Chapter 34 – Crashing
DISCLAIMER: We do not own Star Wars, even if we wish we did. xD
Author's Note: In which the Trio have to land the Invisible Hand. :P
~ Amina Gila
I glance between the two pairs of fighting opponents. Grievous and Obi-Wan are currently fighting furiously, and with a sudden move, Obi-Wan cuts off one of Grievous' hands. He roars in a rage and attacks him with renewed fury, wildly spinning one of his lightsabers over Obi-Wan's head as he fights him with the other two. Typical Grievous.
Dooku and Anakin are still engaged in a furious battle. The blades clash again, stopping in a saberlock. "I sense great fear in you, Skywalker. You have hate, you have anger, but you don't use them," the Sith Lord remarks.
I whirl at the sound of that, preparing to lunge at Dooku again, but then Grievous raises his claw-like foot, grabbing ahold of Obi-Wan and throwing him across the room into the wall. The cyborg laughs maniacally as he begins walking towards him – but I leap into the way, taking a swing for his head with one lightsaber while blocking two of his others with my other.
"Sorry to interrupt your play time, but I thought you'd prefer a challenge," I quip.
"You are no challenge for me, Jedi scum," snarls Grievous.
"We'll see," I smirk, and the fight is on. Sidious escaped and who knows what havoc he's going to wreak once he gets back to Coruscant long before we do, assuming that's where he's headed anyway. If it is, he could even issue Order 66, knowing his cover is blown. But – right. He wants Anakin as his apprentice so he's not going to do something that would so obviously kill him. Probably not, anyway. I can only hope that we still have some time. Regardless, this foolishly failed assassination attempt has created a big problem for all of us. He's probably going to twist up the entire story now that he knows we figured out who he is.
I block another one of Grievous' swings, forcing my mind back onto the fight at hand. Right now, I need to focus and worry about the damage that we've caused later.
I send a Force-shove at him, throwing him many feet backwards as he stabs all three remaining lightsabers into the floor. A glance over my shoulder tells me that Obi-Wan has joined Anakin against Dooku again.
Suddenly, I feel a warning in the Force right before the entire cruiser jolts and the floor begins to slant upwards. Everyone begins to slide towards the turbolift. Grievous growls, leaping across the room to the turbolift door and disappearing through it. Dooku jumps after him. I stab my lightsabers into the floor as I fall, struggling to slow down the fall towards what was a wall seconds ago.
Anakin slides over to the turbolift we came out of and where Grievous just disappeared through, grabbing onto the door frame. Through that thing again? Seriously, Master? "Come on! There's no time!" he shouts and disappears through.
I exchange an exasperated look with Obi-Wan before we both jump through after. The ship suddenly tips even further sending me crashing backwards into Obi-Wan. Before I know it, what was once the turbolift shaft is now a very long dark hall that seems to have no end. At least this will go faster. For now. I can see Grievous running along way farther down on all sixes – or fives now since he's missing a hand. I have no idea where Dooku is. Ahead of him already, perhaps.
"We can't wait for the turbolift," Anakin declares, "Come on, we have to be fast."
"Like we waited for the turbolift to begin with," I retort as we take off running. The shaft begins to tilt at a dangerous slope downwards as we continue to run. At this rate, everyone's going to be gone by the time we catch up with them. Never mind the new problem of falling down a shaft. Suddenly, the ship tilts fully upright again, throwing us into free-fall down the shaft as it becomes vertical once more. I throw out my hands, trying to use the Force to slow the fall towards the endless drop below.
Obi-Wan and I finally manage to grab onto Anakin, who catches some wires on a control box with his mechanical arm, successfully stopping our journey down to the bottom of the shaft and a nearly certain death.
"Not like I need all my limbs or anything," huffs Anakin as we nearly cause him to lose his grip. He probably would have if not for his hand being mechanical.
"Don't say things like that!" I yelp, as a mental picture of Vader flashes through my mind.
"Now that we followed your plan of going down this shaft, you hopefully have one to get us out of here?" quips Obi-Wan as I look down at the endlessly dark pit below us. Grievous disappears through a doorway below us out of sight. Now what are we going to do? It's not like we can follow him. We don't have the benefit of a bunch of extra limbs that seem capable of holding onto anything.
"I don't remember you giving any better suggestions," Anakin grumbles to Obi-Wan.
Just then, I can hear Artoo beeping faintly from Anakin's comm above me. Then there's another faint noise and I look up to see a not so unfamiliar object speeding down towards us from above at tremendous speed.
"Hold on," mumbles Anakin.
"What else would I do, Skyguy?" I retort, "Fall down the shaft and die?"
"What is that?" asks Obi-Wan worriedly.
"Artoo, Artoo! Shut down the turbolift!" calls Anakin urgently. No response.
"It's too late! Jump!" shouts Obi-Wan, voice rising with every syllable as the turbolift is only yards above us now. Anakin lets go and we find ourselves in freefall once more.
As the ship begins to tilt again, somewhat slowing our fall and turning it into only sliding, the doors along the way fall open. We throw out grappling hooks which catch onto the nearest doorway and swing through into the hallway I think Grievous went into. We crash to the floor in a heap just as the turbolift roars past us. My head is spinning and I'm aching all over from the lightning assault, but I push myself off the floor again as we hastily untangle ourselves.
"Let's see if we can find something in the hanger bay that's still flyable," suggests Obi-Wan, slowly rising to his feet, "Come on."
"We need to get back to Coruscant to see what happened," I agree with a sigh. There's no way to know if Sidious is even still on the ship. He probably left immediately in case we find him again and actually manage to kill him this time. It might not have been something he actually considered happening, but I'm sure he already has an idea what he'll do.
"Artoo, get down here. Artoo, do you copy?" Anakin demands into the commlink. No reply. Where is he? Well, no time to wait.
We make our way to the hanger, looking around to see nothing but piles of destruction everywhere. It seems like the fight pretty much smashed everything up in here. Including our fighters. Oh, great. So we'll have to try some other method.
"None of those ships will get us anywhere," concludes Obi-Wan.
"I agree," decides Anakin as he looks over the wreckage.
"What are we going to do?" I wonder, "Not like we can fly back to Coruscant. Unless we find an escape pod somewhere."
"Follow the Force," advises Anakin.
"Let's get to the bridge," suggests Obi-Wan.
As we run down the hall towards the bridge, Artoo rolls into sight. "Artoo! Where've you been?" I exclaim. He beeps an irritated response which I don't completely understand.
Moments later, we're outside the door that opens onto the bridge. I don't sense Sidious inside, but then again, he's hard to sense. I don't think Dooku's there either, judging from the general lack of darkness. I do sense another presence, though. Grievous. Anakin instantly ignites his lightsaber and starts cutting through the door. I join him and the door is down in no time.
Grievous whirls around to face us as the three of us step into the room through the hole, Anakin in the middle with Obi-Wan on his right and me on his left. "Crush them! Make them suffer!" the cyborg screams at the two bodyguard droids with electro staffs that surround him. Does he seriously think that's going to work?
The battle droids in the room turn and open fire on us as the two other droids approach. Anakin and Obi-Wan attack the MagnaGuards and I leap in front to give them cover, deflecting back the blaster bolts at the battle droids. When an occasional droid comes close enough, I chop it in half, ignoring its shrieks.
"Stay and watch your stations!" Grievous snarls at one of the droids at the controls as he stalks about the ship. Anakin is the first to take down his droid before coming to join me. Obi-Wan decapitates the Magna Guard fighting him and turns away, but it continues to flail blindly at him. He turns back to keep fighting it. I jump over to it, slashing it in half.
As the pieces fall to the floor between us, an alarm suddenly goes off. "Sir, we are falling out of orbit. All the control cells are dead," declares one of the droids. Great. Now we're really in trouble.
"Stay on course. Don't bother with them!" Grievous growls, waving a hand at the unfortunate droid which ducks out of his way, "Keep the ship in orbit!"
We continue to destroy the droids as Grievous picks up an electro staff and leaps down by the window. Looks like he's planning to try and escape again. Not happening. Obi-Wan jumps down in front of him first, raising his lightsaber. Anakin and I jump down behind Grievous, lightsabers raised and poised to attack.
"You lose, General Kenobi," Grievous sneers as we start moving forwards. But instead of blocking the slashes coming his way, he swings the electro staff at the window. I have a split second of panic as I realize for certain he's about to escape and whirl to catch on to the nearest object.
The glass to outer space shatters, the vacuum instantly sucking everything in the room towards the window. I reach out blindly, managing to get a handhold on a nearby object. I hold on tightly, determined to withstand the pull of the vacuum. It reminds me far too much of the holocron incident. Next to me, Obi-Wan hits a button on the controls and a blast shield closes over the window. I hit the floor with a light thud as the sudden pull of outer space abruptly disappears, hastily scrambling back to my feet.
All chaos breaks loose behind us. The remaining droids who didn't get sucked out begin to run around in a panic. Finding and reactivating our lightsabers which were thankfully not sucked out into space as well, we make quick work of the droids, turning them into piles of rubble.
The ship suddenly gives a jolt and another alarm goes off. "The hull is burning up," I observe as I see sparks flying outside the window, "We need to take control of the ship before we burn up with it." We make our way to the front of the cockpit and Anakin takes the pilot seat. Obi-Wan and I sit down in the other two seats.
"All escape pods have been launched," Anakin declares.
"Grievous," groans Obi-Wan, "Can you fly a cruiser like this?"
"Is there anything he can't fly?" I quip.
"You mean, do I know how to land what's left of this thing?" Anakin replies as the ship gives another jolt and the back half of it starts breaking off.
"Well?" asks Obi-Wan, evidently not appreciating our responses.
"Under the circumstances, I'd say the ability to pilot this thing is irrelevant. Strap yourselves in," Anakin orders. He tries to keep the ship under control – with our and Artoo's help – as more pieces break away, and the more of the hull bursts into flames. An almost eerie orange glow is cast across us from the flaming viewports. Not like this is the first such situation we've been in. Ship wise, anyway, but considering Sidious is still alive, I'm scared to know what fate awaits us.
"Steady. Attitude eighteen degrees." Obi-Wan states as Artoo beeps.
"Pressure rising. We've got to slow this wreck down. Open all hatches, extend all flaps, and drag fins," Anakin speaks worriedly.
"Temp steady. Hatches open, flaps extended, drag fins," Obi-Wan says just as another piece of the ship breaks off, nearly throwing us into the controls in front of us.
"We lost something," I state the obvious.
"Not to worry, we're still flying half the ship," Obi-Wan offers brightly.
"Now we're really picking up speed. I'm going to shift a few degrees and see if I can slow us down," Anakin decides, his hands moving over the controls.
"Careful," cautions Obi-Wan, "We're heating up... twelve thousand... thirteen thousand..."
"What's our speed?"
"Eight plus sixty-forty. Eight plus sixty-twenty. Eight plus sixty. Temp ten thousand, nine thousand..."
"We're in the atmosphere," I declare as we continue our rapid descent towards Coruscant as Anakin points at one of the controls and Artoo beeps.
"Grab that, keep us level."
"Steady, steady," Obi-Wan murmurs worriedly, the tone giving me the impression he's freaking out the most here. Not surprising. I got used to Anakin's constant crashes almost immediately. After all, he did crash even during our first mission.
"Easy, Artoo. Hang on, this may get a little rough. We lost our heat shields," Anakin warns.
"Because nothing else could possibly be better," I huff.
"Five thousand. Three thousand... two thousand. Fireships on the left and the right," Obi-Wan observes. Well at least there's someone here to greet us. Still, though, who knows what kind of damage Palpatine is causing down there. But regardless, I'm sure we're in for it. We can worry about that once we land and are certain we will still be in one piece.
"We'll take you in," a fireship pilot calls to us over the communication system.
"Copy that," Obi-Wan responds, "Landing strip's straight head."
"We're coming in too hot," Anakin warns.
"Easy, easy," Obi-Wan cautions as the ship descends rapidly towards the ground, shaking violently as it struggles to stay together before finally slamming to a stop a distance down the landing platform knocking over some nearby structures as we finally skid to a halt.
I lean back against the seat, taking a few deep breaths as the adrenaline wears off.
"Another happy landing," Obi-Wan quips.
"Let's hope we'll also have another happy greeting," I reply, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.