Anakin slowly climbed the stairs to come face to face with his opponent. He raised his saber into a fighting stance as Reven did the same. Anakin lunged forward in attack and Reven parried it. He lunged forward with more speed than before, but Reven parried that too. This time Reven lunged forward, Anakin blocked and Reven moved, Anakin followed.
Idiot. Reven thought. He twisted around and placed a kick to Anakin's chest, sending him down the stairs. Reven jumped down after him. Anakin rolled over just as Reven's lightsaber hit the ground where he was lying just seconds before. Anakin stood up and renewed his attack. The battle raged on for several minutes with no clear sign of a victor.
Reven ducked under one of Anakin's strikes, swinging his foot around causing him to trip. Reven knocked Anakin's saber away and held the tip of his up against his face.
"Now, Skywalker, you will die."
He raised the saber into the air, with the full intention of killing his opponent. A smile crept across his face. He began to lower his weapon, picking up speed and courage during the downward sweep. An image passed across his sight, an image from back on Dantooine, an image of his one and only love, Jaina. He changed the trajectory of his attack, hitting the floor next to Anakin instead. He blinked several times as he regained his composure and realized that he had only imagined Jaina.
He raised his lightsaber one more time. Anakin once again was changed, Jaina once again appeared and he once again purposefully missed his target. He backed away from his target, not believing what his eyes were telling him. Reven turned away from prey and deactivated his lightsaber. Anakin stood up, using the Force to bring his weapon to him.
"I will not fight you, Anakin," he said, looking over his shoulder.
"Why not?"
"We are not that different, you and I," he replied.
"Never compare me to you! I want nothing to do with you! We are totally different!"
"Actually we are quite alike."
"I will never believe it."
"You lost you mother about a year ago, and I lost my one and only love. On second thought," he stared up at the ceiling, seeming to zone out into nothingness, "you will never know the pain I went through."
"What?" Anakin asked, anger and disbelief in his voice.
"You don't know what it is like, you were taken from your mother when you were only nine, I never knew my parents. I, like many others, was taken from my parents before I could have any memories of my parents or my homeworld. I never had any parents, I grew up on my own the only comfort I had was that found in the others just like me. The closest thing I had to a family were the Jedi that came to visit us on occasion, but we barely saw the same person twice, and you could tell that they didn't want to be there. I grew up alone with only Jaina to keep me company. Then I learned of the corruption, and decided to switch sides, giving in to the anger I had felt within for so many years. In the process I had to kill two people, the only two people I ever cared about. Master Palius and Jaina, they never did anything wrong, but they died anyway."
Anakin noticed a tear slide down his face at the mention of Jaina and his master. He knew as well what it was like to grow up without a father, only having his mother and eventually Obi-wan to guide him, to teach him and to love him.
"I took their lives," he looked at his hands, "with my own two hands I killed them. I had regretted everything. I wanted to take it all back, but I couldn't," his voice conveyed true sadness, "I had to live with what I had done, I thought that after what I did I would always be alone. But then Jaina visited me, and I threw her away, my HATE threw her away. Anakin, please, don't give in to your anger, the Dark Side is not where you belong. Don't make the same mistake I made."
Anakin pondered that as he watched Reven walk away.
"I have had enough fighting for today, kill me if you must, I will not stop you."
"So that's it? You're just going to run away from your problems just like that?" Anakin screamed after him.
"Only if you let me, Anakin, only if you let me."
Anakin felt the rage swelling in him. He wanted nothing more than to kill Reven right here and now. His thumb hovered over the switch to activate his lightsaber, but removed it, remembering the words of Reven.
"I have a feeling this isn't over yet, Karrde!" he yelled after him.
"Well I do," Reven muttered.
Five more blue triangles disappeared off the screen, another three ships lost. The admiral tapped his fingers against each other in contemplation.
"Sir, four of our dreadnoughts are destroyed, three others are severely damaged and seventy percent of our fighter complement is destroyed."
"Press our defenses further into the battle, and attack those assault ships at point blank range," the admiral said calmly.
"Sir?"
"This battle is lost, we might as well take out as many of them as we can."
"Right, sir," the man sighed, knowing very well what all their fates were.
Quietly twelve soldiers sneaked up to the bridge of the control ship, blasters drawn and ready.
"Remember, men, he will destroy us all, we will have to kill him. The admiral can not leave this battle alive!"
The others raised their blasters and cheered silently in agreement. The leader opened the door to the bridge and ran in. They surrounded the admiral.
"Dazier, you disappoint me. I never thought you would be a mutineer," the admiral said, never changing his facial expression.
"Quiet! I don't want to hear it!" Dazier turned his head, "You! Take us to the rendezvous point, now!"
"Belay that order," the admiral ordered.
"Never! Get us out of here!"
The admiral chuckled a little.
"What?" Dazier asked.
"You obviously didn't do any research."
"What do you mean?"
"You should always know your enemy, Dazier," the admiral pointed a finger at his would be dispatchers, "If not then you can find yourself floating home, or dead, one or the other."
Eleven of the soldiers suddenly fell to the ground, their blood spilling across the floor.
"Stop," the admiral said.
Dazier felt a cold steel press up against his neck, and felt his blood slowly drip out and an arm restraining him from taking any action to defend himself.
"If you had known your enemy, Dazier, you would have known about my bodyguards, and this might have been averted. Instead your pitiful attempt to overthrow me has failed. Finish him."
His bodyguard slit Dazier's throat and returned to the shadows before the body hit the ground.
"Keep our current position."
"Yes, sir."
Reven walked down the corridor towards the hangar bay. Dooku had already ordered all nondroid personnel to retreat, but at the time Reven was preoccupied with Anakin. Yet even now he wasn't making any haste to get to his ship.
"Hello, Reven," someone said behind him.
"Jaina?" he asked, turning around.
"Yes, Reven."
"I thought I was never going to see you again," he replied.
"Well, I heard what you said about me, how your voice sounded, your facial expressions, I even saw your tears," she smiled as she realized that the hate hadn't consumed him like she had thought.
"You have?" he asked and smiled, "So you know?"
"Know what? That the hate has not consumed you? That you do still love me?"
"Yes, it's all true," she picked up a sense of kindness in his voice.
"There is still a chance, then," she replied.
"A chance for what?" he asked skeptic of what she meant.
"A chance for you to turn back to the light side," she sounded anxious, like she couldn't wait for it to happen.
"I don't think that is possible any more," he sighed, "I don't think I can back down now."
"Why not?" she was sad, he could tell.
"The Dark Side is too strong in me, but I will try," he sounded serious, his eyes lined with tears.
"My sister, Jade," she walked up to him and tried to place her hand on his cheek, "she will be near the planet Sluktara IV fort the next three weeks, meet up with her, see if she will help you. Your brother, Ace, he could help you too, if you would only let him," she was concerned, he could tell, she would try anything to only get him on the 'right' path again, and for that he was eternally grateful.
"Thank you, I will try."
He moved his arms around her, and hers wrapped around him. They both new they couldn't meet in a true embrace, but this was good enough for them. They longed to be with each other, to be truly held in each others arms, but that impossible.
"Goodbye, Reven, goodbye," with that she disappeared into nothingness, leaving Reven alone once again.
Although she was gone he remained for several moments, wishing for the impossible, daydreaming about days long past, days which he had wished would never end. But they did end, in their place was a new reality. Those days, he now realized, where merely the calm before the storm. In place of those beautiful dreams was a horrible nightmare. A nightmare that encompasses everything, a nightmare that will not go away. Only he now realizes that it is not a nightmare. No, a nightmare will eventually go away, this was reality.
He wiped the tears from his eyes and continued down the corridor. He reached the hangar with just enough time to see Dooku's solar sailor fly off into the depths of space. Reven climbed into his Geonosian fanblade starfighter. He activated the systems and flew out, following Dooku's trail. He looked over his shoulder at the battle that had already stopped.
"The droid control ship must've been destroyed," he muttered to himself.
He looked up to the sky; he could no longer see the battle like he could before.
"Looks like I left just in time. I wander what Sidious will say when Dooku tell him that we have lost Byss," he thought out loud.
"Admiral, our entire fighter complement has been wiped out! Most of our reinforcements have retreated!"
"Cowards," he muttered.
"Sir, another dreadnought has just been wiped out. And another has just rammed itself into one of the Republic Assault Ships. The Assault Ship isn't destroyed, it has sped up to full throttle, and is going to ram into us!"
Everyone in the bridge started to panic. The helmsman did his best to try to evade, but it didn't help. The Assault Ship rammed into the control ship. As the Assault Ship incinerated, so did the droid control ship, there were no survivors. The rest of the Separatist fleet retreated with their tails between their legs, having lost Byss to the Republic.
"You just had to get us involved in this, didn't you?" Paul asked, annoyance strongly present in his voice.
"Sorry, I thought Reven might be here," Jade pouted out a reply.
"Well, was he?"
She sighed, "No."
"So you got us involved in the Clone Wars for nothing?"
"You know it, so why do you have to keep bringing it up?"
"I am just assessing the situation."
"Alright, so what is our situation?"
"Well, we are trapped on a mountain top with a droid army at the foot and working its way up. So it looks like we are going to die," he threw his helmet to the ground in anger.
It was true. They were trapped, they both new it, but neither of them wanted to admit it. They had been trapped on that same mountain peak for three days, all of their emergency rations were gone and the droid army was growing nearer with each passing moment. Paul had speculated that they would arrive early the next morning. She didn't want to die now, she still hadn't enacted her revenge on Reven for killing her sister, and there was another factor. A factor that affected both her and Paul, but a factor that she hadn't had the courage to tell Paul of, yet.
She stroked the hilt of her lightsaber, trying to formulate a plan to get out of this predicament. She put on her helmet and used its sensors to find the location of the droids. She found nothing so she removed the helmet.
"Paul, I have an idea."
"Another great plan, uh? Well what is it?"
"Why don't we bring the Blade Runner around to extract us? We have a slave circuit hooked up and a system similar to a beckon call within our battle armors. We could even have the guns support us as we retreat."
Paul looked surprised. The plan would work all right, the question was, why hadn't they thought of that before?
"Let's do it."
Jade punched in a few commands into a data pad on her wrist. Two hours later the Blade Runner bursted through the atmosphere, letting off a volley of laser shots suppress the droid army. Their ship hovered over them, the loading ramp descended and they were easily able to board and launch out into space.
"That was easy," Paul remarked as they cleared the atmosphere.
"Yes it was," Jade said, going into the back.
She returned a few minutes later, dressed more casually in loose fitting clothing. She sat down in her copilot seat and faced Paul.
"Paul, I have some news for you," she said seriously.
"What is it?" Paul asked only half-paying attention.
"Look at me, Paul, I have some really big news for you."
Paul looked over, concerned, very concerned.
"Paul… I'm… I'm… pregnant."
"What?" he asked in total disbelief.
"I'm pregnant, we're going to have a baby, you're going to be a father, Paul."
"How do you know this?" he asked, "This isn't just because of the Force, right?"
She didn't like what he said and how he said it. He once again doubted her abilities in the Force and he sounded like he didn't want this to be true. He sounded like he didn't want to be a father. But she didn't blame him, too much at least. When she first felt the new life within her through the Force, she didn't really want the responsibility either. But very soon she accepted it, and even started to feel excited.
"I first felt it through the Force, but I did take a legitimate test, and it is true."
"This is great!" he was excited now, and it wasn't fake either, he was truly happy and excited.
He embraced his wife, a giant grin on his face. Tears of joy started to form in her eyes as she hugged him back.