Chapter 62

Ataru

The oblong shape of a Firespray-class ship circled around the spaceport. The com crackled.

"Unidentified ship, this is Spaceport Flight Control." Even through the static, the voice on the com sounded strained and worried. "We have an emergency situation, you need to either land or vacate local airspace. Please comply."

The young man in the pilot's seat smashed the com button. "That Jedi murderer is mine!"

"This is a police and military matter. Land or vacate local airspace, or we will be forced to fire on you."

"The Jedi is heading here. I'm the one who's going to stop him. Don't get in my way!" Fett's hands, not nearly as calloused and thick as his father's, danced across the console. Shields and weapons were charged back to full power, and the ship's sensors were attuned to track human life signs below. Most of the dots running around on the fusionformed spaceport runways were Bpfasshi. Windu, no matter how much makeup he wore as a disguise, would stand out on his sensors like a rancor at a Jawa swap meet.

Ponderously, the two nearest spaceport turbolasers swiveled towards him. Boba Fett his the transmit button on the console. "Spaceport, stand down. I'm only here for the Jedi. I don't want to have to defend myself."

"And we can't let bounty hunter wannabes strafe the spaceport just to get at one man. Stand down, or we will fire."

Boba pulled the yoke to the left, and the Slave I corkscrewed through the air drunkenly. One of the turbolasers opened fire, attempting to follow the twisting path of the Slave I through the air, but firing high. With a twitch of Boba's fingers, the Slave I launched a flurry of micro-missiles that swirled through the air like a school of fish before impacting at the base of the turret. The first few ablated the turret's armor, and the remainder shredded the mechanisms inside.

As he leveled the ship out, he saw a faint spot on his sensor board, one that hadn't been mixed in with the clusters of human life signs that were already milling around the spaceport.

The remaining turbolaser turned slowly, trying to track the fast moving ship as it banked hard to the side, turning towards the human life sign on the sensors.

Ahsoka hit the button at the top of the Whipclaw's ramp, and it closed after her. "I'm on board," she bellowed towards the cockpit, "One of them got away, I don't know where."

"If you would take the pilot's seat," came the Caamasi's softer voice from the cockpit, "I believe I can track him."

Ahsoka rushed up to the front of the ship and took off her durasteel mask, hanging it from the arm of the pilot's chair. She took Ylenic's place, and he sat down in the navigator's seat.

"I'm going to get some altitude, get a better vantage point," she said as she feathered the throttle and pointed the nose of the ship upwards.

Through the sound of the ship's engines, she could hear a steady, rhythmic sound. The Caamasi Jedi was breathing deeply while meditating.

Ahsoka shook her head. "At a time like this..."

Finally, Ylenic spoke. "I can feel him. He flees. Away from himself... his sense in the Force is truly shattered. Broken. But also... he flees... towards something. The past... or the future. I cannot tell which."

"Well, right now he can't flee the planet. There spaceport is shut down, and we've got the altitude on him. Wait a minute... that ship that fired on us is circling the spaceport. And it just took out a turbolaser turret!" She pushed the Whipclaw's throttle to full and rocketed towards the spaceport. "I don't know if he was trying to hurt or help the clones, but there are innocent people all over that spaceport."

Jorj Car'das screamed as he flew through the air. His jacket caught on the edge of the razor wire that ran across the top of the spaceport fence. Then he smashed into the fusionformed pavement, hard. A moment later, a pair of boots landed on either side of him.

"Get up and take me to your ship."

Car'das tried to respond, but his lungs refused to cooperate. A hand grabbed the back of his jacket and yanked him upright.

"Your ship." The dark yellow rimmed eyes stared into his. A small part of Jorj's mind wondered just how goofy he looked, sailing awkwardly through the air, and now gasping for that very same air like a suckerfish.

The rest of his mind, however, was very much focused on the danger in front of him.

"Hold it right there!" came a voice from just beyond Jorj's line of sight. He heard a crack, and a gurgle that may have been an aborted scream, then the sound of a gun and a body hitting the pavement.

The dark Jedi hadn't even blinked.

"Your ship."

Jorj finally managed to draw enough air into his lungs to croak a response. "This way. Hangar seven," he drew in a breath and coughed, "teen."

The Jedi shoved him in the direction of the hangar, and Car'das nearly tripped over his own feet in the process. Now he could see the spaceport security guard who'd tried to interfere, although he wished he hadn't. The man's neck was twisted in a way that was not only inhumanly possible, but impossible for a Bpfasshi as well.

"Oh kriff..." he said, as he saw a Firespray-class ship circle towards them and open fire. The dark Jedi swept his hand to the side, and Car'das felt himself thrown aside like a rag doll, out of the line of turbolaser fire from the ship.

The Jedi leapt straight up, and Car'das lost track of him in the sky amidst the glare of the sun.

Numbly, he limped towards hangar seventeen. He had to get out of this place.

"You were supposed to be dead!" Boba Fett screamed at the black and white face of the man clinging to the cockpit of the Slave I. "You can't hide from me, I know who you are."

The Mace Windu clone ignited his lightsaber and was about to plunge it into the transparisteel cockpit, when Boba once again pulled the yoke of the ship to the left and up, sending it into a corkscrewing spiral.

"I've got inertial dampeners, murderer. You don't."

The Windu clone scrabbled for a better hold on the cockpit, the powerful force of wind and inertia working against him. Boba Fett stared him down, safe inside the cockpit of the Slave I.

The com came to life again, but this time it wasn't the spaceport. "Unidentified ship, this is the Whipclaw. You seem to have caught a bad infestation of... dark Jedi. If you can shake him off, I can take him out."

"Back off, bounty hunter! He's mine," he snarled back into the com. Fumbling around behind him, he pulled out a green and red helmet with a T-shaped visor. He put it over his head and turned its blank stare towards the disguised Jedi clinging to his ship. "Now do you know who I am? You murdered my father, you coward. It's past time for me to return the favor."

The two clones stared into each other for a moment. The yellow rimmed eyes of the Mace Windu clone met and held the glare of the Mandalorian helmet, and then the clone managed to wedge himself against the hull of the ship, freeing one hand from holding on. The lightsaber in his free hand ignited, and slashed through the windshield. Transparisteel went from clear to glowing red as it dripped, leaving char marks on the console. Fett fumbled for his pistol, while the clone slashed across the windshield. A large piece of transparisteel tore off in the high winds, spinning through the air towards the spaceport pavement.

Boba fired his pistol through the hole, but the Windu clone dodge to the side, catching one of the bolts on the tip of his lightsaber, and sending it flying back into the cockpit. It hit Boba's helmet with an audible spang, burning paint off of the indented cheek.

The clone leapt off of the ship, hurtling towards the ground below, while the Slave I listed to the side, its pilot shaking off the effects of a blow to the head.

"I've got him!" Ahsoka said as she pointed the Whipclaw towards the ground. "He just jumped and hit the ground running."

As her finger tightened on the trigger, the Mace Windu clone turned to face her. He gestured, and a small fuel tanker groundcar was dragged across the pavement through the Force, into her line of fire.

Ahsoka held her fire. There were too many civilians around to be blowing up a tank of ship fuel. "Grife... gotta come around again."

"Have patience," Ylenic said. "We will stop him, but not at the expense of the very lives we are here to protect."

Author's note: Yes, I have updated! If you couldn't tell by... um... the entire chapter before this author's note. I apologize for not being around for so very long. Life just kinda... took off. Fourteen years after I first went off to college, only to run out of money for school halfway through, I finally graduated this year. Got my fancy paper with a gold seal on it and everything. From a real school, too. It was a heckuva run during my last semester. Had trouble getting into the classes I needed, almost failed my easiest class, (I thought music history would be an easy A for me... but I got the teacher who likes to ask REALLY specific questions and grades really harshly.) and barely had enough money to make it through the semester while keeping a roof over my head.

Anyhow, while I was working on school instead of writing, and worrying about paying rent at the same time, I started to realize just how much I need to write. Not writing was driving me bonkers. So I started working on a plan, something that I could do to keep writing, and still earn enough money to, y'know, pay rent and stuff. Something that's difficult for most writers to do.

So instead of focusing on this, I will be putting my business minor to good use by starting my own small online publishing business (focusing mainly on audiobook and audiodrama podcasts at first. I'm gonna try to do serial fiction like this, only original work instead of fanfic, so I can actually make money off of it) and doing some other writing on the side. I figure the best way to make money is to find like-minded writers and publish in a way that benefits all of us. So I don't think I'll be able to update this fic as fast as I was during its heyday. But I will still do what I can, and try to at least post weekly like I did during NaNoWriMo last year. That way it's an episode a month, instead of an episode a week, but it's still regular updates. I hope. :)

Thanks for bearing with me all this time, and I hope I can keep this up amidst my other workloads!

Tirade