Chapter 11 (editted: some problems found, corrected 9/10)
First of all, review responses – not much, but there's been a couple people who've reviewed and I feel I need to give them some credit –
Hieiko – thanks for the numerous reviews – this is my 2nd fic, so I can't say I'm an expert writer, so some things may seem wrong (hence, killing the Imperials) but I really wanted to show Anakin's struggle between light and dark.
Darth mojo the spork – LOL love your username. Thanks for the happy review, made me feel competent ) And yes, Anakin will win ... at least ... for the time being. Sorry if that spoiled the story for you, but you wanted to know ...
Kal's Gal – will do.
MissNaye – thanks. It's nice to know my story is considered "kickass". I think that's the best description you can give to a star wars story. That's what Jedi and Sith are supposed to do, isn't it?
So without further ado ... chapter 11.
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Leia was scared.
"Take cover, Your Worship! I'm gonna see if I can distract them for awhile," Han said as he darted to the third corridor. "Your Worship" was the name Han had started calling her.
Leia obliged, slowly sinking her head between her legs, shaking.
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"Artoo, are you certain you know what you're doing?" C-3PO's voice cried out.
And no, the astrodroid had to admit, he didn't. But he knew that the Millenium Falcon had no fuel, and that he had to somehow get fuel into the ship, if it was to get away at all. Slowly he inserted his probe into a computer panel. A few moments later, he had engaged the fueling process.
"Help me with this thing," spoke Artoo in his series of beeps and whistles. C-3PO, muttering incoherently under his breath, reluctantly grabbed the large fuel pipe and, with Artoo, began to move it towards the ship.
Fuel spilled out of the pipe, spraying all over the ground.
"Bad idea! Bad idea! Master Bail just had me polished!" C-3PO wailed.
--
Darth Sidious scowled under his hood. Trying to re-turn Anakin to the dark side was more trouble than it was worth.
He decided the time for diplomacy had ended.
Now was the time to kill.
"You will die, today, now, by my hand, Skywalker," he hissed.
Anakin nodded, then noticed Obi-Wan had shakily stood up, and suddenly felt a spasm of fear. Leia, his daughter, was in pain. She was also frightened and terrified. Half of him wanted to go back and help her, but the rest of him knew that he had a duty to perform. He had to fulfill the prophecy, now and for all. "Obi-Wan" he called desperately. "You need to go back to them. They need help."
Obi-Wan looked at his friend, then glanced at the Sith Lord before him. "May the Force be with you," he said. Those were the only words he could think of. How eloquent.
"And with you." At this final exchange of words Obi-Wan turned and strode swiftly, ignoring the fear in his heart, ignoring the aches and pains caused by the lightning attack.
The door was slammed shut behind him.
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Anakin shut all doors into the throne room, then, using the Force, then focused on the control panel and made a fist, destroying the controls to activate and deactivate the doors with a single explosion.
"There will be no escape for you, this time, my old master."
"I am not planning to escape. I hope, my friend, that you are ready to join the Force."
Anakin shook his head. "I'm giving you one last chance, Palpatine, for old times' sake. Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you right now."
"That is up to you to decide. Would you kill your only true friend?"
"Obi-Wan –"
"Oh please, Anakin. Who was the only one who stood by you throughout the Clone Wars?"
"... the war that you started for no reason!"
"... and the war that you ended, Lord Vader. You were on my side then. Then you killed Padme for no reason. You killed her. I can't save her when you killed her."
"I –" Anakin could not find words to say. Memories of those times were hazy. Memories that he really didn't want anymore. It was time to focus on the present, as Obi-Wan had told him so many times. "You are no friend. I hate you!"
Growling, he raised his blade up high, then swung it low. Palpatine moved to block, and Anakin retracted his blade, reversed his grip, and stabbed out, hitting nothing but air.
"You are no match for the true power of the Dark Side," spoke Sidious in his typical oily voice, if voices could be oily.
"You underestimate my power," Anakin countered, before stepping forward forcefully, his blade whirling so fast it seemed as if he was encased in a red glow. Sidious gave ground, slowly, and the two Siths, one former, one present backed through the hallway – the only exit out of the room without a door, and ended up battling across a narrow glass corridor, raised over empty space.
Sidious hissed as he swung his blade savagely. Anakin Skywalker stubbornly held his ground, his blade flashing left, right, up, and down, so quickly that none of Sidious' strikes came even close to hitting him. The Sith Lord called upon his dark energy, and sent a powerful shockwave that did what no lightsaber strike could – force Anakin Skywalker to back away.
But in doing so, once again unleashed the full power of the Chosen One. Gritting his teeth, Anakin Skywalker strode quickly toward the Dark Lord, his blade raised up and over his head. Sidious responded in the classic position, his lightsaber low and behind his hip, ready for the inevitable strike.
The two Sith blades clashed, and swung to the side, shattering the glass windows. Sidious lifted the glass pieces using the Force, and flung it haphazardly at Anakin, who used the Force to redirect the glass shards into the other window, shattering it, and letting in a howling wind.
His robe and cape billowing behind him, Anakin advanced once more at his former Sith Master. "There is no escape, Sidious. This is the end for you ... I wish it were otherwise."
Anakin leapt to the side, then swung his blade left, then right, ending with a spinning attack. The Dark Lord stumbled, and Anakin finished with a leaping smash attack that sent Palpatine's lightsaber tumbling out of his grasp, into the abyss. Sidious used the Force to try to push Anakin off the narrow catwalk, but Anakin had ducked low and delivered a leg sweep that knocked the Sith Lord off his feet, following his following lightsaber's path into the darkness.
Anakin, breathing heavily, rose from his undignified position on the ground, rose, then began walking back to the throne room.
Halfway there, he began to run.
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Sidious screamed as he fell, but his mind wasn't really in his fall. How had that clown Skywalker managed to knock him over the walk? It didn't seem right – Lord Vader had never been that powerful. Even Skywalker's indomitable flame within his heart could not be so powerful it could defeat him. Of course, Sidious knew that he had spent vast reservoirs of his dark energy in scorching Kenobi, and was upset to see that Kenobi had made it out alive. That Jedi would interfere with his plans until he died. And Sidious would see to it that he died.
Satisfied that Skywalker had left the vicinity, he called upon the Force and activated the lift he had stored just for this purpose – if he ever tripped and fell over the glass windows, he would be able to survive the fall.
He landed gently on his feet, the Force cushioning the fall. As he waited for the lift to reach the upper levels, he could not suppress a smile as a plan hatched in his brain. "Skywalker ... you are mine ..."
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Anakin tucked his Sith lightsaber into his belt, called his silver Jedi weapon to him and tucked that in as well. Then he turned to see Darth Petra – no, not Darth Petra anymore – Tarra, groan in pain. Blood was on the floor, her clothes stained and soaked.
"C'mon, let's get you out of here," he said. For that was his greatest strength, and his greatest failure. Anakin Skywalker had to save everyone. He would save anyone who would do the same for him.
Tarra winced as Anakin's mechanical arm grazed her flesh wound, but looked appreciatively at Anakin and said softly, "Thank you."
Anakin nodded, bit his lip, then hoisted her to her feet. "Can you walk?" Tarra nodded, took a few sobbly steps, then fell over; Anakin grabbed at her with the Force to soften her fall. "Nevermind," Anakin said as he picked her up. "I should have known better than to ask such a stubborn lady." He grinned, then, hoisting her up, called his Jedi lightsaber to his hand and carved a hole big enough for the both of them into the locked door. A force push sent the door flying away, and Anakin moved, as swiftly as he could with another 110 pounds of essentially dead weight.
"Stop right there!" a storm trooper's voice shouted at him.
Anakin groaned. These storm troopers never quit. He guessed that it was in their programming. Those clones could be really dense sometimes. Shifting Tarra's weight to one arm, he held a mechanical arm and sent a push through the Force. The Imperial stormtroopers stumbled and fell – when they looked back up, the cloaked figure and the person he carried had disappeared.
Anakin crouched, moving slowly through the ventilation shaft. He had helped design the Death Star, after all, and he knew the whole space station backwards and forwards. It was nice not to have to kill more troopers, especially with Tarra's life on the line as well as his own.
And Leia's, and Obi-Wan, and the Senator of Alderaan. Well, the former senator, anyway. Alderaan, after all, no longer existed.
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Bail Organa gritted his teeth as he fired his blaster, skimming the helmet of a storm trooper, who responded by turning and firing a blast through the ship, sending blaster scorch marks along the hall.
"Hey!" Han cried, "Stop blowing holes in my ship!" He fired three shots, and three holes appeared in the Stormtrooper's armor.
"Much better," said Senator Organa.
Leia remained curled in the corner, whimpering.
--
Anakin felt his daughter's fright, and his own grew. I lost Padme. He thought, gritting his teeth. "I won't lose Leia," he said out loud.
His strides grew longer, and he moved faster.
--
Han's blaster had stopped working.
"Not good, not good!" he cried as he saw a group of eight storm troopers marched up the ramp to his ship, firing as they advanced. Han ducked out of the way as the Senator fired a few shots, but he knew they would be overrun. There was no way the two of them could hold off a group of troopers with one gun.
Then a bar of blue plasma sprouted, and within a few seconds the eight stormtroopers became 8 corpses on the ground. Well, 8 sets of corpses. All of them were missing parts of their bodies.
"Sorry I'm late," Obi-Wan apologized. "Are you all alright?"
Bail Organa dusted himself off, and nodded. "We're fine."
"Good." Obi-Wan turned to Han Solo. "The tractor beam is down. Warm up the ship and prepare for takeoff."
"But the fuel—"
"If I may interrupt," the voice of C-3PO said, "but the ship has been refueled about halfway. Artoo and I have seen to that."
Han Solo looked as if he could kiss Threepio. "That should be enough to get us out of here and to a decent place. Let's go."
"No, we have to wait for Ana—nevermind."
For a bar of blue plasma grew from the ground, slicing a circle. Then two bodies came out of the makeshift hole.
"Anakin, why did you –" Obi-Wan began to question why a Sith Lady was with his former pupil, but was cut off.
"Hurry, Obi-Wan. They're right behind us," Anakin said as he raced up the ramp as fast as his tired legs could carry him."
"Strap yourselves in," Han Solo said. Anakin buckled in Tarra's limp form onto a chair, then collapsed into another one, picking his daughter up and holding her as tight as his aching arms would allow.
"Rear shields at maximum power," Han said monotonously. "Thrusters engaged and at full power."
The Millenium Falcon rose free from the ground, and launched from the hangar bay. Her rear thrusters lit the ground, already slick with oil, into flames. The Storm troopers would not be able to pursue them. All six human passengers sighed with relief. Even C-3PO did as human a sigh as a droid possibly could do.
Artoo whistled happily.
"5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... hyperspace!" Leia said excitedly, apparently over the shock of troopers bursting into the ship. Or maybe because she knew she was safe in her daddy's arms.
"Anakin, what happened with ... Palpatine?" Obi-Wan asked, concern etched into his face.
"I knocked him ... down ... the shaft," Anakin replied, still panting from his journey. Obi-Wan grinned.
"I knew you could do it."
Anakin could only smile, forgetting his fatigue as his daughter cuddled into his arms.
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A/N: Thanks for the kind reviews again, keep it up guys. I'm sorry, but I couldn't just kill Darth Sidious – well at least not yet – some things have to go down before anything like that happens. Anakin has to learn to let go of his losses. Yoda has to do something productive. Tarra needs to figure out where she wants her future to be headed – heck, I don't even know that, I'll see how things go (the only thing I know is that Tarra's recovery from the Dark Side isn't as complicated – her reasons for joining Sidious has essentially been nullified, since she obviously owes Anakin her life. Obi-Wan needs to play a more active role.
So there will be a couple more confrontations before I choose how to 'bring balance to the Force'
So what, I wonder, is the Emperor's new "plan"? We'll see ... in chapter 12.
Read and Review.
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