes since his solar sailor made for Mandalore and Sundari and this lonely, recessed hanger bay shaded by the moonless night. Ten minutes and now, if everything has gone according to plan, General Kalani should be arriving right now with his battle group.

And everything must go according to plan. Count Dooku is betting everything on it.

A pair of Mandalorian soldiers are waiting for Dooku, each adorned in curious armor—red and black war paint striping their helmets, almost as if in the pattern of Zabrak tattoos. The lead soldier aims his rifle at Dooku as he steps off of his solar sailor: "Halt! You're not authorized to land here!"

Dooku does not have time for these interlopers. He reaches out his hand, snarls, and launches a fury of lighting through the Force that catches the Mandalorian and throws him backward. His fellow cries out and fires a single shot from his weapon. Dooku is faster: In a flash his lightsaber bursts to life and sends the blaster bolt flying back, snatching the Mandalorian under his chin. Dooku does not bother to see if he is still alive. He steps over the man as he advances, raking the first soldier with his lightsaber and eliciting a welcome cry. Just appetizers for the main course. Dooku is after a far, far bigger prize today, and he can feel it in the air, in that taint in the Force.

Sidious is here in Sundari. Just as he foresaw on Ziost. On this blackest of Mandalorian nights will everything change—the war, the Sith, the very fate of the galaxy. One showdown for it all.

As he swings onto an idle swoop parked beside the mouth-like tunnel entrance into the capital city, Dooku pats his belt. Best to make sure everything is where it should be. Today he is not just counting on the Force and his lightsaber, but a piece of technology that Sidious, in his pride and his arrogance, would turn his nose up at: A personal shield generator. It will do nothing in a fight—at least not the kind of fight Dooku foresaw in the Celestial's twisting mist of a vision—but it will have its time. All things must.

He ratches the swoop up to maximum power and the speeder races ahead, jetting through the entry tunnel and into Sundari's cavernous city-dome. Already there is chaos rampant. Yellow and red blaster bolts fly high in the air, darting phantoms of Mandalorian warriors hurtling this way and that on their jetpacks while exchanging fire. Civil war is upon Mandalore. Dooku will put an end to all this madness soon, though; these savage people will know his order, just as soon as he has secured it.

He looks away from the fighting. He cannot focus on those beasts now. There is only man he has come to kill tonight. A master, a lord, a ruler, but still just a man despite all that power.

Ahead rises the royal palace of Mandalore. The glass house of the Celestial's vision: Here will all lesser arguments and aspirations be rendered null. Here will the dueling parties set aside their words and take up their wills. Only might, that most fundamental of all forces of man, that constant of nature, will decide the most fundamental of all conflicts: Life and death, one victorious, one vanquished. No politics. No schemes. There is only the bare and brutal honesty of mortality at work tonight.

Dooku soars up to the front gates of the royal palace. No guards. No Mandalorians even anywhere close. Sidious must already be inside. A check of his wrist commlink shows that comms are down—a city-wide sensor jammer of some sort is up. Dooku can only trust that Kalani is on schedule.

Ornate halls. Artwork-lined walls. Quiet as a tomb. Dooku's breaths are shouts; his footsteps are gunshots. Each second is an eternity. Each meter forward a mile. Closer and closer until at least he is before it: The final hallway that leads into the palace throne room itself. Dooku can feel it now: The Dark Side is writhing and howling, tar-like, so strong and viscous that it thickens his very thoughts and feelings like quicksand. The last gap to cross.

And Dooku is strong enough to cross it. This is his hour.

At last the vision is revealed. He enters the throne room and sees destiny forming before him. Darth Sidious stands with his back turned, his cloak and hood raised. On either side of the throne stand two men, two Zabraks, one Dooku is all too familiar with, and the other…well, the other. The other he has heard far too much about.

Savage Opress. And that red-and-black-skinned one…Sidious has mentioned him. Maul. The once-Darth Maul.

The two Zabraks ignite their lightsabers, Maul and Savage laser-focused on Sidious. But Dooku's master—former master—senses another presence, one he did not expect to be here. He turns like a giant, slow, ponderous, every degree of his rotation thoughtful as if considering the weight of the moment. Dooku can only see the lower half of Sidious's face. It is enough, however, to spot the old man's carnivore grin dip just enough to make Dooku smile.

At the front of the room, Savage snarls. "Dooku."

"Lord Tyranus," Sidious hisses. "Your arrival is unexpected."

"I have come for my own reasons, My Master," Dooku says, the last two words spat like poison. "For you, I have only one question tonight: What is the way of the Sith?"

Sidious cackles. A jackal's laugh. The humor of a predator that can smell death on the air. "I am impressed," he says. "I did not think you capable of such treachery. Nor did I think you had the ambition. But it matters not. You are nothing before me, Tyranus. And I can always find a new apprentice."

"There will be no need for that. I have not come to let you leave here alive. The mantle of the Sith is mine, Sidious. You have had your time, and now your reign is over."

"Oh, no. No, it is not even begun," Sidious says. He turns to the Zabraks. "Lord Maul—you wish to stand at my side once more? Slay this usurper. Prove you are worthy of the Dark Side and take your place as my apprentice, as you once were, as you might be again."

"You know his words are poisoned, Lord Maul," Dooku counters quickly. "Sidious has betrayed you once. He abandoned you. He will betray you again. It is only a matter of time."

Savage glances at Maul with a face full of anger. "Brother, we cannot trust Dooku. He will kill us the moment our backs are turned."

Time stalls; the universe waits with its breath collected. A million-million stars and worlds and people revolve around Maul as his feline eyes dart between Sidious and Dooku. And never has Dooku felt so alive: This is what it has all been leading up to, his abandonment of the Jedi Order, his embrace of the Dark Side, his leadership of the Separatists. Everything has led to this. Everything waits on the decision of one lost soul, one man who fell on Naboo to the blade of Obi-Wan Kenobi, only to rise once more as the self-crowned ruler of Mandalore, this once-Sith, this conundrum, one man spinning in the tangle of fate: Maul. He knows the Force. Knows the Dark Side. But where does it take him?

But the men of destiny do not let history come to them. They forge their own paths.

Dooku lights his blade. He takes a step towards Sidious. His former master turns just a hair, both lightsabers now in hand, the first igniting.

And it is then, with the wheels at last turning, that Maul makes his move.

With a roar he lunges at Sidious. The Sith Lord intercepts him with ease, laughing, laughing. But now the dice have been tossed, the game is on, and all four of them are in the ring.

Dooku rushes Sidious and clashes lightsaber-on-lightsaber. Minutes. Mere minutes. He only has to hold him.

No sooner has he spun away from Sidious's attacks, however, that he sees that this is not a battle of factions but a brawling melee. Savage Opress thunders out of the dusk and swings at Dooku with an executioner's blow. Still, after all this time, the man has learned no technique. Dooku evades easily, parrying a follow-up attack, and swipes at Opress with lethal intent. But the burly Zabrak is quick: He dodges away, moving to counter Dooku, thinking better of it when he sees Maul under Sidious's assault, and leaps in to aid his brother.

Again Dooku moves on the attack. Sidious launches a burst of lightning at him that he easily absorbs with his lightsaber, but it is only a delaying action: Sidious whirls away from Dooku, spinning by an attack from Maul and swatting away Savage's blows with ease. Maul lashes out at the first red blade he sees: Dooku's saber. The two apprentices lock eyes for the moment their blades clash. Sith to Sith. Warrior to warrior. Each has staked their world entire here. They are far from alike, yet in that stare is exchanged a kinship, a shadow-bond of men who would submerge their whole selves in the darkness and find their way in its midnight depths. For each, there is no turning back. There is nothing less to lose than everything.

Dooku wheels away as Sidious leaps out of the fray, bounding up to the Mandalorian throne. A king fighting for his right. He cries out and lets loose a blast of lightning that throws aside Maul and Savage, launching them to the far end of the palace. Just as he turns with his face contorted into a snarl, however, Dooku's commlink lights up. The sensor jammer is down. And Kalani has done his part. The fleet has arrived.

It is time. Dooku has held Sidious long enough. This is it.

"A valiant attempt," Sidious seethes as Dooku holds his blade in a defensive posture. "But there is only one Lord of the Sith, Tyranus, and you have never been anything more than an apprentice. Now, experience the full power of the Dark Side."

"No, my lord," Dooku says. "I have become so much more, and you cannot see. As it has always been. Your overconfidence is your weakness."

Sidious howls. He concentrates with the Force, clenching his hands, and the throne room quakes: The throne itself wrenches off its fastenings, breaking free from the floor and lifting into the air. Sidious rages, defiant, aswirl in the Dark Side. Then he hurls the throne with all the power of the Dark Lord of the Sith straight at Dooku.

It is perfect.

Dooku jumps, then flips in the air, just evading the missile. As he tumbles, he slaps at his waist, activating the personal shield generator. And he smiles.

He looks up as he turns in the air, pinwheel-twisting, glass shattering in a kaleidoscope-dream. There is an emotion so very alien on Sidious's face. Confusion.

Then Dooku looks back, assure to the utmost, confident in victory. The Force passes through all living things, all life bound to its will—and no one in the galaxy, not Dooku himself nor any Jedi, commands the Force like Darth Sidious.

But the Force does not flow through a droid, for there is nothing alive in all that metal and circuitry. And now as Dooku peers over his shoulder he spots two vulture droids racing through the city, now bearing down on them, each releasing the first of a volley of energy torpedoes directly at the palace.

One moment; the next. Sidious bellows; a king defiant to the end. Maul looks up with wide eyes, grabs Savage, pulls his brother to the ground, and ducks. And Dooku, in the air, flies.

What is the way of the Sith?

This is the way of the Sith.

The first pair of torpedoes weave through the hole in the glass wall blown open by the telekinetically-thrown throne. Sidious desperately tries to push the missiles away, but it is too late: The warheads slam into the ground at his feet, throwing up an explosion that engulfs the palace, Sidious, everything.

The blast hits Dooku and tosses him away as the palace erupts into a firestorm. Shards and flame batter him, but the shield holds. As the vulture droids race away, a hyena bomber follows up and peppers the fiery ruin with proton bombs, Dooku lands on his feet on the plaza below, lightsaber still ignited in his hand, and watches the carnage. Separatist fighters are everywhere inside the city, red laser fire lighting up every square inch of the urban sky as they throw back the anarchy of this short-lived civil war and introduce a new paradigm: Conquest.

But Dooku does not care about the Mandalorians. He feels it in the Force, exactly what he came for: That flickering. That sudden absence, the storm-black extinguishing of a candle and the darkness regnant. The passing of the torch. Darth Sidious is dead.

Long live the Dark Lord of the Sith.

"Good-bye," Dooku says with a smile as the flames dance in his eyes. "My Master."

Keep shooting. Keep fighting. General Skywalker will make it.

Deep in the bowels of the Invisible Hand, Rex shoots a passing Separatist astromech droid, shoves the hissing, sparking automaton over, and dives behind it as improvised cover. He, Ahsoka, and the surviving three members of his clone team from the gunships are just a hallway or two off of the engine room, but sabotage is no longer an option: Battle droids bear down from every angle, red blaster bolts whipping overhead like falcons diving on their prey. Closer, closer they come. "We're surrounded!" he shouts to Ahsoka as he aims over the downed astromech, fires, and catches a super battle droid in the chest. The droid shakes it off and keeps coming. "Commander, take cover!"

"I'll hold 'em off," shouts Ahsoka, standing in the midst of the rainstorm of blaster bolts, lightsabers a viridian blur. "Rex, take your men and get to the engine room. Get charges on it!"

"You'll never hold them all off on your own!"

"Rex!"

One of the three surviving clone troopers takes a destroyer droid's blast to the chest. Rex tosses a droid-popper—only one left of those—and says, "Commander, I'm staying with you. I'm not letting you die here."

For the briefest of moments their eyes meet. It is a subtle, soft thing—velvet understanding amid the fang and claw of unrestrained battle. If she gives him the order, he will follow it. He is a good soldier, and she is his commander. But he hopes she does not do it.

And she doesn't. Their eyes veer away from each other's, back to the fight, back to the madness, the lunacy of battle, death tossed around like a passing greeting. And on they fight, not clone and Jedi but warrior and warrior, friend and friend to the end.

One of the surviving clones makes a mad dash at the destroyer droids laying down fire. "I'll take 'em!"

"No, wait! Wait!" Rex shouts.

The clone trooper tosses a pair of droid-poppers, each grenade making it through the droids' shields, each bursting to life with lighting and thunder. But a trio of super battle droids are not so easily turned aside: They rake the clone with their blasters, then hit his fellow with their wrist-rockets. So quickly it is just Rex and Ahsoka here in the middle of all these enemies. How close the darkness advances like a pack of lions, circling, circling, knowing the end is near.

"Get those guys behind us," Ahsoka shouts, readying her lightsabers and crouching into a sprinter's poise. "I'll handle everyone in front."

"Commander—"

But Ahsoka Tano is too reckless—and too bold, for sure—to heed caution. There is a time when Rex doubted Jedi officers like her, but no longer. She dashes at the array of battle droids firing full-tilt, her lightsabers almost elegant in their dance, knocking shot after shot away. Then she is upon them, energy and liveliness and death like a messenger of some ancient god of war, blades hacking through droids. Rex turns away, firing, firing, blaster pistols bucking as he downs droid after droid, doing just enough to stay alive and keep the enemy at bay. Fight. Fight. It is what he was born to do. More than that, it is what he believes in with Ahsoka at his back.

On and on. The battle droids start to fall back. From behind him, Ahsoka shouts, "Duck!" It is instinctive: Her words and his movement, the same instant. A battle droid torso flies overhead as he drops to the floor, the psychokinetically-hurled carcass knocking aside a pair of super battle droids and clanging away down the hallway.

But the victory is momentary. Ahsoka rushes up just as a hallway alcove's door bursts open. She yelps in surprise and somersaults backwards, just in time to evade a pair of lightsabers slicing at her in a decapitation strike. Getting to her feet, Ahsoka clenches her jaw and squares off as General Grievous rises.

Rex holds his fire. Alone he is no much for the cyborg, especially with those lightsabers in action.

"You again, child," Grievous sneers, waving one of his sabers at Ahsoka. "No Skywalker here to save you now."

"What'd you do, run away from Anakin when he came to get you?" Ahsoka taunts. "No worries. You're not getting away this time, Grievous."

He laughs. "Right now I think Skywalker is standing on the bridge, wondering where everyone's gone. But he won't make it in time to save you, girl. You're right: I'm not going anywhere. Not until I take your head from your shoulders so that I can toss it at Skywalker's feet.

As mismatched as he is here, Rex will not leave Ahsoka to fight Grievous one-on-one. He aims as the cyborg bears down, then fires off a pair of blasts. Grievous swats at his shots angrily, the first clipping his shoulder, the second bouncing off one of his lightsabers. "Fool of a clone," he snarls. "I have no use for you."

"Rex, I've got him," Ahsoka shouts.

"Commander!"

But Ahsoka is bold, and she will not hold back. She throws herself at Grievous as he turns to withstand her charge, lightsabers clashing, energy on energy. Rex stands off, blaster pistols at the ready, but hesitant to shoot. They are fast, too fast for his guns, combatants turning and whirling and swinging and dodging, Grievous and Ahsoka wordless as they strike and parry and evade and strike again. Only when Grievous catches Ahsoka off-guard with a clever feint and kicks her squarely in the chest does Rex intervene, firing a hail of shots as soon as Ahsoka jumps back.

Grievous withstands the fire with ease. And once more he and Ahsoka are a storm, one cell locked against itself. Rex can only keep his blasters trained and watch—and wait.

General Skywalker—hurry.

Ahsoka dances. She evades death by a hair. Grievous is a force, all strength and bulk, each swing a hammer in the blacksmith's hand. Rex waits. So far the general has only used two of his arms, but Rex knows very well he can bring more to bear. When he does—what then? He has to be ready.

It does not take long. As Ahsoka swats aside Grievous's defenses and makes headway against him, the cyborg splits his arms. He reaches for his cape. Rex aims his blasters, expecting more lightsabers, but Grievous surprises. In his left lower arm emerges not a saber hilt but a pistol. And, too late, Rex sees that it is not a blaster. Ahsoka's eyes widen as Grievous aims and fires.

A flamethrower.

Fire blooms. Ahsoka yelps as her Jedi tunic catches alight, and she jumps back, swinging her lightsabers wildly to keep Grievous at bay while simultaneously trying to bat the flames away. Rex grits his teeth and fires. One, two, one two—Grievous surges through the blaster bolts with his three ignited lightsabers aloft, as if Rex is nothing but a distraction. He sweeps one clawed foot, catching Ahsoka's ankle. She falls. She raises her hands in defense as he pours another jet of flame on her, just averting the fire with a well-timed push of Force energy. But Grievous is too well-armed, too quick, too strong: As she struggles to hold off the fire, he holds two lightsabers in a cross to withstands Rex's shots while driving the third home straight into Ahsoka's torso.

Time freezes. Space stalls. Rex can only look on. Eyes wide, he sees Grievous's saber punch through Ahsoka's outstretched hand, penetrate her stomach right above the navel. Then Grievous pulls, yanking the sword away, cutting through Ahsoka's abdomen as he does so.

The air rushes from Rex's lungs. He breathes in. Fire flushes his face. "Commander! Ahsoka!"

She gasps. The burn of the evisceration glows, half her midsection ripped apart by Grievous's attack. He looms large over her, laughing as he pockets the pistol flamer and one of his lightsabers, crouching down to pick up her blades. "Two more for the collection," Grievous snorts as he lights Ahsoka's sabers.

"No!" shouts Rex.

He fires shot after shot after shot. His will is not his own; his thoughts empty, his mind a void. All he feels is the fire in his arms, the spirit of war howling in his heart. Grievous there, repugnant, vile, advancing with sabers crossed. Kill or be killed. If this is his last moment, so be it. He is a soldier of the Republic. He is Ahsoka's captain. He will fight. Fight. Fight on until the end.

"Your turn, clone!" Grievous shouts as he raises his lightsabers.

But he stops mid-swing. He looks to his left, then backpedals and ducks just as a blue lightsaber comes hurtling out of the ether like a bolt of lightning from on high. Then General Skywalker is there, his eyes blazing, his arms swinging madly, wildly. "Grievous!" he bellows. "Come here and die!"

Grievous dodges away to put distance between himself and Anakin. "Too late, Skywalker," he chortles. "Just like on Thyferra."

Then, as Anakin pushes his attack, Grievous drops to all six limbs and scampers away, too quick for Anakin's strikes, nothing more than a scuttling coward having accomplished what he came to do. "Come on," shouts Anakin, running down the corridor without glancing back. "Rex, Ahsoka, let's go! We can't let him get away!" Aware that he is not followed, he turns, lightsaber out, face twisted in battle rage. "What're you—"

It is then that Anakin stops. Rex does not follow: He is at Ahsoka's side, throwing his helmet off, hands pressed to her grave injury. Ahsoka groans, her eyes wobbly, her mouth ajar, slipping from life to beyond. At last Anakin sees. At last he sees that Grievous is right: He is too late, a moment powerless. His face falls. "No," he murmurs, deactivating his lightsaber and rushing forward. "No, no, no. Ahsoka, no, no!"

"Commander, Ahsoka," Rex pants, desperate to do something—anything—but he has no idea where to start, and the gasping noises Ahsoka is making shake him out of his clone training. Nothing trained him for this. "Commander, stay with me."

Anakin is speechless as he stops over Ahsoka, hands outstretched to fight an enemy he cannot defeat. "Grievous," he pants, eyes wild, savage. "He—I-no, no."

Thoughts bounce around Rex's head. "I know these command ships," he says, to himself, to General Skywalker, to no one, to anyone. Someone. Please, someone. "There's escape pods near here. Near the engine core."

"Get her," Anakin breathes, his voice shakier than Rex has ever heard. Not a drop of color remains in his face. His eyes are pools, voids. Neither darkness nor light visible in that expression; only a vacuum, an absence, as if life itself has fled. "Ahsoka, Rex—take her. Careful." As Rex gathers Ahsoka's mangled, broken body in his arms and she squeaks out in agony, Anakin gasps. "Careful!"

Rex nods. "I got her. I got her, General."

"This way. Come on. Hurry. Hurry!"

Rex lifts Ahsoka as if she is a child, fragile, torn, but still clinging to life. Hold on, Commander. Just hold on.

Anakin rounds the bend ahead of them. A battle droid contingent turns, rifles aimed: "Jedi!" the battle droid sergeant shouts. "Blast them! Blast them!"

The color returns to Anakin in a rush. Darkness swarms him, a black Rex has never seen. He gathers the Force in his hands, his face twisted, contorted; then he unleashes all of that energy in a single push, throwing back the droids, hitting them with such energy that the first few break apart, metal and wires splintering, exploding. Anakin barely notices. "This way, let's go," he pants.

Onward. Onward.

"All soldiers still onboard," Rex shouts to his wrist commlink as they move, "get out of here! Repeat, all troops onboard the Invisible Hand, get out, now!"

One hallway, then the next. It is all a blur to Rex, all a bad dream, a nightmare from which he cannot slap himself awake. One turn and Anakin is atop a quartet of super battle droids guarding the escape pods, slicing them apart like dough. "Get on," he shouts, his voice unnatural, oddly high. "I'll cover you."

It is as if he is simply repeating his training mantras; there is no one to cover Rex from. They are desperate, he and the general. Desperate to imagine that the Republic fleet is still holding its own against a Separatist armada twice its size and advantaged in position. Desperate to imagine that someone will come to save them. Desperate to imagine that Ahsoka will make it.

Rex shuffles inside a pod with Ahsoka in his arms, settling down into a seat and holding her tight. He will not let go now. He checks her breathing, her heartbeat—still ticking. "General?"

"On it."

Anakin plunges into the pod. Without strapping himself into a jump seat he throws the lever, fires the booster rockets—and they are free, tilting through space, alone, lost. Everywhere around them is chaos: Lasers surge across space, fighters dash here and there; it is madness. Rex has no idea who might be winning, losing, triumphing, dying. But he can spot one thing: A pair of vulture droids turning away from their attack on an Arquitens-class frigate and now veering in on an intercept course.

"Blast it," Anakin says. "Come on, come on."

There is nothing they can do but watch. The fighters approach, laser cannons lighting up. Rex's grip on Ahsoka tightens. If this is the end, then he will not let her go as they go together.

But providence pulls them from the brink. Emerald javelins fly from the black, an Actis interceptor breaking into view as it takes the first droid fighter, then the next, both hostiles breaking apart in flame and wreckage. That color pattern, yellow—not General Fisto.

"R2," Anakin breathes. He hits his comm again: "R2! R2, do you read me?"

A familiar, reassuring chirp sounds out. "R2, get me Yularen. Get me him now—Ahsoka's hurt, she's hurt bad!"

A low, moody affirmative. The droid knows the stakes. Rex holds on—these moments, these fading, slow, silent moments, he and General Skywalker silent in the escape pod as it cascades through the black, space so quiet, too quiet amid all this destruction. Then the comm sounds again and Anakin is not a moment hesitant in answering: "Admiral? Admiral Yularen, come on. It's Anakin Skywalker. Admiral!"

The comm buzzes, hisses. Static everywhere. Anakin grits his teeth. "Master Fisto? Someone come in! This is Anakin Skywalker! I need help, now!"

A voice comes, garbled, lost. Then it breaks through: "Skywalker? General Skywalker?"

"Who is this?"

"This is Jan Dodonna. I have a fix on your position."

"Where is Admiral Yularen?"

A short pause. "Yularen's gone," Dodonna replies. "His ship broke up, took him with it. General Fisto's gone, too. We're getting torn up out here, Skywalker. The Separatists know our every move before we make them. We're below half-strength and we haven't even made a dent in their fleet. You're in command—orders?"

Rex's breath catches. Anakin looks grave. Their pod sails past a whole mess of engaging fighters, and a Recusant destroyer thunders up into view, right where they're headed. "Captain Dodonna," Anakin says, gritting his teeth at the sight of the Separatist ship blocking their path, "I need pickup, now. I have wounded—I need a trauma team standing by. Get every other ship you can and get out of here. You're in command. Full retreat, everyone you can save."

"The mission—"

"It's a loss, captain. They're killing us. We can't keep this up," Anakin says. Rex knows the weight of this decision: Yularen, the chief flag officer, is gone. Master Fisto, in overall command, is gone. Waiting on Ziost is some horrible power of monumental power, but they have no chance of getting to it, whether they stay or whether they leave. Defeat is inevitable. "I need a ship to get on me now, though. I'm stranded out here."

"Got it, Skywalker," Dodonna replies. "I'm routing my best man onto your position. I'll rally the rest of the fleet to the evac point. Good luck—and may the Force be with you. Dodonna out."

The wait is unbearable. Moments like eons. Anakin and Rex are silent in that spinning escape pod as they inch closer and closer to the Separatist destroyer, R2 and the Actis interceptor fading in and out of view. Unable to sit still any longer, Anakin rushes up and kneels before Ahsoka, pressing his hands to her cheeks and closing his eyes. "Come on, Snips," he murmurs. "I need you. Come on."

Rex can only watch. Is it the Force? Some sort of healing technique? He knows General Skywalker's will, his power, his indomitable courage, but this is something else entirely. Ahsoka is almost gone. Her face is too still, her skin waxy, cold. Her heart beats, but only just. How long do they have?

Just in time, the comm flares. "Skywalker," Anakin blurts instantly.

"Skywalker? Skywalker?" the voice on the other side shouts, a patchy, throaty voice. "This is Gilad Pellaeon of the Leveler. Dodonna fed me your position; I'm inbound now."

"Captain, there's a destroyer right in our way," Anakin says.

"Yup, I see it, Skywalker. No matter. I'm burnin' 'im down!"

The Recusant looms in one moment; the next its shields burst in a flare of green and blue and violet. Flames erupt from its engine strut. Metal creaks and blows; debris shatters. Then the destroyer comes apart, its engine nacelle blowing off from its fuselage, the ship ripping in two as an Acclamator-class Republic assault ship veers through the explosion, spinning on its axis as it curls in on the escape pod, pounding the dying Separatist ship with concussion missiles and turbolaser fire. It banks hard to port as it nears. The escape pod shudders: A tractor beam locking on and dragging the pod towards the Leveler as it accelerates away. R2's interceptor blows by, making for the assault ship as the battle rages on, gunfire, missiles, destruction death.

"R2, get to that ship," Anakin says to his comm. Then he quiets, grabbing Ahsoka's hands, eyes closed once more. "Almost there, Ahsoka," he murmurs. "Just hold on, Snips."

"Stay with us, Commander," Rex adds, for whatever good it will do. But Ahsoka shudders in his arms, and it is enough: Hold on, Ahsoka. Just hold on. They are getting out of here—triumph, defeat, meaningless. Stay alive. They are going home.