Chapter Forty-One: Out of Here

A white-hot flash filled the hangar—and for a moment, there was only silence to accompany it. Stillness.

Then came the explosion.

A deep rumble, radiating outward from where the Spice Dancer had hovered above the deck. It tossed aside crew members, turned over parked shuttles, ruptured canisters of coolant and fuel. Anakin was uncertain whether he'd lost consciousness—he only recalled being on his feet one moment, then sprawled across the hangar's deck the next.

And when the dust had settled—when the initial burst of light had faded, and Anakin's vision had recovered from the flash—the Dancer was gone. Padmé was gone.

Echoes of white became tendrils of red at the edge of his vision as he rose to his feet—he shoved an approaching trooper aside as the plastoid-armored man reached out a hand to help him up.

When he'd found his footing, Anakin wasted no time standing in the center of the hangar. He did not move to help the crew—those who were still alive—clean up the carnage, the mangled wreckage and the tongues of flame licking at the crumpled bits of metal strewn about.

Instead he ran.

Toward the hangar's open doors. His only window to the outside. He got as close as his body would allow him, skidding to a stop only inches from the shimmering shield that protected him from vacuum. Leaning closer to it, Anakin strained to peer out into space—into the chaos surrounding the Star Destroyer.

He watched as rival ships engaged in the aerobatic dance of dogfighting; as the ramshackle vessels half eaten by rust effortlessly dusted the perfectly polished Republic starfighters opposite them. Bombers zipped beyond his view, the sound of their falling payload hammering above his head. Galleons hemmed in the Star Destroyers seemingly meters away, close enough it felt as if he could reach out and touch.

Try as he might, amidst all the chaos he could not find the Spice Dancer.

"Executor Vader!"

The voice—exasperated, breathless—had come from behind him. Anakin whirled around to find a man half jogging toward him, darting around the wreckage and the members of the hangar crew who were still licking their wounds. He was making a beeline for Executor Vader.

And he was wearing a Republic captain's uniform.

"Greyson!" Anakin hissed, stalking toward the captain—the approaching officer froze in place the moment he began moving. "What the hell are you doing down here?"

The captain's eyes darted sideways, as if he were hoping someone just out of view would provide him an excuse. "I, ah—I came to give you a report, sir."

"Who's in command on the bridge?"

"The first officer, sir. I—"

Anakin's eyes narrowed, and he raised a gloved mechanical hand—a single finger pointed toward the rear of the hangar. "Get back up there and get us out of here."

When the captain spoke again, there was a renewed confidence behind his eyes. An assuredness that had been missing from his prior words. "I can't do that, sir."

"Why not?" Anakin asked, slowly forcing the words through clenched teeth.

"The pirate ships are swarming us," Greyson answered, pausing to hunch over slightly and gulp for air. "Crowding us out. I can't pivot into position for a hyperspace jump." He shook his head. "Even if I could, there are too many of their ships in the way. We can't accelerate to lightspeed."

Anakin turned to jab a finger behind him at the hangar's opening. "She did!"

"And she's probably dead because of it!" the captain snapped.

Heat rose within Anakin's chest—though he fought to push it back down. To contain his anger. Save it, the dark voice hissed in his ear. For Maul and Valis.

For her.

He shook his head and opened his mouth to speak—but Captain Greyson was already talking again. "A jump like that with a small ship is risky enough. I'm not risking two vessels of this size—"

"Two?" Anakin interrupted, taking another step toward the captain without thinking—and then it dawned on him. The Star Destroyer he'd flown past on his way out of San Sestina's atmosphere. The one spouting smoke out its bow. The one struggling to retreat along with its allies.

"We're going to lose the Loyalist," the captain said. "I've instructed her crew to brace for impact. We'll recover as many personnel as we can once she's crashed."

Greyson kept speaking, though Anakin no longer heard his words. Rage swirled in his mind and across his field of vision. He'd lost a Star Destroyer. He'd lost Padmé. He'd lost Maul and he'd lost Valis.

How would Palpatine ever forgive him?

You have to turn this around. NOW.

Closing his eyes, he reached into the darkness. Captain Greyson became silent.

Anakin squeezed his metal fist shut, and the uniformed man across from him began to gasp for air.

"Captain," Anakin said, his jaw tightening with every word, "I think you would agree we cannot afford to lose more than we already have today. We are leaving. We will carve a path through the pirates if we must. If you are unwilling to do that, I am perfectly happy to appoint a commanding officer who is—"

As Greyson clawed at the collar of his uniform, a distant thwump rattled Anakin's bones. Then another. And a third.

Then they were coming faster than he could count them, drumbeats that shook him to his core.

He released his invisible grip on Greyson's neck and whirled around to face the hangar's opening again.

Star Destroyers.

Dozens of them, leaping out of lightspeed in a perfectly coordinated rhythm. As each arrived in realspace, its turbolaser batteries lit up like a lightshow, sending lances of plasma leaping through the stars and slamming into galleon after galleon. There was a Republic ship for each pirate assault vessel. Maybe more.

Cause for celebration, relief. An impossible salvation.

Anakin felt sick.

He did not look back at the captain, instead speaking as he stared out into the barrage of light and fire. "Did you call for backup?"

The reply was shaky. Fearful. "N-no!"

Then who did? he thought. Even as the words echoed in his mind, he was already nearly certain of—and terrified of—the answer.

A final thud outside the hangar opening accompanied the arrival of the last Star Destroyer—and with it, an earsplitting shriek sounded over the hangar bay loudspeakers.

"Attention, Star Destroyers Guardian, Valiant, and Loyalist. This is Star Destroyer Republic One. By the authority of the commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, you are hereby instructed to stand down. We are assuming command of this battle."

A knot formed in Anakin's stomach. Authority of the commander in chief.

The chancellor had sent these ships—a full fighting force—just in time to turn the tide of the battle.

How did he know?

"Executor Vader," the message continued over the comm system, "prepare to receive a boarding party aboard the Star Destroyer Guardian. Your presence is required in the hangar bay."

The words barely sank in as Anakin stood frozen in place. His mind raced. One of the captains must have talked. Let it slip that they were coming here. I have to find out who—

No, his own thoughts interrupted. It didn't matter. He'd been caught, and now he was being rescued. Or punished.

Or both.

Your presence is required in the hangar bay, the words of the announcement resonated in his mind. Not requested. Required.

This was not going to be pleasant.

As he stood, feet planted firmly on the deck, and watched the pirate frigate nearest them get torn to shreds by his new saviors, it dawned on him that he had been asking himself the wrong question.

It wasn't a matter of how Palpatine would forgive him.

It was a matter of whether he'd forgive him at all.

Every part of Valis hurt. Nothing vital had broken—the last-second Force shield she'd thrown up around herself as debris came crashing down had seen to that—but her chest was on fire with what felt like broken ribs, and as she dragged herself out from under the wreck she experienced the exquisite pain of each bruise and contusion scraping against dirt. A great hacking cough brought up no blood, but her spittle was orange, laced with rust.

The roar of the battle outside lingered, but it was faint, humming beneath the high whine that had been in her ears from the moment she snapped back into consciousness. She hoped she'd not been blacked out more than a few moments—every second she wasted held the potential for Skywalker to kick aside twisted metal and drag her out.

Reaching forward with the Force, she swatted aside a tattered screen of mesh that had collapsed in her way. Behind it lay daylight—and as Valis extended her senses, she didn't feel Vader or Maul anywhere nearby.

Grinding her teeth together with effort, she hauled herself outward, then staggered to her feet. Blinking hard, she forced her eyes open despite the storm.

The first thing she saw was the smoldering trench that lay barely a hundred meters away—still-burning slag and thick black smoke, telltale signs of a massive turbolaser bombardment. That had been what sent the hulks toppling down above her, and she'd gotten lucky—charred corpses littered the ground, and Valis knew more dead would have no bodies at all, evaporated by the heat of the plasma pouring down.

Across the trench, the city was a smoking ruin of black. No return fire poured from the air defense cannons, long since blown to hell; straggling pirates, smoldering and shrieking, stumbled through wreckage in ones and twos. Skywalker's Star Destroyers were still pounding their artillery into a corpse.

For a foolishly long span of time—probably half a minute—Valis just stood there, watching it burn. Then she turned her eyes skyward. Two of the Destroyers Vader had brought were bloodied, and the remaining one, she saw with savage gratification, wasn't going to make it; it was listing, its bridge crew dead or cut off, and the entirety of its nose had been chewed through by her men.

Need to find a ground-to-orbit comm, order the fleet to fire on the other two from orbit. No sense worrying about backsplash now, the city's already a wreck—

Then her vision strayed upward past Vader's ships, and she froze.

It was daylight, but San Sestina's sky was filled with glowing stars nonetheless, flashes that burst into and faded out of existence across the entire canvas. Explosions, she realized—artillery fire. Broadsides between capital ships. Every single piece of the space above the atmosphere flickered with them, passing between her ships and a new force of overpowering size.

It was impossible. For the Republic to commit a naval force of this size to taking down a single Confederate remnant world . . . it flew in the face of their entire strategy. Of what Vader was for. A colossal waste of resources, a gamble on the fates of a hundred embattled systems whose ships the government couldn't afford to divert.

And yet, there they were. Hundreds of them. Pounding at her fleet with everything they had.

Valis could feel her skin blistering, the residual heat from the nearby blast still enough to burn. She knew that standing here, exposed, alone, was a death sentence if Skywalker were still on the ground.

Still, she watched. Stood calmly, immovably, and took in the slow death of her ships.

Then, after a few minutes, she turned and limped further into the scrapyard. Toward her last escape.

For a long time she simply wound through mounds of metal, growing increasingly panicked that she would no longer be able to find it—that the tremors from the bombardment had irrevocably shifted the junk, the detritus piling in new configurations to block her way. Her eyes flicked upward every few moments, taking in another snapshot of the destruction happening in orbit; every so often the ground would rumble with more laser tremors, the scrap around her shaking, and she'd shoot out a steadying hand.

Rounding a moldering old corvette, she saw a familiar shape in the distance, and suddenly her heart, which had been remarkably steady from the moment she'd woken up, beat frantically at her chest as if trying to batter its way out. She hastened from a walk to a loping run, biting at her lip and drawing on the Force to mute the pain in her body, to give her this much speed for just a few moments.

As she drew closer, she almost sobbed. There it was—the Fractured Iris. Her first ship, her past's ghost wrought in metal, her lair to plan so many things that had all come tumbling down today. And the egress hatch looked undamaged.

She didn't wait to engage it with her palm—lashing outward with the dark side, she blew the thing open. Before the ring of metal on metal could die, she'd burst forward, into the ship beyond, tearing toward the bridge.

It was in no fit state to last for more than a hyperspace jump or two, but that was all she needed, all she'd decided was worth it as she'd shaped this contingency. She'd carefully checked and rechecked the fuel reserves, spent nights making sure corrosion hadn't eaten too far into the hull, run regular diagnostics of engines and life support, making sure to never fix up too much.

The last place anyone would look, should she need to flee, Valis had reasoned. A derelict ship, in the middle of a graveyard, rotting away to rust.

Valus lurched from console to console, starting up systems, engaging the vertical thrust she'd need to clear the towering piles of filth and burst clear. Klaxons blared, the sequence she was using was incorrect, but she didn't care, she didn't care, just as long as she was moving. As the ship rose, she rotated it to view the battlefield—and saw that the mortally wounded Republic Destroyer's descent had accelerated. It would collide with the planet's surface within minutes.

Against all odds, she felt a surge of desperate adrenaline. She could pilot her way out, somehow she'd do it, just one of innumerable pirate vessels fleeing the system, too insignificant to track. One jump, that was all she'd need, just a single blind leap out of here into some other corner of the Outer Rim. The Republic wouldn't find her, wouldn't even know to find her—she'd been shot and then buried, Darth Valis was dead, and any other conclusion would cost them time and effort that she wasn't worth.

And he wouldn't find her either—Maul was almost certainly dead, fried by the emerald blast of a Republic laser. Even if he wasn't, he wouldn't be able to track her out of this, not now that she was heading for orbit. And he too, she knew, wouldn't even find her worth the trouble—not when Sidious was still out there, not when Maul would have to start from scratch to take him down.

You'll find a good surgeon, one of your old contacts that hasn't dried up. Swap faces, swap fingerprints. Her ship was flying now, truly flying, nose angled upward to breach atmosphere, and for a moment the thought was so beautiful Valis could weep. Join up with a crew, a small crew on some isolated world content to just exist, it's not too late you can still just leave all this—

A single rivulet of cold dripped down her neck.

Valis didn't turn around. She needed to keep looking out the viewport if she didn't want to crash. More than that, though, she knew that if she looked behind her she wouldn't be able to breathe.

Maul said nothing. She could feel him so plainly it was as good as seeing him—burns along one side, robe frayed and smoldering still, horns gone black with char. Gloved fists clenched and trembling, breath leaving his mouth through clenched teeth.

She wondered how he'd known—whether he'd come here to wait for her, already aware of where she'd head, or if he'd spotted her fleeing and followed—and then decided it didn't matter. He was here now, and if he killed her at least she wouldn't have to look at him ever again.

Perhaps he sensed the thought. Perhaps what happened next was just another cruelty.

Or perhaps he'd simply decided she wasn't worth his bothering.

Either way, there was no lightsaber through her neck, no dark side energy choking the life from her, no quick snap of the spine. He simply walked away.

Hands shaking, Valis looked out the viewport, taking one final gaze back at the ruins of San Sestina. The crippled Star Destroyer, with a plume of flame, plunged prow-first into the port's shell, the injured nose giving way on impact. A massive steel headstone to mark the city's resting place.

As she automatically, thoughtlessly guided the Fractured Iris to the upper reaches of the atmosphere, screaming toward escape velocity, Valis could sense the furnace of Maul's rage shining from belowdecks, hot enough to sear. A mindless, directionless, all-consuming oblivion.

She herself felt nothing at all.

The stark white of the executive shuttle was almost blinding against the polished black sheen of the Guardian's hangar deck. As the boarding ramp settled against the floor with a mechanical hiss and a puff of escaping gas, Anakin tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

It didn't work.

Even if it had, the sight of a pair of Red Guards descending the ramp would have simply caused it to return. Biting the inside of his cheek, Anakin braced himself for the arrival of Chancellor Palpatine.

It never came.

Instead, a small cluster of armored troopers marched down the ramp. The white plastoid was adorned with red stripes—the Coruscant Guard, law enforcement branch of the Republic capital.

They traveled all the way here? Anakin thought, then cast his incredulity aside. It was no more ridiculous than his expecting a personal appearance from Palpatine—and, somehow, no less intimidating.

Beside him, Captain Greyson snapped into a hasty salute. "Gentlemen," he began, "it's a pleasure to have you aboard—"

"Captain," one of the troopers interrupted—even through the static of the helmet's vocal processor, the armored man's irritation was evident. "It would be best if you returned to the bridge. Now."

"Ah, I—of course," Greyson stammered, spinning on a heel and bolting from the hangar as fast as his dignity would allow.

With the captain gone, Anakin could feel every helmeted eye turn to him. Uncertainty chewed at the back of his mind—was it better to speak up, or say nothing at all?

He never got the chance to decide. One of the Red Guards stepped forward until he was face to face with—and towering over—Anakin. From within the flowing folds of his robe, the guard withdrew a glinting metal object. One Anakin had seen more times throughout his life than he liked to admit.

Binders.

"Executor Vader," the Red Guard began—the voice was chilling, robotic, utterly inhuman, and somehow a perfect match for the blank stare of the guard's helmet. "By the authority of the office of the chancellor, you are under arrest."

With a decisive snap, the cuffs closed over Anakin's wrists. As he felt cold metal against skin—and an uncomfortable twinge from the synthnerves of his right hand—he opened his mouth to speak.

No words came. For perhaps the first time in his life, Anakin Skywalker couldn't summon the energy to talk his way out of the mess he'd made.

A hollow silence hung over the hangar as the Red Guard yanked on the binders, hauling him back up the boarding ramp and into the executive shuttle. For the briefest moment, Anakin thought he might find Palpatine waiting inside for him. He braced himself for the confrontation, the brutal dressing-down that would commence the moment the chancellor laid eyes on him—but as he reached the peak of the ramp, he was greeted only with the stark emptiness of the shuttle.

A forceful shove from one of the Red Guards sent Anakin tripping backwards into one of the shuttle's private chambers. It had probably been an office at one time, he thought, or perhaps served as sleeping quarters—but it had since been stripped bare.

Today it was a cell.

As the door slammed shut, Anakin fought the urge to shout at the guards—to ask where they were going.

A pointless question. They'd never answer. And it wasn't as though he didn't already know.

Though he could see nothing from his windowless quarters, Anakin felt the shuttle lift off the deck of the Star Destroyer's hangar. Pivot in the air, glide back out into space. Weave its way through the battle—even from within the ship, he could feel the thumps and thuds of turbolaser impacts resounding around him.

His eyes wandered down to the binders clamped around his wrists. If he summoned all his strength—his physical power and the might of the Force—he just might be able to tear them apart. To force his way outside the shuttle cabin. He could take the Red Guards—he'd only need to subdue one, steal his weapon, and the entire shuttle might as well be his. He could commandeer it, and then—

Then what? Go after Maul and Valis? Because that worked so well the first time.

Anakin sank into his seat—as much as one could on a cold metal bench. Even if he could bring Palpatine the two Sith now, it wouldn't undo the damage he'd already done. It wouldn't bring back the things he'd already cost the Republic—the things he'd cost himself. Wouldn't erase Anakin's betrayal of the only man he could still call his friend.

Nothing can fix that now.

All around him, Anakin could feel the pseudomotion of the shuttle leaping into hyperspace.

Carrying him toward the inevitable.

Republic Archives: Hyperspace Interdiction Techniques

Interdiction broadly refers to the tactic of forcibly blocking a ship from entering hyperspace, or interrupting a ship's ongoing hyperspace jump. There exist several different methods of doing so:

"Swarming" - Crowding a larger vessel with multiple smaller ships can prevent it from moving into position and aligning for a hyperspace jump. Although this does not technically stop the ship from jumping to lightspeed, it is often enough to give most ship captains pause and keep enemy vessels in place.

Blockading - By positioning a fleet as a barrier in front of a hyperlane entrance, one can force enemy vessels to make a blockade run in order to leave (or enter) a star system. This is most effective in systems with limited hyperlane entrances and exits.

Asteroid positioning - A sufficiently large asteroid can, when strategically placed along a hyperlane, emit enough of a mass shadow to "pull" ships out of hyperspace by manipulating their emergency realspace reversion circuitry. This method is often used by pirates hoping to attack ships along major trade routes.

Gravity well projection (experimental) - Scientists and engineers have theorized that, with enough energy, artificial mass projectors could simulate the existence of a planetary gravity well. This would, in theory, trigger a vessel's emergency realspace reversion function—either pulling ships out of hyperspace, or preventing them from jumping to lightspeed in the first place.