I took the title of this chapter from a phrase in the Sith code which actually goes, peace is a lie, there is only passion. But sadly there isn't much passion in this chapter, only chaos.

Chapter 21: Peace is a Lie, There is Only Chaos

Bridge, Executor II

Anakin stood looking out of the bridge viewports on the Executor II. He tried his best to be professional but it was nearing the first hour of morning on the side of Coruscant he usually slept on. His eyes grew heavy and fell, he popped them open just in time to see a massive fleet exit hyperspace out of the corner of his eye. He turned to look at it more precisely. There were at least fifteen Imperial class star destroyers in perfect formation. He could also count ten victory class star destroyers and ten acclamator class. He also saw several Tartan patrol cruisers. He knew what his tactical officer was going to say even before he opened his mouth.

"Sir, incoming star ships!" He cried.

"Begin bombardment immediately!" Anakin cried. "I want all Corellian Corvettes to engage the Tartan patrol cruisers, concentrate all fire on any ship firing at us."

Anakin glanced out the viewport again as a swarm of TIE fighters began to engage patrolling X-wings, B-wings, A-wings, and Republic TIE's. And then the star destroyers themselves began to open fire… on the Executor II.

"All shields at maximum! I am not losing another ship!" Anakin commanded as streaks of green energy began to pummel the blue gray hull.

"Mara." Anakin said turning to the red haired woman at his side. "We are going to board that ship."

Anakin pointed to the very center star destroyer, standing out from all the rest from the dark energy rolling off it. "Sidious and Traya are aboard that one."

"Alright."

"Admiral!" Anakin barked. Piett ran up to him.

"Yes milord?"

"Prepare to two Theta class boarding shuttles, I want a squad of stage three dark troopers on each one.

"Stage three? But those are experimental droids milord, are you sure that is wise."

"One dark trooper is worth ten storm troopers, your predecessor made the mistake of questioning me Piett, you are not stupid enough to make the same mistake."

"Alright milord, it will be done."

XxX

Admiral Daala's glance flinched from the tactical control panel she was fixed on to the dark form of the Emperor gazing out of the bridge viewports at the massive hull of the Executor II Hard to believe this man was actually the deformed Emperors she remembered instead of the mild mannered senator Palpatine.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" He asked as more turbo laser blasts began to rain down on the Executor II.

Daala fought the urge to say 'what? The ships that's attacking us? You are a lot more insane than I remembered.' But instead she said. "That super star destroyer?"

"Yes, its to bad it is controlled by our enemies, forcing us to destroy it. It would have been a great weapon."

"Hmpf." Darth Traya grunted from the corner of the bridge, watching a real time holo of the battle outside. "Petty spacecraft are nothing compared to the Force."

"Perhaps." Sidious answered. "But until I discover every secret of the power I need those ships… wait, do you sense that?"

"Two Force presences, approaching the ship." Traya said, tearing her gaze away from the hologram. "I seemed to have found them, in one of two armored shuttles headed our way."

"Both presences are so familiar to me." The Emperor replied. "Almost like… are you so sure you killed Skywalker and Jade?"

"Both bodies should be lying dead in the throne room of the Gorgon." Traya answered.

"You FOOL!" Sidious cried. "You left them when they were still alive?"

"Yes, they were to suffer to death."

"Well they escaped, I know it is them. We must go down to the hanger bay immediately." Sidious cried. "Commander Kratas, seal off every hanger except the shuttle bay!"

"But what about all our TIE fighters? They are not yet all ejected."

"Keep their bays open, I do not care, the shuttles cannot land there just close every other one."

"Yes my Emperor, it will be done."

"Admiral Daala, continue overseeing the space battle."

"Of course milord."

"Lady Traya, come, we must kill the intruders when they arrive."

"Indeed." Traya answered. "Are you so sure you can though?" she muttered under her breath as they exited the bridge. Faintly they heard commander Kratas yell in alarm.

"All star board turbo lasers are non functional!"

"Then reroute all their unused power to the shields." Daala answered. "They're only functioning at thirteen percent efficiency."

XxX

Anakin fought hard with his shuttle. It wasn't very maneuverable, a result of the heavy armor of course, but it would be nice to dodge the on coming TIE fighter blasts rather than have them smack directly into the now half functioning shields.

"Come on Skywalker." Mara said from behind him. "I thought you were supposed to be the best pilot in the old Jedi order. Maybe the best in the galaxy, what happened?"

"Ships got less responsive to my commands!" Anakin yelled back to her as a screen exploded.

Anakin grunted in frustration as a TIE interceptor charged at them firing away and his cannons were now unresponsive. He yanked the shuttle to the side and tipped the left wing upward to dodge more oncoming blasts. He looked up and could clearly see the open shuttle hanger under the

Eclipse, his destination and really more preferable than trying to out maneuver TIE fighters in a bulky shuttle.

"Shields failing milord." Mara said jogging Anakin out of his train of thought.

"What!" He looked down at one of the monitors, indeed the shields were down and there were three TIE fighters behind them! Oh why did he insist on taking the Theta class, they were old anyway, what was wrong with the gamma assault shuttles? Well they really couldn't carry passengers.

Then one of the TIE's scored a less than direct hit that knocked out their sensor relay, all radar screens flashed and turned blank.

"Reroute all power to the engines." Anakin yelled at Mara.

"Of course your lordship." Mara replied. She turned to her control console and began to press its buttons. Seconds later Anakin yanked the throttle and the ship burst forward at a fraction of light speed. The other Theta shuttle doing the same. The shuttle landing bay grew bigger until its atmospheric shield filled the entire viewport. Anakin folded the shuttles wings and brought it in fast. It touched down with a bounce and hiss.

Anakin's gaze flicked upwards and out to the floor of the landing platform. There stood two cloaked figures that made his blood boil and skin sizzle. Darth Traya and Darth Sidious. Anakin clenched his teeth and lowered the ramp to the shuttle, just as the others did the same. The dark troopers began to spill out, droids wearing dark gray armor and beetle like helmets. Anakin and Mara watched as the two Sith activated their lightsabers. The troopers shot at them in strategic bursts. Traya and Sidious covered one another's backs and deflected the laser bolts either back into the troopers or into the ceiling.

There was a momentary cease fire as the dark troopers droid brains recalculated the best way to take out their opponents. Anakin sighed, perhaps Piett was right and he should have used stage two dark troopers, stage three just had to many bugs. During this momentary cease fire Traya extended her free hands and half of the troopers flew into the air. They twisted and turned as they activated their jump packs, which was standard protocol for if they were even an inch off the ground. This however didn't help but sent most of them out of the hanger and into space, uselessly hanging there until they were either destroyed by ships or smacked into the hull of the star destroyer itself.

Sidious did the same however when the dark troopers activated their jump packs the went flying the opposite way and crashed into the hanger walls which either smashed their heads in and ruined their droid brains or smashed any other part of their body and left them immobile. Mara couldn't believe it, two battalions of dark troopers against two Sith Lords, and the Sith won.

Anakin unclipped his saber hilt from his black leather belt and held it at the ready.

"Let's go."

"Alright."

Mara grabbed hers as well and the two exited the ship. Anakin activated his blood red saber and Mara hers. He angled it down over his shoulder in the Djem So stance. Mara angled hers down to the ground in the Makashi low guard. Traya and Sidious, still standing back to back turned and smiled at the two.

"So I see this time I should kill you before I leave you." Traya said.

"You won't get that chance master." Mara hissed. She looked to Anakin. "I am killing her, you can go take Sidious, ask him how much makeup he had to use to hide his deformations."

"I'll wreck his face before I get the chance." Anakin muttered. Mara smiled. Both were just about to launch an attack but then, a pipeline from above them fell and shattered. The hanger itself vibrated. The gravity released for a moment but grabbed them back. Everything was silent for a moment but then there was a metallic screech and a bang that echoed through the hole ship as a sizeable chunk of it was ripped away.

"MY SHIP!" Sidious cried. In anger he lunged himself spinning in the air, blade in front of him as though to drill a hole, at Anakin. Mara, being in front of Anakin dodged out of the way just in time and leaped at Traya. Anakin watched as Sidious flew at him and dodged at the last second. The dark lord flew past him and went a few feet before he realized it. He flipped in the air and landed on his booted feet. He turned to Anakin, black cloak billowing in the air like they do on old Chinese movies (sorry just had to say it).

He pulled his lips back in a snarl as Anakin came at him, striking high, low, then mid. Sidious parried the cuts and whacked his saber like a baseball bat at Anakin's head. He really needed to practice his form better. Anakin brought his blade up and smacked Sidious's so hard the dark lord nearly lost him grip.

"Tell me my old master," Anakin began as Sidious struck at his shins. He cut his saber downwards and deflected the blow, spun twice, flipped his blade and stabbed it at Sidious's head. The dark lord raised his saber just into time to stop the blow and formed a red cross out of the two blades. Anakin held his there, hoping to overpower the man. "Why do you look so young? Last time I saw you your face was all scrunched up like a kath hound pup."

"This body is a clone of my old one therefore it was not deformed during my duel with Mace Windu and my face was never scrunched up! Those were wrinkles."

"Furrows."

Sidious snarled and, seriously, kneed Anakin's elbow. He lost his second grip on his saber and Sidious uses the moment to strike. Anakin parried one handed. His master was good, this fight would go on for a while. Then the gravity shifted and everything but the magnetized shuttles fell to the ceiling.

XxX

Eclipse Bridge

There was no gravity on the bridge of the Eclipse whatsoever. Admiral Daala was floating, using one hand to grasp the metal zero-g railing of the bridge and the other to grasp the collar of one of the officer's uniforms.

"Either get the gravity back online of turn off the generators!" Daala spat in his face. "They are using valuable power that could be used for the shields.

"Yes Admiral." He said and saluted. Daala let his collar go and he swam back to his seat and strapped in the crash webbing. Daala turned her attention back to the viewports and to the Executor II. It was concentrating all fire on them! Daala trained her eyes on a green turbo laser blast that flew down and hit the sensor relay which exploded among impact. Seconds later the radar council overloaded and exploded in the face of the officer in front of it, killing him instantly.

"Transfer the radar power to the shields!" Daala called out.

"Admiral, the shields are now only functioning at thirteen percent efficiency!" Kratas cried.

"But that's where we were a half hour ago!" Daala cried. "How could they have went up and dropped that fast?"

"My theory is that the super star destroyer is transferring its shield power to its turbo lasers."

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR STUPID THEORIES!" Daala cried. "Just get the shields functional.

"To late, they are concentrating all firepower on the bridge tower." An officer cried.

Indeed the green turbo laser blasts were now all either hitting the bridge tower or missing it narrowly. And then all chaos broke out. Three of the turbo laser blasts scored a direct hit on the bridge power generator and every light, every console, everything that ran electronically dimmed and went out. Daala sighed in frustration. There was nothing they could do now.

"Abandoned ship! Head for the escape pods!" Daala yelled. She was headed for the Gorgon. "Kratas, come with me to the Gorgon!"

And with that word everyone scrambled and began to float out of the bridge, just as the gravity well generators came back online.

It took me forever to type this chapter! I was just really tired when I tried to so I did three paragraphs, stopped, three more, stopped. And so on.

Next Chapter: Through Numbers, I Gain Victory