Knightfall: Part 6

Obi-Wan Kenobi stood in stunned silence as he saw the carnage of the Jedi temple strewn about before him. Most of the dead bodies had already been carted away by surviving Jedi, but the work was far from finished. The library was untouched at the moment. "I can't believe this," he finally said.

Yoda looked up at the Jedi Knight from his hoverchair, his own eyes filled with silence. The air stank of smoke and a multitude of items burning. The aged Jedi Master bowed his head, a simple movement that seemed like an understatement for the grief that had to be attempting to control him. "With the Force they are now," Yoda finally said. "Yet miss them we all will."

He urged his hoverchair forward, passing the bodies of a heartbreaking number of younglings. Yoda studied carefully the vandalism that Palpatine and his apprentice had left. The bronzium busts of the twenty Jedi Masters that had willingly left the order were all beheaded at their metal neck. All but one. Puzzled, Yoda studied the Umbaran face and wondered why this one had been spared destruction, unknowingly duplicating the same action that Vader had done just minutes previously.

"Master Yoda," Shaak Ti said from the doorway. "We've gotten a bead on their shuttle; it's headed back to the Invisible Hand."

"To the hangar bays you, Obi-Wan and whoever capable is left, go," Yoda ordered. "Stay here, I must."

Obi-Wan, Shaak Ti, and two other Jedi raced through the floors of the Jedi temple, headed towards the hangar bay. Inside of the massive room numerous space craft sat unused, unmolested by the Sith in their slaughter. The four Jedi boarded the nearest of the starfighters: sleek craft with a oval cockpit flanked by two thin wings. Astromech droids chirped nervously from their sockets as the pilots entered the craft. Obi-Wan's craft was a dull orange, the paint chipped off of it in recent battles. His R2 droid greeted him, HELLO typed out on a small display in the cockpit.

"Hello," Obi-Wan obligingly replied, earning a chirp and a whistle from his droid. "And what is your name?"

R2-D2, the droid replied, a flash of recognition in Obi-Wan's brain soon identifying the droid. It was the same droid that had miraculously repaired then-Queen Amidala's space yacht 13 years previously. Without that droid's help—or if he had been a few seconds too slow, who knows what could have happened to them?

"Well, R2," he said as the final portion of the preflight checklist was crossed off, "it's certainly interesting to see you again." Another beep and whistles as the droid lifted the interceptor gently off of the landing pad. "You're getting targeting information from central control?" Obi-Wan asked as he continued to read the display screen. "Set the main objective as the Invisible Hand. Our Sith are very soon going to be onboard that craft and we'd like to be aboard it before they manage to escape into hyperspace." Artoo-Deetoo gave a confirming trill and set the autopilot to head for the Separatist flagship.

By now, a majority of the droid starfighters and tri-fighters had begun to flee from the besieged capital planet; following the beacon activated by Palpatine to protect the Sith's shuttle as raced back to the safety of the flagship.

The Jedi flew over the flaming wreckage that was Coruscant at the moment. Black smoke partially obscured their vision as it rose from the burning buildings below. This area had been hit particularly hard during the assault and would take years to rebuild properly, not to mention billions of credits.

"Some scarabs are turning around to face us," Shaak Ti reported in as her R3 droid painted her sensor scope red. The four Jedi nearly simultaneously switched their autopilot off and double checked their weapons. "We can't waste time on them. Engage them only if they become too big a nuisance. I've called in for some help from clone squadron 8311x and they're heading towards us. They'll be with us in about five minutes."

Now the scarabs were barely visible to the naked eye. Using the Force to sharpen his eyesight beyond what was possible for a human. The incoming droid starfighters were an accurate match to their name; a flat, insect like body with two wings rigged to the craft like a naval outrigger. Obi-Wan blinked and his eyes returned to normal vision as he made sure the craft's laser cannons were armed. A quick movement of his eyes checked the sensors of the craft before returning to look at the ever growing dots on the "horizon".

"Plow through them, taking as many potshots as you can," Shaak Ti ordered as the scarabs came extremely close to firing range. Half a second later, the firing began. Obi-Wan closed his eyes and trusted in the Force to get him through this. He had never really liked piloting despite his higher than average aptitude for it, and he disliked combat flying especially.

Obi-Wan's left foot tapped the rudder of his craft lightly, shifting the interceptor to the left. His hand pulled the trigger on the flight stick, unleashing two shots each from his laser cannons. The first volley impacted with the shields of the Trade Federation made craft, collapsing them in a flash of green light. The second hit the ship on the right wing, completely vaporizing it and causing the droid starfighter to spin uncontrollably to the ground below. Another scarab burst into flame next to the dying craft, compliments of Obi-Wan's wingman.

The scarabs opened fire as well, but the extremely quick reflexes of the Jedi pilots enabled them to jink out of the way with ease. The enemy starfighters blew past the Jedi and seconds later pulled an inhumanly tight turn in an effort to get behind their prey. Obi-Wan rolled his fighter around as the ever-thinning atmosphere finally turned into the vacuum of space.

There the battle was still going on. Venator-class Star Destroyers, Dreadnaughts, Carrack-class light cruisers and other Republic-made ships clashed with the retreating forces of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Starfighters of both sides flew between the ships, dodging the massive turbolaser shots fired from their allies and enemies. A V-wing squadron, flown by pilots mainly consisting of clones, rushed out of the fray and towards the four Jedi starfighters. "Greetings Master Jedi," the squadron leader said, "sorry we're—um—not late. I know you have a flair for the dramatic and all."

"Cut the chatter, Joker," Shaak Ti reprimanded the clone with an overly developed sense of humor. "Get these scarabs off of our back."

"Already getting there," Joker replied, launching a salvo of laser fire against the closest scarab droid, destroying it with ease. He and his fellow pilots continued their assault, pouring fire upon their enemy. It didn't take long for the outdated and outgunned starfighters to be destroyed. "You're clear from that angle, Jedi. Now let us clear the road for you."

The V-wings accelerated, nearly matching the speed of the Jedi interceptors, and headed towards the Providence-class cruiser known as the Invisible Hand. In their way were an unknown amount of the modern droid starfighters and their new "cousin" the tri-fighters. Their drives lit up in the distance, looking like lumibugs on various planets in the galaxy.

"Master Ti," Obi-Wan reported as Artoo fed him the latest information, "Captain Needa has just reported in that he has managed to bring the Hand's shields down."

"Has he been notified of the hostage, Obi-Wan?" she asked, concentrating mainly on vaping the Tri-fighter in front of her.

"He apparently has as he is lightening his attack significantly," Obi-Wan answered, looping around and braking his starfighter slightly to slip behind a Vulture droid that had been continuously troubling him. His attack hit the starfighter in the droid's brain, disabling it immediately.

"Two kilometers away," Valin Halcyon reported in the fourth and final Eta 2. "I've got the hangar's shields." The Corellian Jedi shifted his appropriately green-colored starfighter to the right and aimed at an area to the right of the glowing blue containment field. Flames erupted into space and then quickly died out as the lack of oxygen smothered them. Almost as quickly as the containment field died, emergency procedures snapped into place, sending a thick metal door to slam shut on the open "wound" of the spaceship.

"Accelerate into it," Shaak Ti cried out. "Hurry!"

The four Jedi starfighters rocketed through the rapidly closing window, barely being able to brake their fighters as they entered the depleting atmosphere. Obi-Wan's wingmate, however, wasn't as lucky. His agile spacecraft's left wing clipped the door as it passed through the narrowing opening, shredding it completely off. The craft spun through the air like a simple toy for younglings, and crashed into a couple of unlaunched Tri-fighters on the other side of the hangar bay. There was no need to check to see if the pilot was alive. Not even a Jedi could have survived that crash.

The three remaining Jedi landed their starfighters on the nearly empty hangar floor and popped their canopies open as soon as the hangar was sealed once again. The oxygen in the room was thin but increasing steadily as the life support systems worked overtime to compensate for the recent incident. One silver and two blue lightsabers ignited as the Jedi leapt out of the cockpits. What droids remained in the hangar opened fire, only to quickly be cut down by their own blaster shots.

The wizard's tower on the Invisible Hand was deathly silent as Darth Sidious watched the Jedi land in the main hangar. With them arriving, he could feel the Force shifting once again towards the light. The time of the Sith, it seemed, was over. Yet he was not the kind of man to silently give in to his fate. He had based his entire life around bending the Force to his own will, not letting the Force decide it's own. He would survive, as would Lord Vader. The Sith would win.

"Lord Vader," he croaked, "kill our hostage. It seems that our advantage in holding her is no more…"