Chapter 14
--
Tarra grimaced as the storm troopers kept coming. In wave after wave, the troopers advanced, firing as they went. And those gunships weren't helping matters. She cursed silently, then sent a shockwave of Force power, pushing back the troopers and giving her a brief respite from the battle.
Anakin, beside her, was returning bolt after bolt, and massive numbers of Stormtroopers lay dead in front of him. Tarra glanced at him, and that was all the time she got, because the storm troopers were coming back.
Quickly she turned and began the process of deflecting bolts again. Then she sensed a heavy laser in the vicinity. "Look out!" she screamed, and Anakin was already moving, diving to the side.
Tarra realized that something had to be done with those gunships, they weren't exactly helpful to the Jedi cause. "Anakin, cover me, I'm gonna try to take out that ship!"
Anakin nodded, then moved closer to Tarra, deflecting bolts at double the speed, double the precision.
Tarra leapt up, raised her hands, and launched a torrent of Force lightning at the gunship. All the anger and the frustration within her erupted through her fingertips. The power she felt! It captured her, fed her fury, and she greedily felt more and more into the anger within her, the power that had lay dormant since she had defected from the Emperor.
'You're lucky your arms aren't metallic!" Anakin yelled, deflecting bolts. Tarra didn't answer. She couldn't. She didn't even hear. She was falling into the mist of the darkness. But even as she fell, she could feel it clearing. The power slowly dissipated. The anger gone. The lightning lowered in intensity, then disappeared altogether. And the gunship was still there.
What? Tarra thought, panting. Drawing her lightsabers, she prepared to do battle once more.
And the gunship creaked, and whined. It flipped in circled as it fell downwards, hitting the lava below, melting instantly, blending into the surroundings.
--
Obi-Wan stepped back, panting for breath. Grievous was much better than he was the last time the two had met. But it wasn't like Grievous had any new moves – he simply seemed to be able to anticipate the Jedi Master's every move.
Grievous laughed in his wheezy voice. "Your tricks won't work again, Kenobi, I haven't forgotten them!" His eyes glowed a fierce yellow. "Prepare to die!" he shouted again, whirling his four lightsabers. Obi-Wan searched desperately, with his eyes and with the Force, to find something – anything – to slow down the bio-droid's advance.
His eyes fell upon a Neimoidian corpse.
Reaching through the Force, he lifted it and threw it, as hard as he could, towards Grievous. The general didn't even flinch, using all four sabers to slice the corpse apart. Shu Mai, once a renowned Separatist, was now separated in, oh, six pieces.
Obi-Wan took Grievous' momentary distraction to dive-roll to the side, and, leaping to his feet, headed for the back door of the control center.
Blaster bolts zoomed overhead the Jedi Master, and just as he ducked past the door archway he saw a charged blast fly right through the air that he himself had been not one second ago.
--
Anakin smirked as his blade flashed left and right, that arrogant smile playing on his lips. "That was a nice move," he commented to Tarra, who flushed and said, "Thank you."
Anakin didn't hear her. He was already moving through the air, heading towards a gunship, his lightsaber flashing to deflect the blows the troopers were firing at him. Landing neatly through one of the side doors, inside the gunship, he remarked, "Would you care to surrender this ship? I kinda need it."
The storm troopers looked at each other in fear, and Anakin took this opportunity to boot all three of them off the ship into the burning lava below. Smiling triumphantly, he sat down and took the controls.
--
In the safe confines of his quarters, Emperor Palpatine suddenly had a horrible sudden bad feeling about Grievous' latest mission. He cursed; the bio-droid was never able to do any mission not containing the word "slaughter" properly.
"Get my shuttle ready, I sense Imperial troops are in danger."
--
The remaining gunship never had a chance. Anakin's ship was upon him in an instant, all guns blazing, and the Imperial gunship teetered and fell onto the rocky slopes with a deafening explosion.
The rest of the battle was over within minutes. With so many troopers on the ground, Anakin expertly weaved between the lines of fire, and returned with plasma bolts of his own – it was almost impossible to miss, especially for a pilot of Anakin's caliber. And the stormtroopers who managed to stay alive after Anakin's first five strafing runs ran for it.
Anakin leaped out of his now burning gunship, onto the ground besides Tarra, watching as his ship collided with the mountainside behind him.
"That was a nice move," he said again, "but mine was better."
--
Obi-Wan ducked another lightsaber blow, then kicked out with a beautifully executed bicycle kick that connected with Grievous' lower jaw armor plate. Unfortunately for Obi-Wan, his foot is made of flesh and bone, and Grievous' jaw plate is made of durasteel.
"Ouch!" Obi-Wan grimaced, while Grievous laughed.
"Your Jedi powers won't save you this time!" Grievous yelled, raising his blade. Obi-Wan took this opportunity to roll under the bio-droid's legs, turning around and slashing hard.
Grievous could feel no pain, but he did remember what it felt like. As he watched his lower left arm disconnect from his torso and fall to the ground with a clank, he distantly remembered what pain felt like, and he winced. Obi-Wan, watching Grievous' eyes dilate, swiped his blue bar of plama to the left, shearing off Grievous' lower right arm at the elbow.
General Grievous leapt backwards, howling. Looking at his molten stumps, he ran forward, remaining two arms slashing in random patterns, in his rage trying to inflict as much damage to the Jedi Master who had taken – count them – five limbs from his body already.
"Die, Kenobi!" he yelled, lashing out with his lightsabers, which were blocked, one after the other, then a vicious kick, which caught Obi-Wan squarely in the abdomen and knocking him off the catwalk, onto the rocky ground below. Grinning evilly, Grievous leapt off the platform and landed beside the Jedi Master.
"Prepare to d-" he began, but froze as he watched the data disc, which he had kept so safely, tumbling out from his cloak. Obi-Wan instantly reached out through the Force, and began pulling the disc towards him.
"No!" Grievous yelled, diving forward for the data disc.
Obi-Wan did the first thing that came to his mind.
He threw his lightsaber.
The blue blade sheared neatly through Grievous' legs, who flipped over and tumbled down the hot slopes of Mustafar, where his two mechanical hand gripped the ground for dear ... well, for dear head.
Make that seven limbs, he thought mentally, while he struggled to stay away from the hot lava. He wasn't about to take chances, not even with professional scientists' opinion. They always said things were stronger than they really were. He wasn't trusting his durasteel frame with his life. With his head.
Obi-Wan looked down at General Grievous, and began slowly making his way down the slope, to finish the bio-droid once and for all. Suddenly a flash of silver streaked across the sky, and he saw, that it was a ship, the ramp had been lowered, and Anakin's head poked through the hole in the ship.
"Get on!" Anakin yelled, "Sidious is here!"
What? Obi-Wan thought blankly. "but Grievous –" he started.
"No time! Get in!"
Obi-Wan reluctantly backed up a couple steps, then made a flying leap forward, grabbing onto the ramp, hanging on for dear life. Anakin's mechanical hand clasped his flesh one, and together, the two clambered back on board, as the ramp closed behind them. "Go, go!" Anakin shouted to Tarra, who punched the controls, sending Anakin's shuttle away from planet.
Behind them, a shuttle identical to Anakin's broke through atmosphere.
--
"There they are, sir." A storm trooper led the Emperor to the disastrous battle that had taken place.
The Emperor's lip curled as he walked among the dead bodies laying on the ground. "Any casualties inflicted?" He hissed.
The soldier shook his head. "None, sir." The Emperor strode away, muttering to himself. Then he turned back to the trooper.
"Where is Grievous?" he snarled.
"He headed off that way with a Jedi, sir."
"Lead the way."
--
"Master!" The bio-droid called out.
"General ..." Palpatine hissed coldly, "you failed to kill the Jedi Kenobi ... your failure has cost us scores of men! Explain yourself!"
General Grievous clutched at his rock outcrop, looked down, and with horror realized that his legs were on fire. "Master ... can we talk about this ... later?"
"Do you have the data disc?"
"Master, please –"
"Do you have it! ANSWER!"
Fighting desperately against the hold of gravity, and the hold of his fear, Grievous yelled, "No! I don't! Forgive me—"
No more words were necessary. Grievous felt an invisible, powerful force grab him by the head and yanked his grasping hands away from the cliff. Clawing at the earth to no avail, Grievous screamed – surely, this was his end, to be dropped into boiling lava by the one he called his "Master".
He sailed through the air as if thrown from a catapult, landing heavily on safe ground, away from the lava. "Thank you, master," he croaked, as he reached up with one mechanical hand to try to stop the pounding in his head.
"You have done well, General."
What? Grievous was sure his head was pounding, he could have swore the Emperor had just said that he had done well.
Palpatine smiled as only he could, then turned to a trooper. "Bring a medical capsule ... escort General Grievous to the Imperial med-center aboard the Death Star."
"Yes, sir" said the trooper, before rushing back to base to call for said medical capsule.
--
"I could have killed him..." Obi-Wan said sadly. "I should have finished it ..."
"Hey, you felt the same thing last time. And I'm glad you didn't kill me."
"That was different –"
"No it wasn't ..."
"On the up side, at least we got the data disc, which was what we flew all the way over here for."
"We'll play it when we get back to headquarters."
--
Anakin inserted the small data disc into the holoprojector aboard the Executor. His fingers ran across the datapad.
"Figured out what it is yet?" Tarra asked.
Anakin's face screwed up in concentration. "It's a ... very tough ... code to crack ... I've almost got it ...there!" he cried triumphantly as the machine emitted a small beep and activated.
Artoo gave a low whistling "ooooooo."
The weapon displayed on the hologram was enormous. Spanning over eighty kilometers, the giant laser weapon was ... terrifying. Mesmerizing. Glorious. It was a beautiful creation, a combination of power and aesthetics.
Tarra looked at the diagram, with numbers and charts all over it. "What ... what does it mean?"
Anakin's face was once again contorted with concentration. Then he looked up, excitement bubbling in his eyes. "Call Obi-Wan. Heck with it, call all officers. Now."
"Why? What is it?"
"Tarra ... right here ... I think I know how to win this war."
--
"So you see, the shield is generated by the Turanis system ... if we can get a squad to deactivate the shield from there, then the Imperial fleet around the Death Star will be vulnerable – the Executor and her fleet is the most powerful Imperial fleet out there, we should be able to blow right through quite a few of the other Destroyers," Anakin said, pointing at the hologram.
"But what of the Death Star itself?" asked a Rebel officer. "It's got some weapons on it as well."
"Don't engage the Death Star," Anakin said. "It's impossible, based on these plans, to destroy it with the firepower we have. We need something much more powerful to destroy it."
Obi-Wan interrupted Anakin's speech. "We need to defeat the Emperor. We must stop the Empire from it's source. If we don't then all we do is useless."
Anakin's eyes held a look of fury and fear. "But we—"
"No buts. We both know the Emperor is too dangerous to be left alive."
Padme, Anakin wanted to moan, but he couldn't. Not in front of all his men. Padme, I'm sorry.
Tarra sensed the pain and sorrow in Anakin's heart, but said nothing. She stepped closer to him, put a hand on his shoulder. Not much, but a small gesture, enough to urge him to be strong and stay collected. Anakin turned to Tarra and offered a weak smile.
The officers began to murmur amongst themselves, until Obi-Wan silenced them, speaking again. "Once the shield is deactivated, two of the Jedi will board the Death Star and –"
"Incoming transmission, sir," interrupted a guard.
Anakin nodded. "Patch it through."
A few moments later, Master Yoda's face popped up on the screen. "Joining you, I will be. A ripe time, it is, to commence attack. Be there tomorrow, I will."
Obi-Wan bowed curtly. "It is good to have you with us, Master," he said, as the officers in the room cheered for the last non-human Jedi. Anakin silenced them with a hand, turned to the diminutive Jedi Master, and said, "We are honored ... May the Force be with you."
Yoda repeated, "May the Force be with you," then disconnected.
Anakin turned to the officers in front of him.
"We will discuss this tomorrow at 0900 hours. Captain, I want you to contact Rebel forces across the galaxy, and send them the coordinates of our position. All forces, Captain, I want all of them. The Imperial fleet stationed around the Death Star is considerably larger than all of our ships combined."
Obi-Wan looked at all of the officers in the room.
"Regardless of the outcome of the battle,"
He paused dramatically, as the room hushed.
"This ... will be the final stand of the Rebellion."
--
A/N: I know, It kind of sounds like a Return of the Jedi thing, with the shield generator and everything. But I needed some way to set up a confrontation again ... Big question, of course, is how Anakin deals with his fears and pains. Keep reviewing guys!