Revealed Identities
Chapter 23: Escape
Everything seemed to happen in a whirl of motion as a wave of stormtroopers rushed into the Throne Room. There wasn't much distance between the group of rescuers and the troops, but Anakin used the Force to tear the ceiling down on top of some of the stormtroopers, and cut off the attack from the other side. The room above the Throne Room must have been a storage unit because boxes fell through the floor. Blaster fire still managed to get through the holes, even if the stormtroopers themselves couldn't. Anakin and Luke rushed over to Chewie's side, and Luke once again tossed his lightsaber to his father. Luke tried to pull Chewie up, but with Anakin using the lightsaber to deflect blaster fire, it made it difficult to do much by himself. Meanwhile, Han was helping Leia to her feet.
"I'm alright," Leia muttered. "At least physically. We need to help," she couldn't seem to come up with the right words to describe her brother and father, so she settled with something less formal, "them get Chewie out of here." Han nodded.
"Aren't there any other weapons besides that lightsaber?" Both Han and Leia did their best to duck behind the fallen boxes to avoid the blaster fire.
"Maybe these storage boxes have some inside," Leia suggested.
"Well unless you want to risk getting your head fired at while you spend precious time looking through each and every one, go for it, because I'm not going to look through them," Han grumbled.
"I thought you were supposed to be the tough macho male," Leia grinned as Han shot her an evil look. They reached Chewie and helped Luke move him towards the closest wall.
"How're we supposed to get out of here?" Leia asked, now shouting through the increased blaster fire. Leia guessed that more stormtroopers must have arrived because the blaster fire increased, and there seemed to be some progress with them clearing the rubble out of the way.
"I feel like this is getting redundant, but solid walls mean nothing to lightsabers," Anakin said, "Unless, of course, there's nothing but a vacuum of space on the other side," Anakin added, as he began to switch back and forth between cutting through the wall and deflecting blaster fire.
Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie all huddled behind a crate as they watched in awe as Anakin worked the lightsaber in a graceful and fluid motion. Chewie moaned as he began to come to.
"You alright pal?" Chewie groaned something that sounded sarcastic to Leia, who was starting to pick up on what Chewie said.
"Nah, of course I wasn't worried about you. I just didn't want the Princess and Luke here to have to haul you all the way through this place," Han explained. Chewie roared something else.
"Of course I could handle it! My back wouldn't give out! I am not that old," Han defended himself.
"Come on. Let's get out of here," Anakin shouted as the piece of metal wall clanged to the floor. The group rushed out as Anakin continued to deflect the blaster fire. Luke glanced behind him, making sure that his father would follow. He did.
The group made their way to the main hangar where stormtroopers patrolled constantly, now aware of the possible threat from inside.
However, they had not detected the ship docked closely near the exhaust port. Luke and Jallishka had managed to land there without detection thanks to Jallishka's extraordinary knowledge of discretion, as well as Luke's own ability to maneuver a spaceship.
"We have to cross the main hangar to get access to the exhaust port's attachment chamber," Luke explained to the group as they all clumped together in a supply closet. Luke took note of the strained expressions on his sister and father's faces. Anakin kept taking side glances at his daughter, and she was pointedly ignoring him.
"There are an increased number of stormtroopers guarding the hangar. More than we had anticipated. We need to devise a plan to get us all out without detection," Luke said, taking on an authoritative tone that the group had never heard him use.
Anakin stopped taking glances at Leia, and looked at Luke. A heaviness had settled over his son, and Leia was deliberately ignoring him. Anakin's emotions were drained, and he felt so old. However, his son was too young to be acting as old as Anakin felt. His son's youth had been taken from. He winced, realizing he had been responsible for the way he had turned out. A sudden realization hit him.
Leia had mirrored her mother's footsteps without her mother's help, and Luke had become exactly like Anakin without having been taught to behave like him. It was like looking into the past. Leia had become her mother, and Luke had become like him. Padmé had found it in her heart to love who he was, no matter what. Therefore, was there a slight possibility for Leia to do the same?
In the overcrowded space, Anakin stretched slightly, rolling his neck in order to free some of the cramps he was getting. His eyes rested upon the lighting unit above them. A sudden idea hit Anakin.
"Question for you guys. How many stormtroopers does it take to screw in a light-bulb?"
"This is not a bright idea," Han muttered underneath his breath.
"That wasn't funny," Leia retorted, as they all shuffled through the electrical wiring unit. There were many sections to the wiring unit.
Each one had a series of almost twenty tubes running through its middle, but it made for restricted head space, not to mention it was difficult to walk through. The area was only dimly lighted, and things stuck out at strange angles from the wall and the floor. Still, there was enough room for the humans to stand up in. Chewie had to crouch.
Anakin led the way through the wires. He had remembered the initial plan that Kuat Drive Yards had issued when designing the Super Star Destroyer. There had been some controversy as to the wiring unit used. It would harness a greater amount of power than the normal Star Destroyers, but at the same time would be three times as likely to catch fire as the old wiring. In order to compensate for this problem, a unit large enough to walk in was put in to help control any fires that might possibly occur. He himself had proposed the idea of larger holding units for the wiring. Each wire had a heavy strip of rubber wrapped securely around it, as well as encases in plastic tubes. The unit itself was large enough for a maintenance worker or droid to stand up in so that if a problem were to occur, it would be easier for someone to find it.
Not to mention every hundred meters was a lock down system that enabled each section to close thick, fireproof doors so that a fire could be isolated and extinguished. Chewie groaned. Anakin, fluent in several languages, picked up on the annoyance immediately.
"No, I'm sorry. It wasn't even meant to be designed for tall humans, let alone Wookies," Anakin, who also had to hunch slightly, replied to Chewie's comment.
"Like you care," Leia shot back. Anakin looked back at his daughter, looked her in the eye, and turned away. Leia saw how hurt he seemed, and she cursed herself. She was starting to feel guilty for treating him so badly. Then she remembered the pain that he had caused her, and it was easy for her to hate him again.
"So what're we going to do to get out of here?" Luke wondered, trying to break some of the tension.
"Throw light bulbs at the stormtroopers," Anakin replied calmly. Han's mouth dropped.
"That's your great plan?" He asked incredulously.
"You're trying to kill us, right?" Leia added in.
"No, I'm serious. Stormtroopers have very little view range with those stupid helmets, and even less mobility to look left to right, let alone up. It'll cause great confusion at first. That's one of the problems stormtroopers have in battle. The second problem is, is that they don't have great accuracy in shooting. Not for lack of trying, but once again, those helmets are a nuisance when it comes to vision – at least when you use the Force to misdirect their aim," Anakin explained with a grin. "Though I'm sure you already knew that." They walked through another section of the wiring unit before Anakin stopped.
"They're right below us," Luke said, able to feel the presence of such a concentrated group of stormtroopers. "It's easier to feel their Force presence because there're so many of them." Anakin nodded. He put his hands on one of the tubes.
"To be more specific, we're going to drop these tubes on them, as well as the lights that run right beneath our feet," Anakin motioned for them to get as far up against the wall as possible. Everyone found something to hold unto. With one hand holding some sort of mechanical mechanism, Anakin threw the lightsaber at the wiring. Sparks shot from the wires and the dim lights above them went out. Anakin heard his lightsaber clatter to the floor. He used the Force to bring it to his grasp again.
"I'm not sure how many times I'm going to have to cut through the wires like this in order for it to fall. It'd be much easier if I could just cut through it, but I don't really want the current to arc to be shocked to death either," Anakin explained as he threw his lightsaber at the wires again. Though it had crossed his mind to do just that. A Jedi was taught to accept his death when it came, but to go looking for it in anyway was never a good idea. Still, it would be an effortless way for him to solve his children's problems.
On the fourth time Anakin let his lightsaber fly, the wires finally all fell, their weight causing the floor directly beneath them to collapse. The floor that Anakin, Chewie, Luke, and Han were on stayed put, but the floor underneath Leia gave way.
"No!" The men cried in unison as Leia fell to the floor that was littered with debris and stormtroopers below.
Next part...Regrets and Accusations