Chapter 2
Sorry if the last chapter was a bit… rushed, I was kinda out of my element back then. Anyway, let's get on to this new chapter which I hope is not as rushed as the previous one.
This story'll be following the New Canon continuity, hence YASW was made by me for that reason. But that doesn't mean I might be able to modify Legends characters to suit my own purposes, Jango's father will be named Jaster Fett, journeyman of Concord Dawn (Concord Dawn is in the New Canon).
Time: 948 YASW, 11th Month
Location: Invisible Hand, Grievous's Cruiser
Jedi Master Dooku calmly walked forward with the Senator Damask following behind him, the Jedi Master was carrying Qui-Gon Jinn on his back. Explosions were rattling on the hull of the ship because the Jedi Council finally decided to send in some Republic troopers.
Dooku growled, the troopers should not have come! They were capable of rescuing the Senator alone! And now, the troopers were probably going to probably make this entire rescue operation worse!
Dooku saw himself in front of a dark grey metal elevator, his hand made contact with the yellow button to the right of the elevator, the doors of the elevator quickly slid open with a wheeze, as Dooku quickly entered, Damask quickly following.
The elevator's door closed, when Dooku pressed the button of the desired floor, which was the floor which Dooku guessed was the floor where all the ships are kept. He hissed in anger, when he noticed that the elevator was not moving. His anger built up as he wondered if the elevator was stopped by the Sith's Droids, or if it was just a malfunction.
On the main bridge of the cruiser, a 14 year old Jango Fett was standing with his father, Jaster Fett as they watched Battle Droids work at all the ship's controls, Battle Droids were programmed to do everything needed for the Sith's army, too bad they're planned to be replaced with Clones.
At the first glance, it would look like Jango was an innocent child that couldn't injure someone, let alone kill someone, by themselves without any assistance whatsoever.
But everyone knew not to underestimate the young teenager due to his exploits going into the holonet, as Jango was a brutal Jedi hunter who killed even Masters of the Council and severely injured two of the most skilled Jedi two years back: the Hero with No Fear, Qui-Gon Jinn and the youngest Jedi Knight, Mace Windu.
His father, Jaster, had killed his own number of Jedi and bested Jedi Plo Koon before Qui-Gon Jinn had came in and saved the day.
The two worked for the Sith ever since mysterious Sith Darth Plagueis approached them about a Clone Army, and Jango was put forward by his father to be the donor of the Clone Army, a duty Jango happily accepted, and so started an alliance between the father-son pair and the Sith.
A weak beeping sound was heard as Jaster glanced at a viewport, apparently, a few windows were blown out by Republic troopers, and something important was taken with it. 'This is not good', thought Jango Fett
"Reverse stabilisers" One battle droid calmly ordered another in its robotic voice
"Rodger Rodger" The other battle droid accepted the orders, nodded its head.
Jaster wondered if there was going to be any extra trouble because of this, from Grievous since the cruiser they were standing on was that Droid General's cruiser. The mysterious Plagueis might have assured them that Grievous would be dead, but he knew that Grievous was a skilled warrior by his own right, despite his anger at everything.
Dooku was angry at waiting, he wanted to get out of here, he was patient, yes, but there wasn't much time, he felt. He pressed the 'open' button, but the door didn't obey. It stayed closed, much to Dooku's frustration. Dooku was sure now that the enemy was trying to trap them.
"Good, give into your anger" A dark voice rang in Dooku's mind, he frowned, as he shut off the voice by raising his mind shields.
"Qui-Gon, you should have bought that R4 unit with you" Dooku complained, briefly glancing at the Jedi Knight slung over his shoulder. Plagueis inwardly groaned at the mention of that blasted droid.
Qui-Gon, being that he liked mechanical stuff and had an innate ability of making and repairing anything technological, built an astro droid named R4-P17 only one year before the Droid War.
Dooku knew that R4-P17 had helped them in many situations, that droid was one of the two good things about the Droid War, the other good thing was that Qui-Gon and Dooku had gotten closer during the war through near-death situation.
In short, Dooku liked that droid.
The ship started to tilt, as Jango widened his eyes in concern, Jaster placed a comforting hand on Jango, who tried to calm down.
"Magnetise! Magnetise!" The same droid who ordered to reverse stabilisers sounded urgent now, as the other battle droids attempted to work quickly to stabilise the cruiser so it didn't flip upside down and/or burn and crash on the city-planet of Coruscant.
Dooku felt the ship tilt, his eyes widened in concern briefly, before he activated his blue lightsaber and instinctively flicked it upwards, creating a valiant blue arc. He created a circle on the ceiling of the elevator with the blade of the weapon.
The circle made by the lightsaber was intended to make a hole on the ceiling, which it did, Dooku smiled slightly in victory, as the part of the ceiling inside the circle was now separate from the ceiling and was moving upwards.
Dooku then felt the ship tilting at an even faster rate, gradually turning itself upside down. He decided that now would be the time to take real action to keep them safe from the tilting ship's artificial gravity kicking in.
"Jump! Now!" Dooku ordered the Muun Senator, as he used the force to push the circle away from the ceiling.
The ship went sideways, as Dooku and Damask jumped, and fell out of the elevator through the hole made by Dooku, along with that circle. Dooku and Damask ran as the ship tilted even more.
Damask kept his calm, as inwardly, he wondered how Dooku was going to hold on when the ship regained his bearings with his insignificant apprentice and himself in tow.
The droids were having trouble stabilising the ship, as Jango and Jaster both flicked the switches on the right of their jetpacks, to slightly hover over the ground, just in case.
The Jedi Master and the Senator ran faster through the elevator shaft, as the ship began to tilt even more. The two were sure that the ship was going to be upside down to the way it's actually supposed to be.
Dooku frowned, not allowing his true fear to show by frowning, he lost his footing on the metal that made the side of the elevator shaft. He knew that the ship was now upside-down. Dooku and Damask both widened his eyes now, as the two began falling down, or was it up?
The droids on the bridge of the ship quickly managed to tilt back the ship to it's normal rotation, so everyone who was not touching or standing on a wall wasn't flipped, that counted Dooku and Damask, instead, their centre of gravity were flipped.
Dooku started falling down the other way, as Damask wisely clutched the Jedi Master's leg, and held tightly to it. Dooku guessed he did that in fear, not that he couldn't understand why the Senator, who was also his friend, did that.
Dooku quickly found a thick cable to hold on to, which he reached out for. He quickly held the cable tightly, the two stopped falling. The sudden movements made Qui-Gon snap out of his unconsciousness.
Qui-Gon snapped his eyes open and slowly looked around to adjust to the light, not that there was much of it… wherever he was. His eyes adjusted to his surroundings, as he looked down.
Qui-Gon's eyes adjusted when he was looking downwards, to see the very high distance under him. Qui-Gon grunted in extreme fear and confusion, as his eyes widened at the height.
"Qui-Gon, you're finally awake!" Dooku greeted stoically, not even glancing at Qui-Gon and focusing to hold on
"So, what's the story?" Qui-Gon asked, as he identified his surroundings to be an elevator shaft… 'how'd they get in here?', Qui-Gon wondered
"Now's not the time Qui-Gon" Dooku chided, already annoyed
Plagueis secretly hoped Qui-Gon would be the first one to be killed when the Clones finally appeared into the face of the galaxy to execute all Republic Troopers and Jedi. Ever since the Clone Wars, that was one of the reasons why he wanted to leave Qui-Gon to die in the ship, despite Plagueis secretly knew he was alive.
"I can help you guys out there" Qui-Gon muttered, Dooku went to look at Qui-Gon, who had already closed his eyes.
Dooku smiled, realising what Qui-Gon was doing. He released the cable he was holding on to, but the didn't fall, due to Qui-Gon's force hold on his Master. He concentrated on the mysterious energy even more as he attempted to lift Dooku to the floor needed.
Damask desperately held on to Dooku's leg, as Qui-Gon utilised a burst of energy to his advantage by manoeuvring them high up to until his instincts told him that there was a door at the same level of altitude as he was. Qui-Gon heard the sound of a lightsaber activating, but he didn't open his eyes, he instead made Dooku stop floating.
Dooku then quickly cut through the door in front of him.
"Stop using the Force" The Jedi Master instructed his former apprentice, who panted from the tiredness of lifting his Master with his mind. He stopped concentrating, then Dooku used the Force to guide the two he was carrying to the door along with himself
Qui-Gon jumped off Dooku's shoulder, did a backflip and landed facing Dooku, uninjured and energetic as… almost always.
"Missed me, Master?" Qui-Gon asked, almost teasing
"No. Definitely not." Dooku lied, laughing
"We need to go ahead, or else there might be droids" Damask urged the two, who both seriously nodded.
In reality, Plagueis was trying to get them to shut up, he needed to think.
The three silently walked forward, Qui-Gon eyed the Senator, as his jumbled memory of the rescue operation before Grievous threw him began to organise itself in his mind. Qui-Gon realised that, before the duel, he had been thinking about what if there was a bigger thing to all this, he'd need to research this once they went to Coruscant.
Dooku looked around the corridors, there were little to no battle droids around, and that itself was suspicious.
The two Jedi walked faster for precaution, the Senator also walked faster along with them. They were sure something was wrong. Plagueis resisted the urge to smile, as he knew that Jaster Fett had set up Ray Shields to entrap them.
At that thought did the ray shields come. Qui-Gon kept walking forward until he crashed into the ray shield. His eyes widened in surprise as he fell backward. But, he got caught by another ray shield. Dooku would have laughed if he wasn't caught by the ray shield too.
"Ray shields" Dooku dryly remarked
"Dammit! That's the oldest trick in the book!" Qui-Gon swore angrily
"And we walked right into it" Dooku smirked, he then suddenly turned serious and asked "Got a plan?"
"I say patience" Qui-Gon announced, calming himself
"Patience?" Dooku asked, surprised that Qui-Gon, one of the most impatient Padawans of his time, made a plan involving patience.
"Yeah. Someone will definitely take us to their leader, and to do that, they'll need to release us from these ray shields" Qui-Gon answered, completely calm
"Well, I hope you're right, because here they come" Dooku noted, nervousness tinging in his tone
The droid's metallic feet clanged with the metal, as the ray shields turned off, Qui-Gon was about to activate his lightsaber, but a Protocol droid quickly took their lightsabers, which surprised the two Jedi.
"So much of a plan" Dooku told Qui-Gon, half-sarcastically, the Jedi Knight looked away in embarrassment
A few droids put handcuffs on the wrists of the three, then pushed them forward. But then, they started walked along with the droids. The protocol droid, who was silver in colour, was apparently higher up than the droids. Qui-Gon frowned, as he looked around the cruiser, he wondered if he'd be able to own the cruiser if they captured it, it was a fine piece of machinery.
After what seemed like hours, The protocol droid headed for a door, Dooku frowned further, as the droids pushed them into the door. Qui-Gon recognised this place to be the bridge of the ship.
"I have bought the Jedi who attempted to rescue the Chancellor" The Protocol Droid told a boy in it's robotic voice
"Qui-Gon Jinn, nice to see you again" The boy sarcastically greeted, as he came out of the shadows to show himself to be Jango Fett
"Jango Fett" Qui-Gon growled, temper rising, Dooku briefly glanced at Qui-Gon, wanting to ask how did Qui-Gon recognise that voice and the boy who owned the voice.
"Have you met my father, by the way?" Jango asked, still sarcastic, as Jaster Fett stood beside Qui-Gon
"Well, for someone of your reputation, I expected you to be a bit… older" Indeed, Jaster was shocked that a mere 20 year old managed to do the damage he did
"I expected you to be more intimidating" Qui-Gon shot back, frowning, Jaster frowned
"We're on a rescue mission, try not to anger them" Dooku warned, calmly
"So what? I could get outta here with you two right now" Qui-Gon boasted
The Jedi Knight raised his hands, which were, to everyone's shock, free of the handcuffs given to him. He then aimed his arm at the protocol droid, force pulling his lightsaber towards him. He quickly activated it and spun, instantly beheading the droids around him.
He then used the Force to release Dooku and Damask's wrists from the handcuffs. Dooku did a similar move as Qui-Gon to get his own blue lightsaber. The two quickly finished off the droids.
"Let's go or we won't be around by the time of the Empire" Jaster whispered to his son, as they both ran out, unnoticed due to the fight.
Once all the droids were killed, Qui-Gon ran to the controls of the now-empty ship. He saw that all the escape pods had been launched.
"The Fetts escaped, and there are no escape pods. Some parts broken off the ship due to the Republic Troopers." Qui-Gon warned, as he told the two in his best fight attendant imitation "Kindly prepare for a crash landing"
Well, you guys can guess what will happen next, right? Anyway, sorry for the repeated cliffhangers, the Chancellor's rescue was a big thing in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and it's not something you can write into one chapter, unless it's like very skimmed through and condensed. I tried my best not to make this chapter as rushed as the last one though. NEXT CHAPTER: CRASHING A SHIP AND AFTERMATH