Chapter 32 – Planning
DISCLAIMER: We do not own Star Wars, even if we wish we did. xD
Author's Note: In which the disaster trio decides on a plan. ;)
~ Amina Gila
"I'm beginning to think we shouldn't wait until the Council decides to act before we take action," I declare as our ship streaks through hyperspace back towards the Capital so we can go rescue a crazed Sith Lord from his own apprentice – like he needs our help. He could rescue himself just as well. Actually, probably better. Never mind that he arranged this himself.
"What are you saying we should do, then?" Anakin asks, "Not like we could just walk in there and kill him."
"Actually, that's exactly what I was thinking," I retort, "We could just say Dooku or Grievous did it. No one would ever know better but the Council – which doesn't really matter. If we took him by surprise, it shouldn't be hard. He wouldn't ever see it coming." It's a risky idea, to be sure, but the fastest option for now, one that will avoid the Jedi being destroyed. And please, no one mention that he should be put on trial.
There is a momentary pause. "Great idea, Snips," he congratulates, a grin spreading across his face, "Let's do it. Obi-Wan? Any input?"
He frowns. "I'm not sure this is a good idea."
I sigh. No, maybe it's not the most brilliant plan ever, but... "It's the best option we've got right now. It's not like there's a way to arrest him and make him stand trial. He's far too powerful. If we want to defeat him without risking countless lives, we have to take him by surprise,"
"This may be the best opportunity we get in a long time," adds Anakin, "Besides, unless the Council decides they have enough evidence against him soon, he could find out that we're planning to de-chip the clones, and then he might issue Order 66 immediately." Exactly. That is something we cannot allow to happen. If Sidious felt his plans were being threatened to that extent, I think he would keep moving on them, even without Anakin as Vader.
Obi-Wan seems to consider our words for a long moment before speaking. "I still don't like this idea, but it's probably the best we can do right now."
"Great!" I exclaim, "Then let's go for it." I'm more excited than I should be. This should be the perfect time. It seems easy, but for some reason, way inside I get the feeling nothing will be quite so simple. Not with Sidious. Hopefully, we'll at least be able to destroy him, even if Grievous and Dooku get away.
I pause for a moment, thinking through the plan. There's no way to know what will happen, or if we'll be able to do it at all, but regardless, we can't let him think anything of it. "Remember to keep your shields up as strong as you can," I remind. "We have no idea what he's capable of, and if we think about killing him when we're nearby, he might sense it. And in case it comes down to a battle, he's an expert at lightning. Maybe even better than with a lightsaber, I don't know."
"Even better," Anakin grumbles.
"Through the whole battle, he never used a lightsaber," I murmur as the memory flashes through my mind altogether to vividly. "He just had his apprentice do everything. Until the end."
"What happened?" wonders Obi-Wan.
"After the fight was over with Vader... he tried to have Anakin killed," I continue, gaze dropping to the floor. I should stop talking. I really should, but everything just comes pouring out. "I lunged at him – I wasn't really thinking – and he started electrocuting me and Luke. It distracted him enough for you to sneak up on him and killed him, but it killed you in the process."
Before I know it, we've emerged from hyperspace over Coruscant and have gotten into our fighters. The clones who are helping with our attack are flying behind us. I can hardly believe that I finally am able to fight with both Anakin and Obi-Wan again. I've missed the feeling so much.
Our fighters swoop down, flying in unison between the massive ships covering the sky and dodging blaster fire, heading towards the Invisible Hand. A sudden explosion fills the air in front of us, but we zip through, continuing on our journey unscathed.
"Lock onto 'em, Artoo," Anakin calls as we continue our flight. "Master, General Grievous' ship is directly ahead."
"Great. That means we're nearly there," I reply.
"Oh, I see it. This is going to be easy!" declares Obi-Wan as the huge ship comes into view.
"With us, when is something ever easy?" I retort, smirking.
That's when the clones come out of the hanger, joining the battle. Right on cue, a group of droids fly our way. The battle continues raging as we push forwards, shooting down the droids while trying to help out the clones and make our way towards the ship simultaneously.
Suddenly, six missiles are fired at us.
"They've overshot us!" Obi-Wan calls as the six of them zip overhead.
"They're coming around!" Anakin replies. I glance out the back of my fighter. Sure enough, two of them are following each of us from behind. Anakin spins his fighter, making them collide. "We got 'em, Artoo!" he congratulates. I spin my own fighter – a trick I learned from Anakin, of course – letting them blow each other up before continuing forwards.
Obi-Wan's fighter dives past a nearby ship, making the missiles blow up against the ship. The altogether too familiar sight of buzzdroids are fired at us next. Anakin and I easily maneuver out of the way, and I can't help but remember the last time I saw them. Anakin wasn't so lucky, and I literally had to cut open his fighter and drag him out before it flew off a cliff and blew up.
"They're all over me!" shouts Obi-Wan as several of the droids land on his fighter, "Anakin?"
"I see them!" he replies.
"These things again," I huff. Unfortunately, we're in space still, so it's not nearly as easy. He can't just jump out. The droids start cutting his ship apart. If we don't do something fast, it's going to completely disintegrate. His astro droid floats off into space seconds later, unable to fend off the attack.
"They're shutting down all the controls," he calls worriedly.
"That's what they're for," I reply, trying to quell my rising alarm, "Try to get to the Invisible Hand before they finish their work!"
"No time," Anakin retorts, "Move to the right so I can get a clear shot at them." Of course. Only Anakin would try something so incredibly risky.
"The mission. Get to the Command Ship!" Obi-Wan argues, "Get the Chancellor! I'm running out of tricks here." Of course. If we fail – no. We cannot afford failure. The entire galaxy is at stake, but we can't do it without Obi-Wan.
Anakin completely ignores him and fires at Obi-Wan's ship, blowing off one of the wings along with the droids on it.
"In the name of –!" exclaims Obi-Wan.
"Steady, steady," Anakin interrupts him. Never mind that it's hard to keep a ship steady when it only has one wing.
"Anakin, hold your fire. Hold your fire. You're not helping here," he sighs.
"I agree, bad idea. Swing right, ease over... steady..." Anakin murmurs. I can't really tell what they're doing from my position up ahead, still fighting off droids that come too close, but it looks suicidal, as usual.
"Wait... wait... I can't see a thing!" protests Obi-Wan, "My cockpit's fogging! They're all over me, Anakin."
"Move to the right," Anakin orders, doing some more dangerous maneuvers.
"Hold on, Anakin. You're going to get us both killed! Get out of here. There's nothing more you can do," he insists. There's generally always something more than can be done.
"I'm not leaving without you, Master," retorts Anakin as he flies his ship in closer to Obi-Wan's and begins knocking the droids off with his own wing. If there was anyone else in the universe trying to do that, they'd probably both be dead. Regardless, it's still extremely risky. I watch tensely from my position, waiting for this to be over. Flames suddenly burst out of part of the wing as it must've gotten bumped wrong.
"One thing's for sure. You won't be leaving in that ship," I remark unhelpfully.
"I can't see. My controls are gone," groans Obi-Wan.
"Get em' Artoo! Watch out!" warns Anakin as one of the buzz droids crawls from his ship to Anakin's and attacks Artoo. It's history moments later.
"Great, Artoo," congratulates Obi-Wan.
"Stay on my wing," Anakin tells Obi-Wan which he needs to do literally since there's no other way for his ship to move anywhere anymore. "The General's Command ship is dead ahead."
"Alright," I chime in, "Once you two boys are quite done there, join me at the hanger. I'll go clear the way." I send my fighter spiraling forwards, coming to a stop near the hanger doors. There's a shield there, but I'm not going to blow it up yet. It'll probably be closed off right away, and they still need to get in here.
After what sounds like a lot more arguing on both parts, Anakin finally succeeds in clearing the droids off Obi-Wan's ship, but it really doesn't look like it'll hold together much longer.
"This part might be easy, but there's no way to know if after that will be," I point out as they fly towards the hanger.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Snips," Anakin shoots back.
"Waiting for you, Skyguy," I smirk, firing at the hanger control to lift the shield covering it as the three fighters zip forwards into the hanger.
"Oh, I have a bad feeling about this," Obi-Wan murmurs as our fighters dodge past the slamming door just in time.
Our fighters land and Obi-Wan leaps out of his fighter, landing in the middle of the droids and beginning to cut them down just as his ship explodes into flames. I jump out of my own, igniting my lightsabers before I land. Anakin jumps out to join us. We fight our way over to each other, standing in a circle as we continue destroying the droids.
"Artoo, locate the Chancellor," Obi-Wan calls above the din.
"Tap into the ship's computers," adds Anakin. Artoo rolls over to the computer socket on the wall and plugs himself in. A few more battle droids suddenly march around the corner as Artoo continues his work and we quickly destroy the rest of them before turning back to the droid.
With a beep announcing his achievement, a hologram of the ship appears. Part of it glows red.
"The Chancellor's signal is coming from right there," I declare, "The observation platform at the top of that spire."
"I sense Count Dooku," remarks Anakin, glancing around. Speaking of which, so do I.
"I sense a trap," adds Obi-Wan.
"Next move?" asks Anakin.
"Spring the trap."
"Artoo, go back. I need you to stay with the ship," Anakin tells Artoo as the droid prepares to follow us out of the hanger.
"Here, take this, and wait for orders," Obi-Wan adds, tossing a comm to Artoo so we can communicate with him.
We arrive not long later at an turbolift door, push the button, and wait for it to arrive. Suddenly, I feel the Force warning me of danger and three of us whirl around simultaneous to see three destroy droids.
"Destroyers!" I yell, as they open fire on us, and we begin deflecting the bolts. Using the cover we're giving him, Obi-Wan turns and pushes the button on the turbolift several more times to make it come arrive sooner.
At long last, the doors slide open and the three of us dart inside, deflecting the last few bolts coming our way before the doors slam shut again.
"Drop your weapons!" squawks an all too familiar voice from behind us. Of course, there are droids in here. We turn to see a group of battle droids pointing their blasters at us. "I said drop 'em!" it yells, trying to sound threatening.
We reactivate our lightsabers and turn them into a pile of rubble in moments. With that taken care of, the turbolift begins to move up before suddenly screeching to a halt.
"Did you push the stop button?" asks Obi-Wan in confusion.
"No, did you?" replies Anakin.
"No!" Obi-Wan and I both exclaim. Obi-Wan tries to push the button on the turbolift again for us to continue moving up, but nothing happens. Great. Why did this have to malfunction when we're on the most dangerous mission ever? The entire fate of the galaxy depends on us!
"Wellm there's more than one way out of here," decides Anakin, igniting his lightsaber and looking up at the ceiling. Great idea, master.
"We don't want to get out, we want to get moving," Obi-Wan sighs.
"Which we won't be doing if the turbolift won't move," I smirk.
He ignores me. "Artoo... Artoo. Do you copy? Activate turbolift 31174." He steps out of the way of the sparks raining down around us as Anakin starts cutting through the ceiling. As he finally completely the circle, we all back out of the way and the chuck of ceiling crashes to the floor, nearly hitting me.
"Artoo?" Obi-Wan calls again but receives no response. Anakin jumps out, and I follow. But now, we just need to figure out where to go from here.
"Always on the move," I hear Obi-Wan groaning from behind us as I look around. With a sudden jolt, the turbolift begins racing downwards. Anakin and I jump into the air, catching onto the edge of the doorway to one of the turbolift's exit points. The turbolift continues to speed down the shaft before disappearing from sight. Just what we needed.
Just then, two battle droids step up to the opening and look down at us, aiming their blasters. Oh great. If this isn't getting better and better. Let's just hope they're too stupid to realize how easy it would be to kill us here. After everything we've gone through, this would be the stupidest possible way to go down. "Hands up, Jedi! Don't move!" it orders. What does it look like we're doing, again?
"Roger, roger," concurs the other.
Suddenly, I hear a noise from below us and glancing down see the turbolift racing back up at us. "Jump!" I shout, and we both leap across the shaft before dropping down onto the top of the turbolift. We both drop down through the hole back into the turbolift. I land slightly wrong and as I attempt catch myself from falling, I trip into Anakin, knocking us both over.
"Oh, it's you," Obi-Wan exclaims, deactivating the lightsaber that I had barely noticed him igniting.
"I didn't know you were so heavy, Snips," Anakin grunts.
"Sorry," I groan, untangling myself and standing up.
"What was that all about?" Anakin asks as he stands up, turning to Obi-Wan.
"Well, Artoo has been –"
"No loose wire jokes!" Anakin interrupts, "He's doing the best he can." Not this again. I cross my arms, looking between the two, unable to stop myself from smiling at the familiar sound of their bantering.
"Did I say anything?" Obi-Wan demands as I roll my eyes in the background.
"He's trying!"
"I didn't say anything!"
"Let's try focusing here," I interject.
We step out of the turbolift into a room that is most definitely not where we need to be going, but I can sense living presences right around the corner.