Off the Grid
Chapter 6
"Let us proceed," TX88 intoned, rubbing its blunt appendages together. "Your purposes in coming here are those of espionage and sabotage. Is this statement correct?"
"You're smarter than you look," Anakin growled.
"That is irrelevant to the question," the tactical unit replied.
"What makes you think we're gonna answer your vaping questions?" the young Jedi scoffed.
"This." TX88 waved a hand at the droid manning the control panel, and a moment later the shimmering cylindrical column of shielding narrowed in diameter, closing in on the prisoners. The Jedi withdrew until their backs pressed together. The ray shields flickered bright and smooth around them on all sides. "I recommend cooperation. As carbon-based organisms, you will find the effects of bodily contact with the energy barrier most detrimental."
"Anakin…." Obi Wan warned.
"What?"
"Have you transmitted coordinates or schematic information to the Republic intelligence network?" TX88 interrupted.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Anakin sneered.
"Yes," the droid said flatly. The ray shields drew in further, until they pulsed a hand's-width from the Jedi's chests. White haze danced before their eyes, entrancing and threatening.
"Anakin!" Obi Wan barked. "…Negotiation."
"Have you summoned reinforcements or Republic vessels into this sector or established a homing beacon for remote tracking of this station's location?" the tactical droid continued, unrelenting.
"If we have, " Obi Wan offered, "The information you require will be embedded in our comlinks. You will have to deactivate the shields to obtain them."
"Incorrect," the droid replied. "I can terminate you and then obtain the devices."
"The pulse will completely fry them," Anakin corrected him. "If you want our information, you need to keep those shields away from us."
The droid signaled to his compatriot again, and the deadly energy fields shrank even further, until the shimmering barriers brushed against boot tips, hems of cloth, loose wisps of hair, snapping and sizzling in each place they touched. The Jedi shouted and pressed closer, packed so tightly within the deadly trap that neither could move. Their breath came deep and deliberately slow, exhalations trembling slightly with released pain.
"Answer the questions," TX88 insisted.
"Kill us and you discover nothing," Obi Wan ground out. "Weigh your options carefully."
The tactical unit's motivators whirred. "I calculate that another centimeter's reduction will not cause your death." The barriers shrank an infinitesmal but deadly interval, inflicting instant and terrible punishment in every place they contacted cloth or hair or skin. Bodies pressed rigidly together, arching in pain, the Jedi cried out in unison. The Force smeared into a single vibrant scream of protest.
TX88 waved again, and the barriers returned to their original diameter as the prisoners collapsed onto hands and knees, panting.
"I recommend a recalculation of the risk-benefit ratio for your behavior protocols," the droid said. "The interrogation will recommence in thirty seconds."
Time dragged by, more and more slowly. And the hangar began to fill up with more and more droids. Boxy ones, skinny ones, some other nasty lookin' models with small conical heads and burly bodies. Most all of them has some kind of weapon in their hands; some of them actually had weapons instead of hands. The miner peered through Betsy's thick viewport in growing discontent.
Eventually one of the taller brutes lifted a metallic hand and pointed in his general direction, whereupon a small gang of the cybernetic thugs began to march toward Betsy's ramp. The old man set his jaw and rubbed one hand over his bristled chin. Twelve aginst one, eh? These Separatist barves weren't men of honor, that much was plain. Jist what you would expect from interferin' government types. He wasn't about to sit here an' git creamed by a bunch of robots.
On the other hand, those two Jedi youngsters hadn't come back yet.
The droids were banging on the closed ramp now, demanding entrance from the two guards posted inside. With a rueful glance down at the mangled circuitry scattered across Betsy's deck, the old man made his decision. He powered up the tug's drives, lifted her a meter into the air and turned her in a lumbering circle around the bay, knocking down several dozen unfortunate droids as her heavy hull careened awkwardly about. The maglev barrier was straight ahead. He saw the droids running for a control panel and didn't wait to find out what came next. Slamming Betsy's accelerators to full, he charged straight through the energy field, sending a shower of sparks and confetti trails of disrupted ions dancing in his wake. And he dropped immediately, deep, deep into the thickest soup, where he knew from long decades of experience that not even the best automated scanners could ever find him.
Keep a low profile and mind yer own business, that's what he said. And that's what he was gonna do.
The Jedi staggered upright.
"Now," TX88 continued in its bland synthesized tones, "I recommend that you provide succinct and accurate answers to my questions."
"Yes, that does seem to be the only reasonable choice," Obi Wan answered, nudging Anakin in the side with his elbow.
"Yeah, you're right," the younger man grinned. "We've completely changed our minds and decided to cooperate." He stepped on his friend's right toe.
"That is a correct estimation of the behavioral differential factor," the droid agreed. Anakin pulled on his left ear and Obi Wan cleared his throat dramatically. "Cooperation will minimize the discomfort of your impending termination."
The Jedi tensed. "Well…."Anakin smiled, ferociously, "That kinda depends on your point of view."
They acted as one. Anakin's Force-push sent the droid near the shield controls slamming head first into the panel in an explosion of sparks; the shimmering haze around them flickered, for the briefest instant – just enough for the Jedi to roll clear of its diameter in a single coordinated dive; in the next heartbeat, Obi Wan had wrenched the floor hatch off its hinges and flung the spinning metal disk across the room toward the tactical unit.
Ducking, and missing destruction by a centimeter, TX88 pointed an arm at the escaping Jedi. "Kill them!" he ordered. All fifty of his companions opened fire as the Jedi dropped through the hatch opening onto the repulsor housing level below. They ran clanking for the trap door and peered down.
"Snipers to the lower level," TX88 ordered, gazing coldly into the howling vortex of wind and intersecting beams.
Far below, where the Jedi were now precariously balanced, a narrow walkway surrounded the huge circular hole through which the suspended repulsor units could be seen. A main support hub descended below the station, encircled like a wheel by eight separate class five repulsorlifts. Each enormous conical unit operated independently, countering the pull of the gas giant's gravitational field. Together they created a highly stable network of support, a bubble of weightlessness on which the entire platform rested tranquilly as a waterbird atop the ocean's surface.
Sniper units hurried down through the hatch and onto the walkway, even as the Jedi dropped over its edge, landing lightly and without concern on the open grid overlooking the drop into an endless abyss. TX88's forces opened fire at once, sending down a hailstorm of deadly plasma bolts at their exposed foes.
Back to back once again, ObiWan and Anakin deflected fire. Bolts grazed past them, bounced off their blades, slammed into the grid at their feet, flew past their ears, singed their tunics. But somehow, impossibly, not one found its mark. The two blue sabers moved continuously, in a wild synchrony, howling louder than the wind as they seared the very air, as the blades left a hot effluvia in their frantic wake. One false move, one moment of hesitation would mean the end, and a sudden drop into the soft and bottomless pit. Teeth gritted, saber blades flashing at an incalculable desperate speed, they defended themselves against attack from all positions.
The droids stopped momentarily at TX88's command.
Panting, leaning against each other, sabers high and in guard position, the Jedi waited. The tactical unit leaned in over the opening high above. "Ah," this individual gloated. "Now you see the superiority of my programming to yours. You were incorrect to think that you could escape. Organics cannot outcalculate me in a game of strategy."
Anakin's temper flared. "No?" he challenged the arrogant droid above.
"No," it assured him. "My calculations do not admit of fatal errors."
"You forgot to calculate for this," the young Jedi snarled. He held up his free hand, seized the droid with the Force and pulled it down through the hatch and toward himself with great violence, letting loose a shout of rage as he impaled the thing on his saber's blade and then kicked it off. The droid emitted what sounded disturbingly like a moaning scream as it twisted and fell through the open fretwork, plummeting into the bottomless sea of gas below.
"Anakin!" Almost too late, Obi Wan seized his former apprentice and leapt after the plummeting droid- a split second before the next barrage of laser fire splintered the grid to pieces. The droids on the surrounding catwalk sent everything they had after the falling Jedi, blasting down a deadly hail of bolts.
They fell, twisting in midair and reaching through the Force to change direction. With a jolt, they landed on one of the support beams positioning the central hub's conical apex. Down here, among the repulsors, the sound was deafening. The very air shook with terrible reverbrations and set their teeth on edge. The gases swirled, making them cough and wheeze. The Jedi half-crouched, balancing on the curving strut, while the wind howled and the repulsors thrummed.
Overhead, the droids still targeted them, sending packets of plasma their way, hoping to at least knock them over the edge into oblivion. Obi Wan deflected the shots, swaying dangerously on the beam with each new impact. After a few minutes, the droids retreated – which could not possibly herald anything good.
"They'll send reinforcements!" he warned.
"Now what?" Anakin shouted over the din, choking on the semi-poisonous air.
Obi Wan grimaced and looked down into the toxic sea of gas below. "Cut the repulsor supports!" he yelled. "It's the only way."
He felt Anakin's surge of courage and determination. They sliced through the strut together, using their sabers to separate the generator from its mooring. The giant shaft sheared away and ripped apart, falling frOm beneath their feet as they leapt to the next spoke of the wheel. Overhead, alarms shrilled. A black shape appeared in the swirling gas – a vulture droid, red sensors gleaming wickedly. It wheeled round in the obscuring fog and fIred at them. Jumping to avoid the blast, they landed on the next beam. The vulture's powerful cannon destroyed the strut on which they stood, sending yet another repulsor drive tumbling into the depths.
They buried their sabers in the next spoke, carving through its upper half. The vulture swooped back in again, blasting at them and ripping apart the beam. They somersaulted through the air to safety on another support, sliding and then grabbing at it with hands and legs as the repulsor network stuttered and the hub began to dangle at a crazed angle, metal shrieking in awful cacophony as it was torn asunder. The entire platform above careened and shifted to one side. More alarms sounded in the increasing gloom, and battle droids tumbled out of the suddenly tilting opening like marbles shaken out of a jar.
"Going down!" Anakin shouted, his Force presence alight with an almost mad intensity. The two Jedi scrambled upright on the slanting beam and plunged their sabers into it as one, carving a jagged scar in its surface. The central hub slowly ripped free of its supports and bobbed to the side; the four remaining repulsors whined and began to howl with the effort as their main stabilizing unit lost its bearings in space; the refueling station began to fall, slowly, majestically, down into fathomless destruction.
The vulture droid lost all patience. It turned and made another strafing run, not firing at its targets so much as driving directly at them in a frenzied killing dive. The Jedi leapt up, onto its back as it screamed past, and sheared off its wing nacelles, crying out together with effort and the explosive power of the Force.
And then they fell – headlong, though nothingness.
Time, seeming to slow in the Force, spun out in a dizzying spiral. The refueling station picked up speed, sinking inevitably toward the center of the gas giant in a long wailing swan dive. The vulture droid's body tumbled away, whipped sideways on a violent gust of wind. Its two severed wings spun and flew in opposite directions, and the Jedi themselves were plucked and tossed on the rushing air.
Obi Wan tumbled, falling for three astonished heartbeats, flipping off his saber's power and clipping it to his belt in a breathless daze, then drawing in a burning breath of tainted air and reaching out for Anakin as thousands upon thousands of meters opened below them in a sickening swoop of speed. His arm brushed against Anakins' sleeve, and the young Jedi grabbed his hand. They locked arms, straightened their limbs and splayed themselves horizontally in a sky-dive.
The refueling station fell alongside them, sirens and alarms sounding a panicked lament as it plunged ever downward. Soon, dark shapes appeared around them, below them, above them, looming out of the colored opaque clouds: other wrecked mining platforms. They were in another pocket of breathable atmosphere, one littered with the remnants of abandoned equipment.
A bright, blinding surge in the Force was his only warning. Anakin suddenly seized him by the shoulder, wrenching the joint and sending him rolling in midair over the younger man's back. On purest reflex he grabbed Anakin about the chest and held on for dear life, as the reckless young Knight reached out both hands and used the Force to summon something huge and metallic into his grasp. It was the metallic shell of the vulture droid's wing nacelle.
"Hang on!" Anakin screamed, though the roaring wind and the howling speed of their descent whipped the sound away.
A terrible jolt as Anakin twisted the metal wing into position ….and then they were sky-sailing, Anakin holding the leading edge fo the wing, Obi Wan holding onto Anakin, and both of them using the Force to hold the flimsy piece of durasteel steady in the maelstrom, to direct their careening, wild flight through the gold and pink skies of the gas planet.
They soared and looped and swerved, watching Dooku's secret outpost in the Triburon fall to its doom. Anakin pointed them toward one of the smaller floating wrecks which dotted the veiled sky.
Obi Wan's feet found the top of the small platform first; the improvised sail's impetus nearly carried Anakin over the edge before he let go. He released it, slid awkwardly over the precipice, and grabbed his friend's outstretched hand at the last moment, to be pulled to relative safety.
Exhausted, the two of them sprawled on the wide top deck of the abandoned platform, alone in the endless wasteland of colored clouds.
