Chapter 4:
Nev Paikazayth kat nevi Jedi'el.
Meaning: The Exodus of the Jedi
"They used to call them 'The Stars of Coruscant'."
– Chancellor Mon Mothma, on the Jedi
Obi-Wan and Plo emerge from the prison into a battlefield. They were not within the prison for long – no more than ten minutes at the most – but it would seem that, that was enough time for reinforcements to scramble from deeper within the prison. Thankfully, they could see nothing in the form of aerial support and, to Obi-Wan's eye anyway, it did not appear as if any of the Venators in orbit had shifted position at all. Obi-Wan doesn't know why the clones haven't reached out for further support from the military, but he isn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
The Landing Pad itself is fairly devoid of actual combatants. A cluster of their fellow Council members are arrayed around the shuttle, some of them protecting its onramp, some of them dancing atop its rounded roof. Their lightsabers gleam in the low glow of the evening, harmlessly deflecting the shots of distant clones within and on top of the walls that surround them. Obi-Wan blanches at the odd mixture of live blaster fire and stun blasts, wondering who is in command now. Or, perhaps more accurately, if anyone is. He takes a moment to spare Commander Fox's unconscious form a glance and thinks to himself that he may now know why proper reinforcements haven't been requested yet.
When the explosion detonates, the two of them feel it before they hear it. The vibrations it causes race discordantly through the stiff, unyielding metal gangplank of the Landing Pad and tries vainly to crawl up their legs through the thick soles of their boots. Above them, the dim light of the evening is disturbed by the bright, iridescent flash of an explosion twelve feet high. They can make out the distinctive silhouette of Shaak Ti amidst the flames. Lightsaber in hand, she rushes forward, deflecting the blaster bolts of clones half terrified by the sight of her fury. She leaves behind the wreckage of what appears to have once been an Anti-Aircraft turret. Its brethren across all three of the surrounding walls seem to be in much the same condition. And all about them, lightsabers are flashing.
"Obi-Wan!" Stass' voice rises above the din of battle. Her lightsaber is a gleaming line of defense, batting the blaster bolts and stun blasts of her opponents away with the ease of the Mastery which had earned her, her place on the Council. Obi-Wan is reminded of the way Adi used to move, flowing from one action into the next with the smooth liquidity of river water. The tendrils distinctive to her species are dancing in the fervor of the night, reflecting the flashes of blaster bolts, of swinging sabers.
Obi-Wan and Plo waste no further time. Their lightsabers ignite in an alliterative snap-hiss, bathing the Landing Pad around them in blue light and informing every clone within the area of their location. Obi-Wan remembers the first time his Master described a lightsaber to him. Not as a weapon of aggression or even a tool for defense. "A target, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon had rumbled, his face reflecting the emerald of his blade across his chiseled jaw and stony cheekbones like diamond. "Bright and obvious. The better to draw evil's eye from the innocent."
Three years of War. Obi-Wan isn't sure there's any innocence here tonight. Is quite sure, in fact – large blue eyes and unshed tears set in skin of sunset orange, condemned and consigned by his own inaction – that there is not.
But he is still happy to be a target.
His own blade flashes as he sprints across the short distance between the prison door and the shuttle's onramp. He deflects four blaster bolts harmlessly into the ground, scorching long lines of char across the metal. He is grateful for the two stun blasts mixed in, and he wonders when he came to a place where his soldiers not actively attempting to kill him warrants gratitude. Beside him, Plo makes short work of his own attackers, although he receives more stun blasts than Obi-Wan does. Obi-Wan tries not to take this more personally he should.
Together, the two of them make short work of crossing the Landing Pad. Stass gestures them rapidly towards the onramp, and whilst Obi-Wan thunders up to duck his way into what little cover the doorway of the shuttle offers, Plo abstains. He replaces Stass as she retreats up the onramp to debrief Obi-Wan, filling the hole she'd have left behind.
Stass is, at this point, breathing rather heavily, and her face is damp with sweat. Neither of them has deactivated their sabers, and at this range the heat of their burning plasma is sweltering. "If he's on schedule, Master Yoda will have lifted off roughly ten minutes ago."
Obi-Wan smiles. "I have never known Master Yoda to miss an appointment in my life."
Stass matches his expression. "No," she agreed. "Quinlan, though…" She purposefully trails her voice off, and the laugh that Obi-Wan barks is genuine and unabashed.
Stass' faces fall too rapidly back into exhaustion and battle-weariness. "Skywalker? Tano?" Her voice is laced with concern, though whether that is for Obi-Wan's two wayward Padawans or for their collective party as a whole, Obi-Wan doesn't know.
He regrets his next words before they are even out of his mouth, aware they will not be well received. "Delayed. They'll be here shortly, but they detoured to retrieve Ahsoka's lightsabers."
By the pinched look on his compatriot's face, he can tell she wishes to complain – perhaps even to rage at either his or Anakin or Ahsoka's stupidity. It is only a lifetime of Jedi etiquette and custom that stays her tongue. "Your lightsaber is your life."
Stass had been one of the majority votes responsible for Ahsoka's extradition to military custody.
She has taken enough from the girl.
She will not take this.
It's impossible for a silence to fall between them. There's too much battle around them for that. But there's a moment, long and protracted, of tension. Through the Force, Obi-Wan feels it crystallize the air around them until he feels like he can't move. He doesn't blame Stass. She wants to leave, quickly and efficiently and before the situation can get any worse than it actually is. He can empathize. But he empathizes with Ahsoka more just now.
The moment between them is broken a moment later by the cacophony of an explosion above them. It lights up the sky, a flash of light that paints the Landing Pad in flickering brushstrokes of orange and red and yellow. Obi-Wan winces in response. The clones' ability or inclination to call for reinforcements will be irrelevant soon, if it isn't already. Such a display will not go unnoticed for long.
"Twenty-seven," Stass whispers to herself, peeking briefly over her shoulder to survey the battlefield. She turns quickly back to Obi-Wan. Her voice is changed when she speaks next. Still winded, still laced with underlying frustration but there's a surety to it now. Obi-Wan recognizes the timber of a General, even if he has grown to hate it in recent months. It is habit to tune his ears immediately to what he perceives as an action report. "Those Council members that are present have been engaged in defense of the ship from clone attack. They've been primarily targeting our engines, hyperdrive, and shield array. We've covered as best we can, but we have no way of removing the clones within the walls. This has turned into little more than a battle of endurance. Those Council members not present are responsible for the destruction of the Anti-Aircraft turrets lining the walls, but they've faced more resistance on the walkways than we anticipated. Made more difficult by the fact that some of the clones seem far more willing to kill us than we are to kill them." A stray blaster bolt scorched the outer plating of the shuttle not three feet from Stass' head. Obi-Wan remembers a time that both of them would have flinched at that. They don't now.
Obi-Wan runs his hand down his beard. It's a short motion, an expression of nerves and agitation that he's picked up over the course of the War. "Injuries?"
Stass shakes her head. "None so far, although I can't speak for those on the walkways."
Obi-Wan nods, dismissing the caveat with his expression. "If it's a battle of endurance, we'll just have to hold out. Anakin and Ahsoka won't take long. They can move remarkably quickly when pressed."
Stass sighs, the pinched expression returning to her face. "For all our sakes, I hope so."
No more is said. The two Jedi leap back into the fray.
~•~
They make quick time towards the prison's lockup. Anakin had not been lying when he'd said that he and his Padawan were faster on their own. There's a fervency to the two of them, an eager energy that thrums in their veins. Sitting still has never been their forte, but moving? They're good at that.
Of course, they can't claim all the credit. It's made easier by the lack of opposition. Anakin isn't certain how many of the troops stationed at the prison had been ordered to the sub-levels to guard Ahsoka, but he's no fool and he knows Commander Fox isn't either. Fox knows the significance of Jedi lightsabers.
Anakin wonders how many clones are waiting for them behind the reinforced blast doors outside of lockup.
The lockup itself is located on the same floor as the Landing Pad's exit, although it's some distance away from the door itself. The general process allows for the intake of new prisoners, the offloading of their belongings at lockup, and their subsequent imprisonment within either the main prison blocks or the sublevel holding cells. The lockup is, however, remarkably well defended. Many of the prisoners who are processed here are hardened war criminals or expert bounty hunters. They possess on their person any number of guns, explosives, blades, and chain codes, all of which are exceptionally useful in the event of an attempted prison riot. As such, the prison is designed in such a way as to discourage any attempts to enter lockup without authorization.
Their warning is a whistling in the Force to the tune of blaster fire that hasn't yet scoured the air. The two of them are water, flowing in tandem without the resistance or restraint of unfamiliarity. The turret mounted to the ceiling of the hallway outside the door leading to lockup is a large, quadruple-barreled monster of a gun, capable of rapidly firing a barrage of blaster fire powerful enough to dent LA-AT bulkheads. In combination with the warning from the Force and the rather raucous noise it makes, it is so much simplicity for the two of them to flow apart, sliding to the edges of the hallway and allowing the oversized grouping of blaster bolts to crater a portion of the floor in their stead.
The turret is not manned by any console in the prison. Rather, it is controlled by an exceptionally limited targeting VI, designed to fire at any movement it detects in its cone of vision when active.
The two of them do not need to speak. Ahsoka slides out of her position along the right wall, attracting the immediate attention of the turret. She is familiar enough with its design. A drawback to its power is the three seconds it requires to charge up its blast – seemingly no time at all to the common man, but to a soldier and most especially to a Jedi, it is all the time in the world. Still warming up its four cannons, the turret's targeting VI follows her movement as she dashes forward until the gyroscope that controls its rotation can move no more. She passes directly underneath it, and the movement of the turret she has prompted has exposed the support beams affixing it to the roof in much the same way a naïve fool may expose his neck to a predator.
Anakin leaps, his lightsaber flashes, and the turret collides noisily with the metal floor beneath it.
A silence follows the noise, one filled with the tense kind of humor found only in the dire situations of the battlefield.
Ahsoka cracks a smile, though it isn't wide enough to show her teeth. She props a hand on her hip and tilts her head at him. "Showoff," she admonishes.
He matches her expression with a smirk of his own. "Like you'd do any better if you had your lightsabers."
She laughs. Just the once. "Well, I was taught by you," she reminds him, and he shares with her in her laughter. Another silence follows, and they can't chase it away this time with petty banter.
The reinforced blast door of the lockup is beside them, closed tight. There is a panel on the wall beside it, bearing the distinctive mark of a Force based lock. Presuming that the clones within – and there are most certainly clones within – have not destroyed the lock on their side, they will be able to open the door with ease. It's what lies beyond the doors that worries him. He's uncertain of their numbers, their positions, or their plan. He presumes they'll take up positions on both sides of the wall, utilizing what little cover the support pillars allow. They'll try to draw him in and surround him. A good plan, but one easily countered.
Less easy is countering it without killing them, and that's another cause for uncertainty. The clones on the Landing Pad had acted nonlethally, firing only stun blasts. In stark contrast, the clones outside of Ahsoka's cell had utilized live fire. What was the difference? What was the deciding factor? And what tactic would the clones beyond this door use?
"Anakin?" Ahsoka's voice reaches him.
He frowns, grateful that it is not directed towards her. He thinks that she has called him by his name more often tonight than she has in three years. He doesn't mind that, he supposes. He has never been entirely comfortable being referred to as 'Master'. There's too much baggage with that word, and no small part of him still smarts every time he has to refer to someone else – anyone else – by that title.
But it's evidence of a divide that hadn't been there before. It's evidence – irrefutable and readily apparent – that things have changed. They aren't Anakin and Ahsoka anymore. They're Anakin. And Ahsoka. He can still feel her through the thread of their bond. He wouldn't dare have let that go – not even, he thinks, if she had asked him to. But it's different. Cooler in a way he can't ignore.
Their bond, the way she moves like a skittered cat around Obi-Wan, the way she says his name like she's not entirely comfortable with it – it's all a testament to his failure. His failure to protect her, to save her from the monsters. He supposes that he could never have guessed that the monsters that would take her from him would be the Council themselves.
But then, another part of him thinks, he could have. He could have.
"Anakin," Ahsoka repeats. Not a question this time. A command, he thinks. That's her bossy voice. Shape up, she is saying. Now's not the time.
He squares his shoulders. When he speaks, it's with his General voice. "They'll have heard that." He gestures with his head towards the shattered remains of the fallen autoturret. "Whatever's waiting beyond this door, they know we're coming."
He feels Ahsoka's hand pat his shoulder consolingly. When he looks down, he smiles to see her familiar, teasing grin staring back at him. "I think they knew that anyway," she tells him in that voice like she's talking to a child.
"Watch it, Snips," he warns in a voice that's entirely lacking anything in warning.
Briefly, her smile grows, but it falls away into something more gentle. "What was it you told me once? Something Master Qui-Gon told you when you were a boy?"
Anakin has to think for a minute. He hadn't known Qui-Gon long. Their time together had been much too short for all the good the man had done him. But even in that short time, he had dispensed much wisdom to him. Wisdom he had clung to as a young boy new to the Temple and the Jedi way of life. He thinks he knows what Ahsoka is referring to, though.
"Don't think. Feel." He thinks that he can almost hear Qui-Gon's voice echoing his own. That he can almost hear the trickling sound of pouring tea which had marked his presence in the Force, and had accompanied him everywhere.
Ahsoka, her hand still resting on his shoulder, gestures broadly towards the door. "Well?" Her voice is leading.
He shakes his head at her, unable to help the prideful smile that lifts the corners of his lips. All those years of watching the Masters at work, of listening to the words that fell from Obi-Wan's lips about students and the pride of watching them grow. He never thought he'd get it. But Ahsoka…
She's taught him more than he could ever have taught her.
He does as she suggests. He widens his stance, feet planted firmly into the floor and closes his eyes. He gives himself over to the peace of communion with the Force. He feels the way it moves around him like the breezes on Tatooine – the good breezes which came at night, caressing the blistered skin of his sunblasted face with the same gentleness of his mother. He feels the way it hovers near Ahsoka, askance and unsure. As if it is a child, and it has been snapped at. He feels so much more. The distant, vibrant motes of light of the Jedi Council twinkle like stars in the distance. He could reach further. He could find them in the Force as clearly as if they were in the room with them. He could feel the comforting constriction of Obi-Wan's presence, the cool, lapping waves of Master Fisto's, the fragrance of freshly brewed tea that marks Stass'. Part of him wants to. There is a comfort in the presence of his fellow Jedi. But there are others who need his attention now. Dimmer lights amidst the backdrop of the Jedi, but bright, shining beacons of life nonetheless. The clones beyond the door.
They are each of them unique, though not quite so vibrant in the Force as a Jedi – or even a Sith, distasteful as that thought is. Years of familiarity with his own clones – with Rex and Fives and Appo and Jesse – has attuned his senses to the distinct individuality of each of his clones. Put most of the 501st into unmarked, shiny suits of armor, and he could tell them apart without blinking. Even Cody and Waxer and Boil are familiar to him.
But these clones aren't. He can feel the variations, the different ways the Force vibrates within and without them. Some are sharper in the Force than others. He can taste caf in his throat from one. He can feel the mist of Kaminoan rain from another. The rest are rather plain.
But distinct enough to count.
Anakin opens his eyes.
"How many?" Ahsoka asks.
He shakes his head, sighing at the battle calculus he is having to figure against clones. Clones. He still can't believe it. "Not as many as I was afraid of. Just over a dozen. They're spaced evenly along the sides of the hallway."
Ahsoka nods. "To box us in," she surmises, in much the same way he had. He doesn't deign to congratulate himself for that. War is a bitter bitch, but she's a damn good teacher.
He turns a stern expression onto her. "To box me in," he corrects. She opens her mouth. He can already hear the tirade. He holds up a hand to stop her. "You don't have your lightsabers, Ahsoka. And these clones very well may be making use of live fire."
Ahsoka glances down very pointedly at the still smoking wreckage of the autoturret. The slow pan of her face back up to his carries no amount of sarcasm and sass with it.
Anakin shakes his head in exasperation, folding his arms across his chest in that way he does every time he admonishes her. He has to try very hard not to smile at the familiar quirk of irritation that twitches along her brow. "That's different, and you know it, Ahsoka," he adds emphasis to his voice towards the edge of the sentence when he sees the habitual confrontation Ahsoka is so fond of sneaking onto her face. "Clones can think."
Ahsoka matches his stance. She leans all of her weight onto one hip and folds her arms beneath her bust. A more perfect look of unimpressed, Anakin has never seen. "Implying that I can't?"
It's an old familiar banter. Easy to fall into. Anakin would normally eagerly indulge such things. They are the hallmark of their relationship, after all. Today, though, they don't have the time. Today, Anakin needs her to be safe, to be secure.
His hand rises to rest gently on her shoulder. It's…small. He doesn't know if he's ever realized how small she is. Suns, the thought bounces painfully around his head, she's only seventeen. "Just this once, Ahsoka," he says, and he can tell by the way her face slackens that he has won this argument, even if it is at the cost of her having to hear the fear and frailty in his voice, "please just listen to me."
Ahsoka holds his gaze for a long moment. Through her bright blue eyes, she pours a hundred questions into his soul. He can feel the flavor of concern, worry, and fear around them. Soon, he thinks, he will be able to answer them. Soon, they'll be alone. No clones, no Council, no Obi-Wan, no Ventress. And they will be able to talk about the things that need talking about.
He thinks she receives his message as clearly as he has received hers. A mask falls over the entirety of her body. Concern gives way to teasing humor. Fear to bravado. Her face twists into a grin that lights up everything about her, and she takes a step back from him to gesture grandly towards the door, as if she is a theatre hand revealing the opening act of a grand play. "Well please, Master," she smiles, voice leading, "show me how it's done."
It's like looking in a mirror.
Anakin turns away from her – and, in turn, from that unpleasant thought – and readies his lightsaber. Its burning hum fills the hall with the music of battle. Its blue glow paints everything in cool hues. Even the burning wires of the destroyed autoturret, in the light of his saber, look like they would chill instead of burn. He takes a moment to breathe. To center himself. Anakin has never been good at peace, but there resides within him some measure of it. He has only to look.
"Peace is a warm cup of tea." Obi-Wan's voice is distant, muffled by the haze of memories old enough to drink. "It's a quiet day in the Temple Gardens. It's the laughter of younglings, the footfalls of Masters. Peace is home, Anakin. Find it. Be within it. What then can ever topple you?"
Peace is home. Peace is a bed made with Nabooian silk sheets. Peace is the ridiculous bedhead of the youngest Queen in Naboo's history. Peace is the smell of rain, the sinful touch of soft, satin skin, the glow of the Coruscant skyline, and a smile that shows every tooth. Peace is Padmé.
Anakin opens the door.
The hallway within is dark – almost pitch black, in fact. It's a brilliant tactic, actually, for combating Jedi. His lightsaber will hinder him. The light it sheds is bright, but only out to a few feet, and he will be able to see nothing beyond that. On the flipside, it will make him an obvious, literally glowing target to fire at. He could turn it off, he supposes, and attempt to fight with his hands, with the Force. But to do so, he is certain, would invite immediate and overwhelming attack. Even he, as good as he is, would not be able to reactivate his lightsaber in time to save himself.
There is, however, no attack forthcoming, Anakin can't see into the room beyond the few feet illuminated by the light of the exterior hallway. He cannot tell the exact placement of the clones, but he is certain that all of them are looking at him. They have a clear, unobstructed shot. As many as there are, even he would have difficulty blocking all of them. But clones are too practical for that. There are too many ifs in that plan, and they're more than familiar with the resilience a Jedi can show. There intention is clear. He is to make the first move. Reacting in battle is usually a surefire way to ensure defeat and death, but in this case, they have no choice. They have to let him strike first and adapt to the options he gives them.
He will give them very few.
He walks forward, bathed in the light of his saber like the holy warriors of Tatooine myth. The Sun Warriors, they were called. Holy men of strength and honor who came down to the desert from the suns themselves, glowing with the warmth and light of them. His shadow is dark and deep, warped beyond recognition into some bastardization of his true form by the close, moving light of his lightsaber. A monster, following in the footsteps of a hero.
Ever has he been.
He thinks that he catches them by surprise. He is not even a full three feet into the hallway when he strikes. He pivots on his heel, graceful as a dancer. His lightsaber flashes in a clean arc, briefly illuminating the startled form of a clone – his shock apparent even through the expressionless visor of his helmet – as he slices cleanly through the barrel of his blaster rifle. The clone's companion – positioned opposite him on the other side of the door – raises his blaster and fires. It's a shot fired in desperation, and Anakin doesn't even have to try to maneuver around it.
Ferociously, he reaches out with the Force and grabs. He hears the muffled, pained grunts from the clone in question as the hard edges of his armor constrict around his ribs, pressing uncomfortably on his lungs. Anakin's saber rises to deflect the blaster bolt of a clone farther down the hall harmlessly into the wall in the same breath that he jerks his hand to the left and flings the clone he has a hold as hard as he can into the unexpectant body of the clone whose weapon he had taken.
Anakin can fling things very hard. The two clones collide in a thunderous series of cracks and thumps, and they do not get up again.
In the time it takes for them to collide, Anakin has already begun to advance. More clones are firing. Some he deflects, some he avoids. Some come treacherously close, charring the legs of his pants or searing the skin of his arm. Blaster burns are a nasty business. Tomorrow will be unpleasant. But the blaster fire affords him the benefit of lighting up the room, if only briefly, and he is now keenly aware of the clones' locations.
He is a whirlwind of motion. His lightsaber flashes, expertly directed in such a confined space. Lines of seared black trail the wall where it slides against the metal panels like silk against skin and where it goes, the scattered and shattered remains of blaster rifles and duraplast armor follow behind. The hallway is filled with the thunderous noises of helmets colliding roughly with the walls, the floors, each other. Duraplast shatters on impact, and visors are rendered useless by spiderwebbing cracks that obscure the clones' visions. Where the Force is ineffective, his fists and feet are not.
He pauses long enough to feel guilty for the unnatural angle he kicks a clone's knee into, and it costs him the pain of a blaster bolt directly to his left shoulder. A grunt escapes him, giving way quickly into a pained hiss. The next blaster bolt he deflects connects with the foot of the clone who fired it. He doesn't take the time to feel guilty about that one.
Within moments, Anakin is standing at the end of the hallway. Just over a dozen clones are little more than a conglomeration of half-conscious groans and broken equipment. He is panting rather heavily and favoring his left shoulder.
Ahsoka approaches him, the soft fall of her steps near silent on metal as she perfectly maneuvers around the bodies of their unfortunate opponents. Half hunched over his shoulder wound, he somehow finds the energy to grin cockily at her.
Ahsoka rolls her eyes, lekku dancing to the sway of her shaking head. Her smirk is wide, displaying the faint edges of her pointed teeth. Her hand flies out suddenly, gliding up and over his shoulder to shove out with the Force. The sound of duraplast connecting with hard steel fills their ears, accompanied by a sharp outcry of pain as the clone behind him falls unconscious. "Missed one."
"On purpose," he assures her, smile widening into a true grin.
She fights it, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of such a victory, but it's a fool's hope. The memory of that headstrong, tube top wearing girl in the caverns of a Teth monastery brings her no small amount of self-deprecating amusement. A lightsaber and a dream, and she'd thought she could take on the galaxy.
Something chokes his expression, pulling the uneven lines of his too familiar smile down into an expression that's only half a frown. It's unpleasant on his face, and Ahsoka doesn't like it. She likes even less the way his hand shakes as it rises to cup the curve of her cheekbones, thumb gliding along the patterns of her markings. His hand is warm, the way it always is. Try though he might, Anakin has always carried the heat of the desert with him. "I'm-I'm so sorry, Ahsoka," he stammers, sounding as if he is only just avoiding tears even as his eyes remain dry.
Ahsoka's hand rises to wrap around his, clenching around the palm and wedging itself between his fingers and her cheek. She leans into his touch, closing her eyes to cut off her own responsive tears. "You don't have anything to apologize for," she hisses, anger bleeding into her tone. She stamps it down, not wanting it to contaminate this moment. "You stood by me. You believed me." She laughs, the sound half a hiccup. "You got the entire Jedi Council to commit treason and bust me out of jail, Anakin. I'm not angry with you."
They stand there together like that for a moment, at peace within the safety of each other's company. It's Ahsoka who breaks the silence again. She forces another laugh from her throat, and they both pretend that they don't hear the sob that underlines it. Softly – hesitantly – she pulls away from the gentle touch of his hand and tries to smile.
"You know, this really isn't the place for this kind of conversation." She swallows thickly.
He laughs, and it's not entirely forced. It is, however, just as wet as hers. The grin that accompanies it takes less effort, fueled as it is by brighter memories of happier days. "Oh, I don't know." He looks around, as if he is only just seeing where they are, and when he turns back to her, his grin is even wider. "You, me, a battlefield, and a heart to heart talk? Seems pretty par for the course."
Ahsoka doesn't respond to that, and after a moment the grin slides off his face.
Seventeen years old, he thinks again. What have we done?
Anakin retrieves himself from the whirlpool of his dark thoughts. There will be time for that later. He will indulge his guilt when there are not lives depending on him. Shakily, and without his normal grace, he jerks his head in the direction of the lockup proper. "Go get your lightsabers. I'll stand guard."
Ahsoka obeys. She is as eager for a moment of distance as he is.
The lockup itself, despite the foreboding, long hallway leading to it, is little more than a boring looking storage room. It's large, of course – it has to be, to accommodate the belongings of thousands of prisoners – but entirely mundane. It looks much like the warehouses she's seen in the industrial levels of Coruscant on recon missions with Anakin or Barriss or Commander Fox.
She squeezes her eyes shut, trying with all her might not to wince at the clone Commander's name. It's not his fault. He was only following orders, doing as he was instructed. It's exactly what every other clone in this place is doing tonight. They are falling back on the simplest rule in the book – traitors are to be put down. However innocent Ahsoka may have been before, however free of the guilt the Jedi Council, the Senate, and the military wished to ascribe to her, she is now most certainly a traitor. Breaking out of prison? Aided by the Jedi Council themselves? This will set the galaxy on fire. It will shake the foundations of galactic stability, and it will most certainly displace the loyalty of the clones. They will, of course, do as they must. As they always have. They will follow orders.
Still. The Jedi Council she'd looked up to all her life. The Senate she'd faithfully served and protected for three years. The military she'd sacrificed her childhood to. And now the clones she'd shed blood, sweat, and tears beside.
When push comes to shove, is there anyone who won't betray her?
The thought is poison, viscous and black as it slithers through her mind. She can feel it polluting her even as she thinks it, and she knows it's a lie. There are those whose trust is unshakeable, undoubtable. Anakin. Rex. Padmé. Barriss. Perhaps even Obi-Wan and Plo after tonight, though she thinks sourly that it took them too long to remember where exactly their loyalties lie.
Ahsoka continues forward, as she ever has, stepping over the memories of betrayal, the body of her trust in the Jedi. The high shelves of the prison lockup are barred from her by one final door – an actual barred door, accessible only by a key that she doesn't have. She frowns at the lock, lips trembling, eyes narrowing.
One more problem.
One more obstacle.
One more stumbling block.
It never ends.
She reaches out. Her arm stretches out as far as it will go, and her fingers curl into grasping claws. They grip to the edges of the lock, cold fury bouncing back and forth between her unstoppable force and its immovable object. There's a pounding overlaying her hearing, blotting out Anakin's distant but apparent breath, the prison alarms, the knocking of steel. It's her heartbeat, she thinks, or perhaps her rage. She can't tell. But it buzzes beneath her skin, vibrates through her veins, shudders at the end of her fingers. The lock malforms, caving in along the sides, its indentations not too dissimilar to the grip of some monstrously powerful hand. Ahsoka's blood is still burning. There's a song moving through her. Its discordant, and out of tune, and when her spirit hums along to it, the metal of the lock groans in protest. Ahsoka thinks that she may roar, but when she wrenches her hand back, the only noise that fills the room is the explosive noise of the crumpled remains of the door colliding with the far wall.
There's a chill to the air. It wasn't there before.
Drained by the exertion of such a feat, Ahsoka pauses for a moment where she stands outside the gate. Her eyes trace the lines her anger have left behind on the door. There's a lesson here. An important one. Ahsoka thinks to herself that she will give herself time to study it later, and then she very carefully doesn't think about it anymore.
There's a computer console at the head of the lockup's storage room. It allows access to a catalogue of every prisoner belonging on file as well as where in the enormous room to find them. Ahsoka isn't sure if her access codes have already been revoked. She is fairly certain that, after three days, they have. She could call Anakin over to thumb through the available files. But that would take forever – good as he is with ships, he's dreadful with computers – and she doesn't need it anyway.
She can already hear the song. A duet, humming to her through the Force. It echoes the melody of her own soul, apart from her and yet not in a way that, when together, creates a symphony of purpose and unity. She has missed the music of her weapons in the last few days. More so, she thinks, than she ever could have imagined. She needs no direction to follow the music to its source.
They have been filed along with all the rest of the weapons the prison has accumulated. She is uncertain exactly how the filing system works. It isn't alphabetical, she knows. She thinks it may be based on size, judging by the groupings of weapons she casually observes as she glides through the shelves. Or, perhaps, it is filed by retrieval date. Her lightsabers are near the very back of the room, tucked away into a small, perfectly ordinary box on the fifth shelf.
She reaches out to grab the box with as gentle a grip as she can manage. It floats slowly down through the air and into her waiting hands. The tone of her soul is more pleasant now, reminiscent of a melody more familiar to her. Though it's quieter than normal, as if cowed.
Ahsoka makes a point not to think about that either and opens the box.
They are within. There is nothing else within the container – not even any padding to prevent them from rolling around. She frowns at that, displeased with any mistreatment of the lightsabers she has cared for, for the better part of five years. But they are undamaged, if slightly dusty. She is already thinking of the ways in which she will polish them, bring them back to the glory they had been not three days ago when she'd last held them.
In her hands, her lightsabers are a comforting weight. They are the surety of a loved one's hug, the security of absolute faith. The coolness of their metal calms her adrenaline quickened heart. Some piece of her heart, she is certain, settles back into place with them back in her possession.
But. Well.
Her thumbs hover hesitantly over the activation switches.
"Ahsoka?" Anakin's voice sounds from behind her. She freezes like a scared deer, every muscle tightening across her body until she feels like moving would cause them to snap. His voice…she can hear the unabashed concern in it. Attuned as he is to her presence, he would have, of course, felt the cold discordance of her song through the Force. Would, of course, know what had happened. "Are you ready?"
Ahsoka's muscles loosen reflexively. He is speaking slowly and deliberately, as if to a wounded animal, but there is no judgment within his tone. No admonishment, nor chastisement. Only concern and a flavor of understanding. She squeezes her eyes shut, tight enough to see stars and lowers her hands to clip her lightsabers to her belt. When she turns around to face Anakin, she is smiling widely. "Ready."
~•~
Ki-Adi is facing the wrong way when the explosion detonates. It's an unfortunate consequence of timing. The bright flash of the AA gun's final moments in contrast to the comparatively gentle touch of the dim evening blinds him. His eyes sear with pain, and he gasps. Hard earned reflex deflects the blaster bolt which had been bound for his head the moment before the explosion. He stumbles back a step, a hand rising to cover his eyes, as if that will in any way assuage the pain.
Beside him, he hears Saesee's deepthroated voice mumbling to himself in much the same vein as they all have been over the course of this cursed battle. "Thirty-six." There's a hum that follows the words, the death knell of the final AA gun that blocks their escape. It's contemplative and just on the edge of annoyed. "Where are they?"
Ki-Adi's vision is returning in fits and bursts, bright picture flashes of still moments of the battle around him. The Force sings warnings to him, and the heat of blaster bolts warms his cheeks as they flash by his head. Close calls. So many of them, and not just tonight. Still, he doesn't have to see to know who Saesee is speaking about.
The guns are gone, the other members of the Council are already leaping as gracefully as they can off the walls of the Landing Pad around them. He can feel them move in the Force, feel the way the world parts around them like river water around a rock. There is nothing stalling their escape now, save of course the very same reason that any of them are here in the first place.
Where are Skywalker and Tano?
"Where are Skywalker and Tano!?" a voice shouts across the din of battle, and through the haze of his blindness, Ki-Adi wonders if his thoughts have developed an echo before he recognizes the signature frustration of Master Windu.
Saesee picks up the baton without complaint, reporting in a succinct voice, "Delayed."
Ki-Adi can't see Mace's expression just now, but he thinks that it's saying something along the lines of "Explain," in that way that Mace can do like he's making his facial expressions into bold text.
Ki-Adi thinks that his eyes have managed to work out how to see outlines again.
He didn't know that outlines could look as tense as Mace does now.
To his credit, Saesee is quick, succinct, and concise in his reply. Ki-Adi has always respected that about his iktochi colleague. Remove the sound of blaster fire and the glow of the wreckage of the nearby artillery cannons, and you may think you were discussing something as banal as Madame Jocasta's new cataloguing system. "Kenobi reported that they detoured to recover the Padawan's lightsabers from the prison lockup. We are uncertain of their location or their timeframe." Saesee, being one of the four Council members who had voted against Tano's excommunication, has spent the last three days very pointedly referring to her by the title the Council had stripped from her. It's petty, and not necessarily respectable of a Jedi of his standing, but Ki-Adi doesn't really have a leg to stand on where correcting him is concerned.
He can, however, see well enough now to notice the way Mace's eyebrow twitches in irritation in response. Although, whether that's in relation to the use of Tano's former title or the actions undertaken by Skywalker and his former student, Ki-Adi isn't sure.
Some measure of a growl escapes Mace, and his lightsaber flashes briefly in the air behind him, effortlessly deflecting a blaster bolt that would have liquified his brain had it connected. "Do they have any idea of the time frame we're working under?"
Some component of one of the destroyed artillery cannons decides in that moment that it isn't quite done exploding, and the resulting flash of light illuminates Saesee's face more clearly. He looks remarkably disapproving, and his voice drips with a mixture of disappointment and disdain. "You are suggesting that the Padawan be denied the right to reclaim the lightsabers that were taken from her?" He emphasizes the word, an obvious reminder of who was responsible for them being taken in the first place.
Mace's face contracts, and however tactless the korun human can be at times, even he knows not to try and respond to that.
A warmth brushes against Ki-Adi's face, somehow comforting despite how hot his body is already. It is accompanied by the tunes of a softly spoken song. Skywalker and Tano. Distracted as his compatriots are with their half argument, Ki-Adi thinks that he is the only one of them to register the two's presences on approach.
Anakin's arrival is marked by the hurried thunder of his footsteps, and the grunt of exertion from both him and Mace as his momentum carries him rather unceremoniously into the korun Master's shoulder. His Padawan is shortly behind him, a similar blur of movement, although one more graceful and controlled than her Master had been.
"Oof!" Anakin huffs in exertion, the wind taken from his lungs by the impact. He recovers quickly, as is expected of a Jedi and a war veteran. A look of something like irritation flits across his face if Ki-Adi is seeing that correctly, and he slaps Mace none too gently on the shoulder, looking around in bewilderment at Ki-Adi and Saesee.
"What are you guys waiting on!? Don't just stand around! We gotta go!" He gestures broadly towards the shuttle and is already moving again, his Padawan just behind him.
Mace utters a curse unbecoming of a Jedi.
Ki-Adi thinks it would have made the clones proud though.
~•~
The Council loads themselves onto the shuttle quickly, wasting no time in retreating up the onramp and into the relative – if temporary – safety of the shuttle's interior. The distant rumble of blaster bolts scorching off the side of the shuttle's bulkhead is an immediate and ever present reminder that their time is short and their window small. Mace and Kit move rapidly towards the cockpit, the door swishing closed behind them. To their credit, the shuttle leaps to groaning life only a few moments later. Anakin sees Obi-Wan and the less space friendly Council members sway on their feet as the shuttle struggles to defy the mandate of its weight.
Beside him, Ahsoka has no such trouble, and he thinks it may be slightly odd how proud that makes him. She gives him a look from the corner of her eyes, lips askance in what might be humor or might be concern. "You're not flying?"
Humor. He pegs it in the teasing tone of her voice. She's mocking him. Normally, he would be more offended by her insinuations, but just now, he's too happy to have her back at his side to care. He finds in that moment that he has missed her mockery.
Still, he plays the part, harumphing and crossing his arms over his chest. "I was outvoted."
The shuttle shakes suddenly, rattled to its core by something. The metal panels along the wall voice their displeasure, singing discord through the shuttle's hold. Anakin sees nervous expressions flit across the faces of the Council, and he imagines his own mirrors the emotion.
Ahsoka frowns, meeting his eye. "That wasn't a blaster rifle."
He shakes his head very slowly. "No," he agrees.
Another quake rumbles rapidly through the shuttle. On the other side of the hold, Yarael and Agen lose their footing and fall ungracefully to the floor, where they continue to be shaken by the still rattling shuttle. Anakin himself has to brace against the nearby wall, and Ahsoka has to brace against him. He frowns towards the cockpit, already more than aware of what's going on. He knows the feeling of the impact of two front facing blaster cannons.
He is already to the cockpit door when the third blast rocks the shuttle, and he comes very close to stumbling his way into the cockpit. As it is, he maintains his footing, leaning the weight of his shoulder against the cockpit's doorframe as the shuttle continues to grumble at them unhappily. The cockpit is decently sized, taking up a fair portion of the shuttle itself. It's designed to be manned by three people total – a pilot, a copilot, and a navigator. As such, it isn't cramped or crowded, and he is afforded a clear an unobstructed view of the chaos unfolding just outside the shuttle's viewport.
Whether by contact with the garrison via comm or by the simple visual of the three dozen bonfires they'd lit atop the prison walls, it would seem that reinforcements had been called. Three Nu-Class attack shuttles hovered directly outside their viewport. Anakin can tell by the left over ionization on their forward facing blaster cannons that each of them have fired a shot – a typical intimidation tactic. The shuttle that the Jedi are in is old, weathered, and not nearly up to a scrap with more advanced military vehicles of this class, but even it can withstand a few well placed warning shots. Were they the typical run of the mill prison breakers, Anakin is sure such an intimidation tactic would have worked. As it is, most of the men and women on this ship have personally commanded the implementation of such a tactic in the past. It holds little sway over them in the immediacy.
The words emitting from the shuttle's built in comm are a different matter, however. "Unknown Jedi shuttle," a voice spews forth, distorted by the shuttle's ancient technology but indisputably a clone, "you are in violation of eight Coruscanti air control ordinances, guilty of assault and battery of an officer or officers of the Grand Army of the Republic, and culpable for acts of high treason. You are ordered to land your shuttle immediately without resistance. Should you not comply, we are authorized to use lethal force. You have one minute to comply."
To the clone's credit, Anakin doesn't think that any of them can detect so much as a hint of hesitancy in his voice at the thought of gunning down a shuttle loaded full to burst with almost the entire Jedi Council.
A silence takes hold of the cockpit for a moment that even Anakin doesn't have the willpower to break. It lasts too long, in all honesty. They're on an exceptionally tight deadline at the moment, after all.
"What do we do?" Mace shares a glance with Kit, not having noticed Anakin yet.
Kit's shrug is helpless and edged with too much skittish, nervous energy. "This shuttle is over two centuries old," he stresses, the words further emphasized by his accent. "I don't think I could I outrun a T-16 with this thing."
"Unknown Jedi shuttle," the clone speaks up again, and this time his voice is tinged with an unmistakable tension. "Will you comply?"
The blaster cannons of the leftmost Nu shuttle begin to glow, superheating the chemicals within in preparation for a shot which, going by the trajectory, will eviscerate the three of them in the cockpit. Its rightmost brother is not far behind in doing the same. Only the middle shuttle remains entirely unmoved, and Anakin pegs that one as the command shuttle in this exercise. Perhaps they were wrong. There is hesitancy here today. This clone, whatever his name is, doesn't want to do this.
Anakin sorely wishes that he could stop playing on the loyalty of clones.
But needs must.
"Move!" Anakin commands, voice just below a shout as he rushes forward and all but bowls Kit out of the pilot's seat. Anakin doesn't know what kind of visual the Nu shuttles' pilots are afforded of the Jedi shuttle's cockpit, but the center Nu begins to power up its own cannons, as if in response to his actions. Already Anakin's hands are flying about the console, and the ship is jumping to life in response, faster and more eagerly than ever it had for Kit. The nautolan, picking himself up off the floor, has a good enough nature to not be chagrined by his lack of skill in the face of a prodigious flyer like Anakin. He retreats to the back of the cockpit, whereupon he takes a seat at the navigator's console, awaiting an opportunity to put himself to better use.
Mace, of course, voices complaint. "Skywalker!" he reproaches him, but it's all he manages.
Anakin cuts him off with a sharp gesture of his hand, pointing the elder Jedi aggressively towards his side of the controls. "Complain later," he instructs with half a smirk. "Fly now!"
Mace wants to argue. Anakin can see it on his face, and the constipated look that overcomes the koran Jedi as he visibly swallows his frustration nearly makes him laugh out loud. He manages to keep it together only because he knows that if he laughs, any cooperation on Mace's side will fall apart. Mace settles deeper into his seat, and whatever Kit wants to say later, he most certainly does not pout. "What do you need?"
The amusement slides off Anakin's face like water, and he settles immediately into the persona of authority that has earned him such renown throughout the war. "Reroute power to the shields."
Mace jumps to, fingers prompting the computer interface to life. "How much power? And from where?"
Anakin pulls back suddenly on the yoke, and the shuttle's propulsion systems jump to shuddering life, shaking the entire ship with their ancient, uneven breaths. Anakin groans lightly against the pull of Coruscant's gravity, as if he is feeling the strain of the ship's rise within his very own body. When he speaks, his voice is jittery – the way it always gets in the midst of action and adventure. He thinks that he sees Kit glance at him askance, as if worried, and then laughs quietly to himself when he remembers that the nautolan surely is worried. This is not Obi-Wan or Ahsoka, who are used to the way he responds to battle stimulus. He thinks that his laugh probably doesn't do any more to reassure Kit and wants to laugh even more. "All power," he instructs. "From everywhere."
Mace is trying, but that type of instruction is just a bit too Anakin to compute properly in his brain, and he stalls. "Define everywhere," he says slowly.
Something akin to a sigh escapes Anakin's mouth, although he probably meant it to be more of a huff. His own hand darts over, fingers dancing across the interface's command prompts. "Everywhere," he says again, emphasizing the word. "Lighting, temperature regulation, every piece of non-critical life support, artificial gravity. Put it all in the shields."
Mace blinks, a mixture of confusion and irritation plain on his face in the wake of this young, hairbrained man's frankly ridiculous orders. Then he curses and leans down to follow through. One hand goes to work on the computer whilst the other nonchalantly begins clicking the straps of his seat into place. Slowly, the fruitions of his labor begin to become apparent. The cockpit's lights – and presumably the rest of the ship's as well – flicker twice before cutting out entirely. Halfway through his work, Mace activates the intercom to inform the rest of them in a voice so monotone it could almost be mistaken for boredom, "Prepare for loss of artificial gravity." They're still within the bounds of Coruscant's atmosphere so nothing becomes immediately apparent, but the computer assures Mace that the artificial gravity has been deactivated and its power has been pushed to reinforce the ship-wide deflector shields. Almost as an afterthought, Mace, Anakin, and Kit all find the time to reach down and strap themselves to their seats their seatbelts.
The shuttle is rising rather rapidly, given its age and the power of the onboard engines. Mace thinks to himself that Anakin must be pulling some of the power he's offered to him away from the shield and towards the engines, but his readouts are displaying no proof of any such tampering. Mace was a fair flier before the War, and in the course of it, he has become a great one. But he realizes now that he is nothing compared to Anakin, who seems capable of teasing more out of an engine than it should reasonably be able to give by no merit other than the fact that it is him at the helm.
Bright, ionized flashes of glowing green flash past them, nearly grazing the transparisteel of their shuttle's viewport. They race upward towards the dark of space, unimpeded and unobstructed. They will continue, Mace knows, on through the endless black void of space, endlessly propelled. If nothing stops them, they'll continue on until the stars burn out and even further after that.
Not unlike the Jedi in this moment, he thinks to himself. Though, he has to wonder, what exactly they're going to have to collide with to stop their unending advance. He doesn't know. But he is reminded of an old adage he'd heard years ago – about a short drop and very sudden stop.
Beside him, Anakin's grunt draws him out of his philosophical musings, and the harsh bank he pulls – which Mace thinks will surely sheer the shuttle in half – reminds him that there are far more apparent issues to be worrying about other than hypothetical and entirely theoretical collision awaiting the Jedi in their future.
The beginnings of weightlessness have just begun to unsettle the deep parts of Mace's stomach when one of the Nus' blaster volleys finds its mark along the side of the Jedi's shuttle. Four massive blasts punch against the starboard bulkhead, and Mace knows that if he had not tied himself down, he would be ping-ponging all about the cockpit right now. He shudders to think what may be happening to his fellow Masters in the hold. Mace thinks for a moment that he may voice some admonishment to Skywalker about his hellish flying, the man seems too distracted to be able to take the barb as well as he normally would.
Anakin jostles in his seat, thrown by the impact of lasers all together too powerful for this ship to handle. The twin joysticks of the shuttle's yoke dig hard into the planes of his chest, and he grunts against the dull pain that radiates achingly across his torso. Pulling himself off of the shuttle's yoke, his back collides roughly with the weathered seat. His hand is already working at something new on the console.
A few short seconds later, he curses — drawing a disapproving eye from Mace and an amused one from Kit that he either doesn't see or doesn't care to see — and balls his hand into a fist to hammer against the console.
"Where's R2 when you need him?" he mutters frustratedly to himself and then he's flipping a switch above him and speaking purposefully into the ship's intercom. "Ahsoka! Get up here!"
Some moments later, the cockpit door swishes open. Ahsoka floats in. Belly up to the ceiling, she drags herself expertly along towards the front of the cockpit with small, gentle motions and the soft grip of the flat of her palm. It is as if she were born in artificial gravity, and she seems entirely at ease with this upside down perception of the world. Her face is a blank mask in the shape of Commander Tano, and she makes her way readily towards the front of the cockpit whereupon she twists around to face her expression down towards Anakin, awaiting orders.
Anakin doesn't even look at her. He is already angling the shuttle farther up, desperate to escape Coruscant's upper atmosphere. The Nu shuttles are close behind, and another volley of blaster fire grazes the starboard bulkhead. The impact is less than it had been before, but it is still jarring. Mace finds himself grudgingly respectful of the way Ahsoka continues to freely float in the middle of the air, seemingly entirely unperturbed by the rumbling of the ship around him.
It is Kit – not Mace – who recognizes that calm for what it is. It is a rare sight but always a rewarding one. Ahsoka despite all they have visited upon her in recent days – by the Force, in recent years – has absolute faith in her Master.
"Port side console," Anakin succinctly orders her. "I need you to splice through the shuttle's safety protocols and disable the failsafes."
In his seat, Mace startles, looking immediately over to Anakin with a look tantamount to terror.
Ahsoka crosses her arms over her chest, quirking an eyebrow at him. "Which failsafes?" she asks, and Mace thinks that the fact that, that's her only question is exceptionally worrying.
Anakin pulls the shuttle hard to the left, barely managing to avoid another volley of blaster fire. "All of them," he instructs.
"Skywalker?" Mace tries, but it's of little use. Anakin acts as if he doesn't hear him, and Ahsoka turns immediately to crawl her way along the ceiling towards the port side console to do as he asks.
Mace thinks that Kit's quiet laughter in the corner of the room is most assuredly unnecessary.
They play a game for the next several minutes, with Mace there as an unwilling contestant. Whilst Ahsoka works on actively undoing every built in failsafe designed to keep them from killing themselves, Anakin and the clone pilots play a high stakes game of chicken, replete with blaster fire and a consistently obvious series of attempts to herd them closer to the fleet of Venators hovering in Coruscant's upper atmosphere. Anakin is skilled enough to hold his ground, but it's all he manages to do. He gains no further distance from either the Nus or the Venator fleet, but for the moment he seems content not to push his luck. Which is, Mace decides, such an uncharacteristic decision it's terrifying. Mace doesn't know what hairbrained scheme Skywalker up his sleeve, but he's absolutely certain it's not going to be anything he enjoys.
Another raucous, quaking blast shakes the entirety of the shuttle. The seatbelt holding Mace to his chair digs painfully into the plains of his stomach as the momentum created by the blast attempts to throw him out of his seat.
Anakin groans, having once more been thrown forward into the shuttle's yoke. Yet another blast follows, and Anakin is forced to pull hard on the yoke, all but barrel rolling the ancient shuttle in his attempts to break the clones' immediate line of sight.
"Ahsoka!" he exclaims furiously.
"I'm working on it!" she snaps back, fingers twisting idly at the wires she's loosened behind the console. There's irritation in her voice, but Mace doesn't think it's aimed at Anakin. Rather, she seems to be pouring her frustration into the mess of electronics in front of her. At length, a frustrated groan escapes her and she hammers her fist against the wall of the cockpit. Mace and Kit share a look, and the thought is clear in each of their eyes. Like Master, like Padawan. "I can't break the failsafe on the shuttle's weapon systems. This thing was designed by pacifists, Skyguy!"
Mace doesn't want to think too much right now on why Ahsoka distinguishes between the words 'Jedi' and 'Pacifist'. "The direction of the Jedi Order," Padawan Offee's voice lashes through his minds, "is one of fallacy and failure."
Safe outside of the confines of his ever broiling mind, Anakin and Ahsoka are still doing their best to get them out of the situation. Anakin is fingering rapid fire commands into the computer console, eyes reading the computer's reports at a pace that belies belief even as he almost subconsciously pulls the shuttle up to avoid another round of blaster fire. On his own console, Mace sees the power he's rerouted to the shields beginning to drain away.
"Skywalker?" he questions worriedly, but he doesn't get any farther than that.
"What about the rest of the failsafes?" Anakin demands, entirely ignoring Mace as he does.
Ahsoka sighs in relief, knowing an obvious out when hears one. She shuts the panel of the console that had afforded her access to its inner workings with a satisfied clank and turns her expression onto the back of Anakin's head. "Disabled. You're free to kill us in any way you see fit."
"Excellent." Anakin still hasn't looked up from whatever he's forcing the shuttle to do at his console. Mace watches with mounting terror as the power drains further and further away from the shield.
"Skywalker, if you keep going, we won't have any shields," he hisses. He means it to come out more commanding and authoritative than it does.
Is this why Obi-Wan hates flying? he wonders to himself.
"Yep," Anakin responds glibly. At last, he finally lifts his gaze back to the viewport and settles both of his hands on the shuttle's yoke. "Kit, I need you to secure Ahsoka."
Ahsoka thinks about voicing a complaint, but she is familiar enough with the hairbrained schemes that Anakin comes up with – particularly when he is at the helm of the ship – not to argue. She allows Kit to reach up and tug her weightless body down until she is level with him and suffers only a mild case of embarrassment as he pulls her into his lap and secures her with the steel surety of his arms.
Anakin's hand reaches up to flip on the ship-wide intercom. "Brace for rapid acceleration and emergency hyperflight. This is gonna be bumpy."
Mace swears that he can hear Obi-Wan's sigh from here.
Anakin's hands resettle on the shuttle's yoke. The computer console in front of Mace screams every warning it can formulate at him, beeping bright, obtrusive reprimands about overclocked engines and horrendously stressed hyperdrives. An ionized flash of green lights up the viewport not three inches from Mace's head. Unshielded as it is, the transparisteel rapidly blackens, charred by the close quarter heat of the blaster bolt.
Mace has time enough to utter another terrified, "Skywalker…" before he is thrown bodily into the back of his seat by the sheer kick of the shuttle's engines as Anakin pumps every ounce of power available to him into their output. They rocket forward, outdistancing the Nus within a few scant seconds even as the shuttle shakes and rattles and quivers in displeasure, threatening at any moment to fall apart beneath the strain of speeds it was never meant to go.
Anakin's hand flashes down to push upwards on the hyperdrive's throttle, and the familiar stars of Coruscant's sky vanish in a flash of elongated blue.