Thank you to the 14 people who reviewed the last chapter and I hope that you like this one. This is the first chapter in part 3, which will cover the events of Revenge of the Sith but will likely be extremely different from both the book and the movie. I also decided to do an introduction like the one in the book. However, it is my own introduction, no way related to the introduction in the book, created to fit my story. I hope that you like it and reviews, as always, are much appreciated.
Part Three : Endgame
Chapter 55
Endgame. It is all coming to fruition; all the carefully laid plans, all the carefully orchestrated plots, the conniving schemes, the subtle disruptions. Everything is coming into its final stages; the beginning of the end has begun.
People watch and wait as Coruscant's artificial daylight is sliced by intersecting ion drives and punctured by starburst explosions. Contrails of debris rain into the atmosphere becoming tangled ribbons of cloud. The nightside sky is an infinite lattice of shining hairlines that interlock planetoids and track erratic spirals of glowing gnats. People watching from the rooftops of Coruscant's endless cityscape can find it beautiful.
If one did not know of what horror caused such a beautiful thing to occur then they might consider the battlefield above their beloved home beautiful. It is not. It is the start of it all; the start of what shall define the future of the galaxy, the start of what shall determine whether the light or the darkness have secured their plans for the future in stone.
It is all a game; a deadly match between the darkness and the light; the good and the evil. One fought within the hearts of those who hear the call of the Force just as it is fought on the outside with guns and lightsabers blazing against enemies entombed in metal.
There are Jedi and there are Sith; there are those who fight for good and those who fight to fulfill their own ambitions. There are clones, identical copies of the original raised for one purpose only, and there are droids, metal beings programmed for one purpose only. These, the people see as the fighters in this war no matter which side they support, no matter how weary of the war they are, no matter how little they trust those who wish to protect them.
The ones who support the darkness, the ones that the people refer to as the Separatists, have thrust a dagger into the hearts of everyone on Coruscant by doing what all thought was impossible.
Invade the capital of the Republic and kidnap its leader.
Yet, the Force does not see it that way. The Force knows the truth; the real reason for such a seemingly desperate act. Without Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, the people believe the Republic will fall. The Separatists know this but the Force knows it is simply a ploy, a single planned act in an even bigger scheme that none, not the Jedi, not the Sith, not the residents of Coruscant, know a thing about.
Except for one man.
The Force is in a battle, as its light and dark halves fight to prevent a certain future from occurring, a future that all hinges on the decision of the Force's child; the child it created to bring balance. The one the Jedi and Sith alike label as the Chosen One. It shall be the Force's child's decision that shall shape the future of the entire galaxy.
However, the Force knows of what shall occur should the Chosen One make the wrong decision. It knows this and it knows the kidnapping of Palpatine is a trap that shall cause one to begin its spiral into the darkness as is what the Sith wants. What the Sith do not realize is that the light side has one thing going for them, one weapon the darkness only suspect is being used against it.
The guardian as the Force likes to label him. He is the light side's ultimate secret weapon and he is the only one the Force believes can stop the Sith's plan from coming to fruition. When it all began, the Force could do nothing to aid the guardian just as it could do nothing to aid the Chosen One; it could only place the guardian in a position to help and wait to see what happened.
Now, looking back, the Force knows it has made the correct decision. It is very proud of the one it has chosen, the guardian who shall prevent a certain future from coming to past. However, things don't always go as they have been planned and the Force knows this better than anyone. It is helpless to intervene so it leaves it in the hands of the one it feels can stop the darkness's plan from succeeding.
Now the Force watches, waits, like the people of Coruscant. It watches as husbands and wives comfort each other and, oddly, younglings comfort those older than themselves. They insist that it will be all right; everything will be all right because they will be there any minute.
Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
They have become heroes since the beginning of the war. They are the Team; the most famous Jedi in the war. The Hero With No Fear and the Negotiator as the media likes to label them. Everyone knows them, younglings idolize them. Kenobi, the one who will rather talk than fight and yet is a fighter that few can match up to; the Force knows him better as the light side's ultimate secret weapon against the darkness. Skywalker, the one who is the master of audacity and whose boldness and sheer jaw-dropping luck makes him the perfect complement to Kenobi; the Force knows him better as the child it created to restore balance. Together, they are the Jedi hammer that crushes Separatist infestations on scores of worlds.
However, just as the adults know, the Force knows they are still only human. Some people fear the dark side without truly understanding it. They understood enough to know it is dangerous and seductive; it is a predator that preys on someone when they are at their weakest. And they fear of what can happen should the heroes their children idolize come back already fallen to the dark side.
They think of the other Jedi who have fallen; of Sora Bulq and Depa Billaba. The Jedi keep what happened to those who have fallen a secret as does the Office of the Supreme Chancellor but word gets around. The Force thought it is for the best or it might lead the people's trust in the Jedi to continue to dwindle but it also knows about the whispers.
The Force is omniscient but, as a whole, must remain neutral; it knows all, sees all and hears all. It knows that the people's dwindling trust in the Jedi is working well with the Sith's plan even if it was never a part of the plan to begin with. The Sith's plan is a simple one hinging on a single decision that shall help the Sith, and the darkness, have their revenge on the Jedi, and the light. The people turning against those who wish to protect them will make the darkness's revenge all the sweeter.
What the light needs is for the war to end, the Sith to be brought to justice and peace to once again reign. And it needs this to happen soon before it is too late; before everything the light has carefully crafted comes crumbling down.
The Force as a whole cannot take sides but its light and dark halves can and did; it is how the Jedi and the Sith came into existence. The Jedi, the ones who followed the path of the light, who are compassionate, serene and understanding and the Sith, the ones who followed the path of the dark, who are ruthless, passionate and cunning. However, the Force knows one can not survive without the other and the darkness is growing in strength, their power increases with the conflict that ravages the galaxy. That is why someone is needed to restore the balance.
If a certain future comes to past then balance will not be restored for more than a decade and the galaxy will be plunged into a conflict as great and devastating as the one they are currently in. That is why the light chose to do its best to make sure that future does not come to past in the form of the guardian.
It is an endgame. The time has come. The final moves of the darkness and the light are about to be played. If the light's final moves fail then the darkness shall win and the galaxy shall be plunged into the future the light wishes to prevent. Failure is not an option for the light.
Failure was not an option for the guardian either.
People see that the age of heroes has come to an end and the best has been saved for last for Skywalker and Kenobi have arrived, guns blazing as they plunge into the heart of the conflict above the city-planet.
But a new age is about to begin.
Whether it will be of darkness or of light has not yet been determined.
Antifighter flak flashed on all sides. Even louder than the clatter of shrapnel and the snarl of his sublight drives, his cockpit hummed and rang from near hits from the turbolaser fire of the capital ships crowding the space around him. Sometimes his whirling spinning dive through the cloud of battle skimmed bursts so closely that the energy-scatter would slam his starfighter hard enough to bounce his head off the supports of his pilot's chair.
Yes, I definitely still envy the clones and their helmets, he thought wincing.
"Arfour," he said on internal comm, "will you please do something with the inertials?"
The droid ganged into the socket of his starfighter's left wing whistled something that sounded like an apology. Obi-Wan shook his head; like last time, Arfour was spending too much time with Artoo Deetoo.
Ne bursts of flak bracketed his path. He knew there was no point in trying to find a safe channel through the swarms of shrapnel and sizzling nets of particle beams because there wasn't one. Yes, he definitely hated flying.
Flying is for droids, he thought as he twisted his starfighter around another explosion that could have peeled its armor like an overripe Ithorian starfruit.
His cockpit speakers crackled. "There isn't a droid made that can outfly you, Master."
Obi-Wan's lips curved into a smile as he had expected Anakin to have heard his thought. Last time, Anakin only knew what Obi-Wan was thinking because that was what he was always thinking when they were flying. However, their bond was a lot stronger than last time and so Obi-Wan knew that Anakin had heard the thought.
"Yes well we all know how much I can't stand flying," he replied.
Anakin laughed; a genuine laugh that Obi-Wan had to smile at. The war had taken a lot out of Anakin from the battle of Geonosis to Jabiim to everything else and yet Obi-Wan was grateful that Anakin wasn't as he was the first time around. It warmed Obi-Wan's heart to know that the war hadn't changed Anakin as badly as it had the first time. They were changed, war did that to everyone, but Obi-Wan liked to think the change was for the better.
He hoped it was for the better. He could not go through what occurred the first time around at the end of the war again.
He knew better than to pretend the war hadn't changed him and he knew Anakin was trying to pretend the war hadn't changed him either. It didn't matter though; the war was almost over and Obi-Wan knew it.
They were currently flying inverted to each other, mirroring each other so closely that, but for the transparisteel between them, they might have shaken hands. He noticed the incoming tri-fighters at that moment and took a hand from the starfighter's control yoke to direct his upside-down brother's attention forward.
"What should we do about those incoming tri-fighters?" He already knew the answer and was already preparing to do so when Anakin said, "That we should break—right!"
However, as they were inverted to each other, breaking right shot him one way and Anakin the other. The tri-fighters' cannons ripped space between them, tracking faster than their starfighters could slip.
His onboard threat display chimed a warning: two of the droids had remote sensor locks on him. the others must have lit up Anakin. "Slip-jaws!" he called over the comm.
"My thought exactly," Anakin replied.
They blew past the tri-fighters, looping in evasive spirals. The droid ships wrenched themselves into pursuit maneuvers that would have killed any living pilot.
The slip-jaws maneuver was named for the scissorlike mandibles of the Kashyyyk slash-spider. Droids closing rapidly on their tails, cannonfire stitching space on all sides, the two Jedi pulled their ships through perfectly mirrored rolls that sent them streaking head-on for each other from opposite ends of a vast Republic cruiser.
For merely human pilots, the maneuver was suicidal because, by the time the pilot saw their partner's starfighter streaking toward them at a respectable fraction of lightspeed, it was already too late for human reflexes to react.
However, Obi-wan and Anakin were Jedi and they were able to flash past each other belly-to-belly, close enough to scorch each other's pain. Tri-fighters were the Trade Federation's latest space-superiority droid. But even the electronic reflexes of the tri-fighters' droid brains were too slow for the maneuver; one of his pursuers met one of Anakin's head-on. Both vanished in a blossom of flame.
The shock wave of debris and expanding gas rocked Obi-Wan forcing him to fight the control yoke, barely keeping his starfighter out of a tumble that would have smeared him across the cruiser's ventral hull. He managed to straighten out just in time for his threat display to chime again.
"Not again," Obi-Wan muttered under his breath. Anakin's surviving pursueir had switched targets. "Why must it always be me?"
"Perfect." Through the cockpit speakers, Anakin's voice carried grim satisfaction. "Both of them are on your tail."
Obi-Wan snorted. "Why must I always be the bait?" he protested before shaking his head. "We need to split them up."
"Break left." Anakin sounded calm. "The turbolaser tower off your port bow: thread its guns. I'll take things from there."
Obi-Wan whipped sideways along the cruiser's superstructure. Fire from the pursing tri-fighters blasted burning chunks from the cruiser's armor.
"I'm right behind you. Artoo, lock on."
Obi-Wan spun his starfighter between the recoiling turbocanons close enough that energy-scatter made his cockpit clang like a gong but still cannonfire flashed past him from the tri-fighters behind. "Anakin, they're all over me," he called.
"Dead ahead. Move right to clear my shot. Now!"
Obi-Wan was already flaring his port jets and the starfighter kicked to the right. One of the tri-fighters behind him decided it couldn't follow and went for a ventral slip that took it directly into the blasts from Anakin's cannons.
It vanished in a boil of superheated gas.
"Good shooting, Artoo." Anakin said but Obi-Wan didn't hear his dry chuckle behind the clang of lasers blasting ablative shielding off Obi-Wan's left wing.
"Anakin, I'm running out of tricks here—" he called to his brother.
Clearing the vast Republic cruiser put him on course for the curving hull of one of the Trade Federation's battleships; space between the two capital ships blazed with turbolaser exchanges. Some of those flashing energy blasts were as big around as his entire ship; the merest graze would blow him to atoms.
As he well knew but he still dived right in.
The Force guided him through. However, the tri-fighter had only its electronic reflexes—but those electronic reflexes operated at roughly the speed of light. It stayed on his tail as if he were dragging it by a tow cable.
When Obi-Wan went left and Anakin right, the tri-fighter would swing halfway through the difference. The same with up and down. It was averaging his movements with Anakin's; its droid brain had realized that as long as it stayed between the two Jedi, Anakin couldn't fire on it without hitting Obi-Wan. The tri-fighter was under no similar restrained: Obi-Wan flew through a storm of scarlet needles.
Shaking his head, Obi-Wan sighed. "I swear they're getting smarter and this is why we're losing the war again," he muttered.
"What was that, Master? I didn't copy."
Good thing he didn't hear that, Obi-Wan thought as he kicked his starfighter into a tight spiral toward the Federation cruiser. "I'm taking the deck!"
"Good idea. I need some room to maneuver."
Cannonfire tracked closer. Obi-Wan's cockpit speakers buzzed. "Cut right, Obi-Wan! Hard right! Don't let him get a handle on you! Artoo, lock on!"
Obi-Wan was already doing what Anakin had said before he finished saying it as he remembered it occurring similarly last time. His starfighter streaked along the curve of the Separatist cruiser's dorsal hull. Antifighter flak burst on all sides as the cruiser's guns tried to pick him up. He rolled a right wingover into the service trench that stretched the length of the cruiser's hull. This low and close to the deck, the cruiser's antifighter guns couldn't depress their angle of fire enough to get a shot, but the tri-fighter stayed right on his tail.
At the far end of the service trench, the massive support buttresses of thecruiser's towering bridge left no room for even Obi-Wan's small craft. He kicked his starfighter into a half roll that whipped im out of the trench and shot him straight up the tower's angled leading edge. One burst of his underjets jerked him past the forward viewports of the bridge with only meters to spare—and the tri-fighter followed his path exactly.
"Naturally, that would have been too easy," Obi-Wan muttered looking around for his brother just as one of the control surfaces on his left wing shattered in a burst of plasma. It felt like being shot in the arm. He toggled switches, fighting the yoke. He should have figured there was nothing he could change in this space battle. R4-P17 shrilled at him. Obi-Wan keyed internal comm. "Don't try to fix it, Arfour. I've shut it down."
"I have the lock!" Anakin said. "Go! Firing—now!"
Obi-Wan hit maximum drag on his intact wing and his starfighter shot int o a barely controlled arc high and right as Anakin's cannons vaporized the last tri-fighter.
Obi-Wan fired retros to stall his starfighter in the blind spot behind the Separatist cruiser's bridge. He hung there for a few seconds to get his breathing and heart under control. He really hated space battles.
"Thank you, Anakin and thank Artoo for me," said Obi-Wan to his brother.
"You're welcome, Obi-Wan," Anakin said and Obi-Wan could hear a smile in his voice.
"Oh and Anakin—?" he said with a faint smile as he remembered saying this the last time and decided to say it again.
"Yes, Master?" Anakin asked.
"Next time, you're the bait."
"Artoo, where's that signal?" Anakin asked looking at the little blue droid in his socket beside the cockpit.
Artoo Deetoo whistled and beeped. A translation spidered across Anakin's console readout: Scanning. Lots of ECM signal jamming.
"Keep on it." He looked toward his brother's starfighter limping through the battle a hundred meters off his left wing. "I can feel his jitters from all the way over here."
A tootle: A Jedi is always calm.
Anakin shook his head at the droid. Artoo tried to be funny at times but most of the time he failed. "Less joking, more scanning."
He closed his eyes as the starfighter continued to fight its way through the starfighters. He usually had fun during starfighter battles but he found this one wasn't as fun as usual. Usually, he became a part of the vehicle and he could forget about his past. He also could put aside his love for Padmé and for Obi-Wan and for Obi-Wan's twin children, Kira and Jinn. He could focus on the matter at hand and not worry about anything else.
And that was what he was trying to do. Palpatine was like a kindly mentor to him, even if in the last three years, he hasn't spent much time with him what with the war, spending time with Padmé, covering for Obi-Wan and training Ahsoka. However, he still considered him to be a good friend. He didn't want anything bad to happen to him. He took a deep breath before releasing his worry and fear into the Force; as his former master had told him, he had to control his fear before it controlled him or he would spiral out of control. He would always remember those words and would always listen and obey them whenever he began to feel fear.
Obi-Wan's voice came over the cockpit speakers. "Does your droid have anything? Arfour's hopeless. I think that last cannon hit cooked his motivator."
Anakin looked at his master but all he saw the normal calm façade he always kept in place in order to stop himself from getting worked up. He always respected how his former master could be so calm in the thick of battle and yet he knew that Obi-Wan was just as worried as he was. What startled him was that the worry wasn't entirely for Palpatine.
"Don't worry, Master. If his beacon's working, Artooll find it. Have you thought about how we'll find the Chancellor if—"
"Don't worry, Anakin," Obi-Wan said calmly. "We will find Palpatine with or without the beacon. There is no need to talk about something that may not happen."
Anakin sighed knowing his former master was right. "I know, master. I wish I had been here. Then perhaps I could have stopped this," he said.
"We do not know for sure if you could have stopped it, Anakin. Remember that he was defended by Stass Allie, Adi Gallia and Shaak Ti. Stass Allie is clever and valiant, Adi is very intuitive and Shaak Ti is the most cunning Jedi I've ever met. She's even taught me a few tricks."
Anakin said nothing for a moment. He knew his former master was only telling him of the skills they had likely used to protect the Chancellor. Anakin also knew, based on the fact that he's faced General Grievous before, that the three Jedi Master would be hard pressed to defend against him. As he thought about it more, he realized that he wouldn't have been able to stop it if three Jedi Masters, who had much more experience than him, couldn't.
"When I think about it, I can see that I wouldn't have been able to stop it by myself," he said.
"We are in this together, Anakin. We will do our best to rescue the Chancellor."
"I just hope our best is enough."
"Oh I think it will be." Obi-Wan fell silent leaving Anakin to ponder that statement but, before he could ask his brother what he meant, Artoo twittered. Anakin checked his console readout. "We've got him, Master. The cruiser dead ahead. That's Greivous's flagship—Invisible Hand."
"It's the one crawling with vulture fighters, isn't it?"
Anakin smiled a little at the irritation in his brother's voice. "That's the one," he said.
The vulture fighters clinging to the long curves of the Trade Feeration cruiser indivated by Palpatine's beacon gave it eerily life-like ripples like some metallic marine predator bristling with Alderaanian walking barnacles.
"This should be easy." Anakin smiled more when he heard the sarcasm dripping from his brother's voice.
Now some of them stripped themselves from the cruiser, ignited their drives and came looping toward the two Jedi.
"Easy? No. But it might be fun. Lunch at Dex's says I'll blast two for each of yours. Artoo can keep score."
He was pretty sure Obi-Wan was rolling his eyes. "Dinner and don't let Artoo cheat," Obi-Wan said jokingly. Anakin chuckled. Obi-Wan had changed since the war began but not enough to truly be noticeable by anyone except Anakin. That was only because of how strong their connection was even though Anakin was no longer Obi-Wan's apprentice. However, his scolding, schoolmasterish edge that was the form Anakin grew up with was, thankfully, still there as he added, "However, just a reminder, there is much at stake so we need to focus primarily at the mission at hand."
"I know, master," Anakin said smiling.
"See if Artoo can tight-beam a report to the Temple and send a call for any Jedi in starfighters. If we can then we should come at it from all sides."
"Way ahead of you." But when he checked his comm readout, he shook his head. "I can't. There is still too much ECM. Artoo can't raise the Temple. I think the only reason we can even talk to each other is that we're practically side by side."
"And no Jedi beacons, I presume."
"No joy, Master. We may be the only two Jedi out of here."
"Then we will have to be enough. Switching to clone fighter channel."
Anakin spun his comm dial to the new frequency in time to hear Obi-Wan say, "Oddball, do you copy? We need help."
The clone captain's helmet speaker flattened the humanity out of his voice. "Copy, Red Leader."
"Mark my position and form your squad behind me. We're going in."
"On our way."
The droid fighters had lost themselves against the background of the battle but Artoo was tracking them on scan. Anakin shifted his grip on his starfighter's control yoke. "Ten vultures inbound, high and left to my orientation. More on the way."
"I have them. The cruisers bay shields have dropped. I'm reading six ships incoming. Tri-fighters. Coming in fast."
This was about to get interesting. "Tri-fighters first, Master. The vultures can wait."
"Agreed. Oddball, you and Squad Seven go with Anakin. I'll bring up the rear. Anakin, might as well go with the plan you're thinking of since I doubt I'll be able to talk you out of it. But be careful."
Anakin was startled since he had been thinking about just going head-to-head with them. "I'll be careful, Master," he said before he kicked his starfighter's sublights and surged past.
"Sorry we're late." The digitized voie of the clone whose cal sign was Oddball sound as calm as if he were ordering dinner. "We're on your right, Red Leader. Where's Red Five?"
"Already heading toward the fighters. Go after him."
"Yes sir."
Anakin kept his gaze fixed on the battle as he watched as enemy starfighters swarmed around him. He gave himself to the battle and his starfighter whirled and his cannons hammered and droids on all sides began to burst into clouds of debris and superheated gas.
It wasn't long before Oddball and Squad Seven joined in the battle but Anakin, focusing entirely on the battle, didn't notice. All he noticed were the starfighters his cannons destroyed and the fact that he was one step closer at rescuing his friend.
A/n what do you think?
Blaze: this would have been longer but I still haven't gotten the book yet.
Darth: how'd you do this chapter then?
Blaze: read the sample chapters offered on Amazon. That took a while since they seem to change. Weird
Darth: oh okay
Blaze: yup. Wow, I'm going to be posting this at one in the morning
Darth: not as bad as some of your other stories
Anakin: true that
Obi-Wan: (sharpening throwing knives) yup
Anakin: why are you sharpening throwing knives?
Palpypie: hi!
Obi-Wan: to throw at him (tosses newly sharpened throwing knives at Palpypie)
Palpypie: OW! OW! OW! OW!
Anakin: (picks up flaming machete and slams it into Palpypie's head) So what's going to happen in the next chapter and when's it coming out?
Blaze: the rest of the space battle, an altered duel with Dooku and, possibly, an altered meeting with Grievous and possible the crash-landing on Coruscant
Obi-Wan: (stabbing Palpypie with Ice) and when will it be out?
Blaze: I plan on getting the actual book tomorrow or Wednesday so possibly Wednesday evening
Palpypie: Stop stabbing me!
Obi-Wan: no
Blaze: (laughs) I hope that you liked the first chapter of part 3 and a different take on the introduction to the novel (I took some passages from the book). Reviews, as always, are much appreciated.