The Mandalorian Jedi(Edit)

by SL17H3R R3X

Stolen from his homeworld of Mandalore Shan Vizsla was inducted into the Jedi order. Follow his journey from the Clone Wars and into the final days off the Empire.

3. Chapter 3: Battle of the MaIevolence

Chapter 3: Battle of the Malevolence

{Greetings from beyond the screen my fellow readers writers, Draco, Slifer and Rex here with a new chapter with a few things;

1st:

2nd:

3rd: }

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Belief is not a matter of choice, but of conviction.

Our Clone Starfleet is under siege. Dozens of Republic warships have been destroyed in merciless surprise attacks that leave no survivors. Rumors spread of a terrible new Separatist weapon. In the face of growing fear, the Jedi Council sends Master Plo Koon and his Padawan Emira Tang to hunt down the Menace before it strikes again.

Emira(POV)

I stand on the bridge of our Venture when our Lieutenant walks up to us.

He speaks up with, "The enemy ship has its speed, general."

Master Plo says, "They must have realized we are tracking them."

Our Lieutenant then says, "The fleet is holding its position, sir."

Master Koon then says, "I think it wise to report our position before we attack."

As we walk over to the holoprojector the Lieutenant says, "Skywalker's fleet is nearby, in the Bith system."

"Good," Master Plo says before continuing. "Perhaps he can reinforce us."

"It would be good to have some extra reinforcement during a situation," I say as we continue to walk.

Our Lieutenant then says, "From what I hear, Skywalker's always ready for a fight."

"So I've heard," Master Koon comments.

Master Koon turns on the hologram to show Master Skywalker and his Padawan Ahsoka.

"Khotoyah, Master Plo, Emira." Ahsoka greets.

"Khotoyah, little 'soka," Master Plo greets back.

"Khotoyah, Ahsoka," I greet as well.

"How's the hunt for the mystery weapon going?" Master Skywalker gets down to business.

Master Plo replies with, "We've tracked it to the Abregado system. We need reinforcements."

"I'll have to ask the council, Master Plo." There's a bit of static in the feed but I notice that Ahsoka looks a bit concerned, "I was given strict orders to protect our staging area."

The static becomes even worse so Wolfe rushes over to try to fix the transmission issue.

"Master Plo, what's happen--?" Ahsoka's voice gets cut off.

"What's wrong with the transmission?" Master Plo questions.

"There's too much interference, sir." Wolfe says, "We've lost 'em."

"Two guesses on who's jamming us," I say while looking towards the view port.

Wolfe continues to try to regain the transmission.

"The enemy ship is closing," One of the clones on one of the consoles says.

Master Plo turns to Wolfe, "Prepare for battle."

Soon enough the fighters began to be deployed.

Wolfe speaks up at the readings, "We're picking up a large energy reading from the target, sir."

"Master, it has to be that circular object on the side of the ship," I say to my master.

"Open fire," Master Plo says.

However Wolfe says, "We're not in range yet, sir."

Sure enough the energy reading becomes appropriate, the ship fires an electrical field at us.

"Incoming," I yell out.

"Brace for impact," Master Plo yells.

As the electrical field hits it actually passes through the ship itself.

"We're losing all our power," Wolfe yells, making it clear that this is an ion attack. "That energy field has left us defenseless!"

"If it has happened to us then it most likely happened to the others," I say to the two of them.

Out of nowhere the ship shakes, they're firing at us.

Wolfe then yells, "They're tearing us apart one by one."

I watch as one of the Ventures gets destroyed.

Master Plo turns away from the bridge and yells out, "Quickly, into the pods!"

We proceed to make our way to the escape pods.

As I enter the pod and hear Master Plo say, "We don't have much time. Get inside. Hurry!"

As we eject we watch as the Venture explodes.

Shan(POV)

I watch as Master Skywalker explains what happened to Master Plo Koon however I wasn't in the hologram, "And we have had no further contact with General Plo Koon. The absence of distress beacons indicates that his fleet was…" He looks over to Ahsoka, "That his fleet was destroyed, like the others. We are about to prepare a rescue mission."

It's then that Chancellor Palpatine speaks up, "Hasn't Clone Intelligence reported this weapon never leaves any survivors?"

"The Separatists are being unusually tidy. They don't want any witnesses," Master Kenobi states.

"Tragic are these losses but prevent more we must," Master Yoda says sadly.

Emira(POV)

Around fifteen minutes later we waited in the escape pod.

Wolfe says, "The power grid burned out. We've got no engine, communications, or… or life support recharge."

Sinker says, "So we'll just sit here and hold our breath."

The third clone said, "Someone will come looking for us, right?"

We turn to Master Plo for guidance and he says, "Let's get the power restored so we are here to be found."

"Yes General," The three clones say in sync.

"Yes Master," I said.

"Actually Emira," Master Plo says to catch my attention. "I would like you to meditate and attempt to reach Padawan Tano through the Force."

I blink in surprise, "Are you sure Master?"

Master Plo nods, "Although I'm close to her I believe you'll be able to reach her."

I nod, " Yes Master."

I then began to meditate.

Shan(POV)

Windu begins to inform us, "All our battle groups will be reassigned to guard our supply convoys, including yours, Skywalker. I'm afraid we can't risk any more ships with a rescue mission."

"Wait!" Ahsoka says, getting our attention, "Just because there haven't been any survivors before doesn't mean there won't be any this time."

"Boldly spoken for one so young," Chancellor Palpatine says.

"She is learning from Anakin," Master Kenobi says.

Master Skywalker speaks up, "Excuse my Padawan. We will deploy as you have instructed, master."

With that the hologram cuts off.

I turn to Master Kenobi, "You know he'll go to look."

Master Kenobi sighs, "That's what I'm afraid of."

Emira(POV)

As I meditate I hear Wolfe's voice, "The air in here is getting a bit stale."

Sinker retorts with, "Don't look at me. It's Boost, sir. He only takes a bath when he's on leave."

Boost retorts with his own, "Save it. Just keep working on the pod, not your jokes."

"Do you think we've got a chance, general?" Wolfe asks.

Master Plo replies with, "I don't believe in chance, Commander. I know if we work together, we will stay alive and someone will find us."

"With all due respect, general," Sinker says dismissively. "Strategically, it doesn't make any sense for someone to come look for us. If I was in command, I'd be hunting that weapon down."

"I value your life more than finding that weapon," Master Plo says.

"Sir, there's another pod out there," Boost speaks up.

With that I stop meditating to walk over to see.

Wolfe speaks up with, "If we only had power, we could contact them."

"Well, how about we just wave hello when the viewport comes around?" Boost suggests.

I watch as Master Plo uses the force to rotate the pod around. To our horror the viewport is completely destroyed with one half of a clone's body outside.

"They're dead," Sinker says.

"Someone busted that pod wide open," Wolfe says.

Master Plo then speaks up, "We are not alone out here."

Shan(POV)

Commander Cody turns to Master Kenobi and says, "Our ship's in defensive formation, sir."

Master Kenobi nods, "All right, commander. I'll check on Anakin's progress."

We walk back toa screen, where Admiral Vern and Captain Rex appear.

Master Kenobi begins, "Admiral, how is the escort?"

The Admiral answers, "Oh. Convoys are proceeding on schedule, general. No sign of enemy activity."

"And where's Skywalker?" Master Kenobi says.

The Admiral looked down slightly, "Uh, the general felt a redeployment of this fleet would increase our defensive perimeter."

"I see thank you Admiral. That'll be all," Master Kenobi says.

The screen turns off before Obi-Wan turns away and assumes his classic thinking pose.

"Problem sir?" Commander Cody asks.

"Anakin has just redeployed himself… again," He answers.

Emira(POV)

It's been around an hour or so since we saw that busted pod.

The unnamed clone, how I've come to learn is named Wolf and Boosts continue to work on communications. While the three clones have been breathing normally due to being humans while I have been using the Force to keep my breathing to a quarter of my normal breathing. But for Master Plo that mask of his let him breathe in an oxygen rich environment.

Boost corrects Sinker, "No, that's not it. This one goes there, that one goes there."

"Are you sure?" Sinker replies, "We don't want to make things worse."

Boost scoffs, "How, are we gonna make things worse?"

Master Plo speaks up to them, "When you ask for trouble, you should not be surprised when it finds you."

"I think trouble has already found us, sir," Sinker says.

"What if we connect these two wires, right here?" Boost asks as he connects two wires together.

It's then the power comes back on line.

"I'm getting something," Wolfe says as the counsels come to life.

A Clones voice fades in over the radio, "This is pod 197… We're under attack. Is anyone out there?"

"It's one of our other pods," Wolfe says.

"I repeat, we are under attack… Is anyone out there?" The clone seems to be in a panic.

"That signal is weak, they must be close by," Master Plo says in detrimation.

The clone on the radio says in an increasing panic, "They've locked onto our ship! They've locked onto our ship!"

"Our position is mark 12, at point 0.26," The clone on the radio exclaims.

"I have visual contact," Wolfe says as he points to the Pod.

"Pod 1-9-7-7, do you copy?" Master Plo asks loudly.

"The droids are hunting for survivors," The Clone on the radio yells. "They're cutting through!"

"Things just got a lot worse," Sinker says grimly.

Shan(POV)

I watch as Master Kenobi contacts Master Skywalker.

When the hologram gets put through, Master Kenobi asks, "Anakin, where are you?"

Master Skywalker replies happily, "Hello Master. Uh, we made a quick stop in the Abregado system."

Master Kenobi crosses his arms, "A rescue mission, I suppose. You have other orders."

"It was my idea, Master Obi-Wan," Ahsoka says, quickly catching his attention.

Master Kenobi sighs, "Oh I'm sure." He turns to Master Skywalker, "Well, have you found any survivors?"

"No, you were right," Master Skywalker says sadly. "The Separatists don't want any witnesses."

"All the more reason for you to rejoin the defensive escorts," Master Kenobi says sternly. "We need you, Anakin. You're going to miss the rendezvous with the fleet if you don't hurry."

"I know Master," Master Skywalker says sadly. "We're on our way."

The hologram ends.

Emira(POV)

"I fill them," I whisper loud enough for Master Plo to hear. "Both Ahsoka and Master Skywalker are in the system."

"Are you sure it's them?" Master Plo asks.

I nod before standing, "Yes Master, Master Skywalker radienced through the Force like a star, while Ahsoka is like an untamed tornado."

"That's them, that means we just have to hold out until they find us," Master Plo says.

"I think they see us," Boost says worriedly.

"It is time to go," Master Plo says determinately before turning and walking towards the airlock.

At that I reach under a bench and pull out a survival suit and helmet.

"Go?" The Wolfe questions, "Where are you going sir?"

"Outside to destroy the enemy," Master Plo turns to the Wolfe while I put on the suit. "I can withstand the pressure for a brief time. Put your helmets on."

"If you say so sir," Boost says.

Master Plo says, "This is a difficult situation, but there remains a possibility we will survive."

"That's good enough for me," Boost said determinately.

"Come on, let's go," Wolf says just as determinately.

Master Plo turns to Wolfe, "Wolfe, keep the communications signal alive. Emira, stay here and try to contact Padawan Ahsoka. You two are our only chance for someone to find us."

"Let's just hope someone's looking for us," The Lieutenant says.

As Master Plo and his Wolf Pack engaged the droids, unfortunately the droids began to squeeze the pod.

I quickly decided to send pulses through the Force to help Ahsoka and Master Skywalker to our location.

"Is there anyone out there?" Ahsoka's voice comes through the radio, "Come in. This is Ahsoka Tano. Is there anyone out there? Come in." She repeats.

"It's Ahsoka. She must be close," Wolfe says hopefully.

"Keep the signal alive, commander," Master Plo responds without turning back to us.

"We're losing the signal," Wolfe says in fear. "The pod can't take much more damage."

I watch as Master Plo throws Sinker at the pod hunter before cutting through the clamps.

Shan(POV)

Master Windu says through the hologram, "We must find a way to destroy this mystery weapon."

Master Yoda then speaks up in his usual riddle speech, "In this war, a step ahead of us, Dooku always seems."

"Tell me, has there been any word from Master Plo Koon or his fleet?" Chancellor Palpatine asks.

Master Windu says sadly, "No, we must fear the worst."

It's then I notice that Master Kenobi is about to speak up, "Actually, I just received word that Anakin has found the remains of Master Plo's fleet and is searching the debris for survivors."

Chancellor Palpatine asks, "On whose authority has he done this?"

"His own, I'm afraid," Master Kenobi replies.

Master Windu says, "With his fleet out of position, we are left vulnerable."

Master Kenobi says, "Oh his fleet is right where it should be, he's taken only a small ship, and his padawan."

"Twice the trouble, they have become," Master Yoda says. "A wreckless decision, Skywalker has made."

"Let us hope it is not a costly one," Chancellor Palpatine says.

Emira(POV)

After dealing with the pod hunter Wolfe and I managed to get into coms to Master Plo and the remaining members of his wolf pack.

Sinker sighs, "Well, General, another fine mess we've gotten into."

"Your sense of humor is improving," Master Plo says.

Sinker continues, "I don't mean to say I told you so, but I never believed anyone would come looking for us."

"Time to go, Ahsoka," I hear Master Skywalker say disappointedly.

They're about to leave us.

"Ahsoka we're still alive," I whisper through the force.

"We have to stay," Ahsoka says confidently.

"Ahsoka, I want to believe Master Plo is alive but..." Master Skywalker says in clearly disappointed as well.

"I know they're alive!" As Ahsoka gets closer, she comes into view, "I can sense them."

"Sergeant," Master Plo begins. "Why are you so certain no one is coming?"

"We're just clones sir, we're meant to be expendable," Sinker explains.

"Not to me," Master Plo affirms.

(3rd POV)

The light of Twilight shines down on the escape pod.

Ashoka points to the pod, "There they are!"

"Ready the tow cable..." Master orders his droid.

After R2 loaded the cable, Ahsoka turned to his Master, "Cable loaded Master."

The cable launches and magnetical locks onto the pod, before beginning to pull them into the Twilight.

Once inside the Twilight the gravity pulls the troopers while Master Plo slumps down and begins to breathe in the atmosphere.

Ashoka gestures to her Master, "Come on, hurry!" Ashoka rushes over to the fallen Master, "Are you okay Master Plo?" Ashoka then noticed that there were still people in the pod, "There's someone in the pod."

Master Skywalker pulls the view port open to relieve Commander Wolfe and Padawan Emira. As Anakin helps Wolfe onto the floor and Emira slumps to the floor as well before the door opens to relieve a medical droid.

Anakin asks, "Will they be alright?"

The medical droid turns his head, "The pressure suits offer some protection, but they require a medical frigate for recovery. I will stabilize them sir."

Ahsoka assures, "Your men are safe now."

Master Plo begins to slowly ask, "Tell me, were there any survivors?"

"We couldn't find anybody else," Master Skywalker says.

"The hunters must have destroyed the rest," Emira says sadly.

"They are one with the force now," Master Plo says as he places his hand on her shoulder. "But we must never forget them."

"I'm sorry, Master Plo," Ahsoka said sadly as she hugged him.

A little while later Ashoka, Master Plo and Master Skywalker walk into the cockpit.

Master Plo begins to explain the events they have just lived through, "We tracked the mystery weapon to this system, that is when we found out it was an ion cannon."

Ahsoka turns to him with a question, "An ion cannon?"

Master Plo answers with, "A weapon that neutralizes all power to our ships, leaving the targets defenseless."

Master Skywalker then notices something on the scanner, "There's a massive vessel approaching."

Master Plo begins to frantically turn off the power, "Shut down the power systems before they detect us." Suddenly Aartoo beeps in a scared tone, "The droid!"

Ahsoka rushes over to Aartoo, "Sorry little guy." She then shuts him off before walking back to her seat in silence.

As the ship begins to appear at the port view Ahsoka comments, "That is one big, cruiser-crusher."

Back in the hanger the lights shutting off get the troopers, Padawan and droid's attention,

Sergeant Sinker looks up towards the ceiling, "Hey, what's with the lights?"

"Power has gone out," Boost answers.

Commander Wolfe realizes, "Maybe that ship has returned. We should get up to the bridge."

As Wolfe begins to move it's Emira who speaks up, "Hold on Commander you can't in your condition."

The Medical Droid stops him from falling, "She's right you're too weak. Let me go see what is wrong."

After helping Commander Wolfe onto the ground the medical droid begins to walk towards the cockpit.

Inside the cockpit the cruiser-crusher begins to slow down and turn around.

"They're coming back," Anakin says in worried relation.

Plo asked curiously, "Are all the systems shut down?"

The Medical Droid appears from the hanger, "Is there a problem sir?"

"We forgot to shut off the medical droid," Ahsoka states the obvious.

Wordlessly the three of them rush to get the ship back online.

Anakin states frantically, "We've got to get the power back on now."

The Medical Droid offers to help with, "May I be of assistance?"

"No thanks," Anakin rejects immediately. "Just get in the back and take care of the clones."

The Medical Droid nods before walking back into the hanger, "That is my programming, sir."

Anakin continues frantically, "Come on, we've gotta get out of here."

Ahsoka responded just as frantically, "I know! I know!"

Within moments the ship is fully powered and blasting off through the debris field. While the ship begins to charge its ion cannon.

Anakin begins to stir the Twilight, "R2, program the navicomputer. Be ready to get us out of here."

Ahsoka snips back with, "You forgot, we turned him off!"

Plo goes and turns on the astromech, the droid comes back to life with his lights and a beeping sound.

Plo greets him, "Koh-to-ya, droid."

Aartoo beeps a greeting back.

"R2, program the hyperdrive," Ahsoka orders the little astromech.

R2 rolls to the socket but turns his dome around and beeps questioningly for confirmation.

Ahsoka snaps, "Anywhere, hurry!"

As Anakin flies the Twilight a massive energy signature appears to follow them.

"Master?" Ahsoka asks worriedly.

R2 beeps in reconnection that the coordinates have been set.

"We're clear," Ahsoka says in confirmation as they clear the debris field.

About an hour later on the Resolute Anakin and Commander Wolfe walk down the landing strip of the Twilight.

Commander Wolfe turns to him, "Thanks for getting us out of there in one piece General Skywalker."

"You have my padawan to thank for that," Anakin deflects the praise to his Padawan. "She always said you guys would pull through."

"General Plo said someone would come for us, we're glad he was right," Wolfe explains as they reach the bottom.

"Skywalker," Plo Koon says as he walks down the ramp. "It is time to give our report to the Council."

Anakin scoffs before walking away, "Right, the Council report..." However he turns back to his Padawan and gestures for her to follow, "Come on, Ahsoka."

Ahsoka stands in shock, "You want me there, I figured because of before?"

Anakin rolls his eyes at her, "Ahsoka… throughout it all you never gave up." That gets a smile out of Ahsoka, "You did a great job." Anakin coughs into his hand, "Besides if I'm getting in trouble for this, you're gonna share some of the blame too." He chuckles to himself, "So come on, let's go."

Anakin begins to walk away towards Plo Koon.

Ahsoka smiles before walking after her master, "Right beside you, Skyguy."

Shan(POV)

I was meditating in my quarters by staring into my starless black blade before I was called to the meeting room.

Truth be told, I believe the council is concerned about my skills so they've decided to assign me to Master Obi Wan. I've trained each and every day. I'm constantly out there drilling the sequences into my instincts from blaster deflection to combat -due to the combat droids- after hours of drills I would normally decide to meditate on one of the many roofs.

Honestly it would have been nice to get time to rest after dealing with the Hutt's mission but there was no rest for the wicked. As for my little side project, Captain Rex and Commander Cody were able to help me out with it. It's basically a stun blast to disable droids or to knock out sentient beings. They're basically the barrel of DC-15A mounted to one of the Clones' vambraces.

It's then I noticed that my saber, it has a number of unique features all of them where unintentional; for example my blade will often produces an electrical effect in response to my heightened emotional state however due to my training it's an indication that my emotions are slipping but in my opinion the most unique feature is the fact that when in lightsaber combat the blades are drawn to each other almost like magnetic pull.

Several things have happened since we were able to secure an agreement with the Hutts. Namely the first being how Master Yoda was able to secure the alliance of the Toydaria system, further improving the Republic's movements in Hutt space but there is something even more important at the moment.

Right now however we have to focus on some type of mysterious weapon that has topped out of seemingly nowhere. Something has been annihilating whole Republic fleets for weeks now and because of how many we've been losing, and the fact no one is left alive from the attacks, Republic movements have been severely limited for fear of losing anyone to the weapon. All movements have been restricted to key locations that are of the utmost importance to the war effort.

The mystery of the Separatist weapon was eventually uncovered though at the loss of three more of our cruisers. Master Plo-Koon and his Padawan Emira were sent to the Abregado system to investigate reports of the mysterious weapon before we lost contact with him shortly after.

Ahsoka was distraught at the idea of Master Plo possibly being killed and wanted nothing more than to go and investigate the Master Jedi's location. I'm not surprised how much she wanted to make sure he was alright because of her history with him. It was he after all that brought her to the Temple in the first place, in which I am grateful for him bringing me one of my closest friends to grow up and train with.

However after saving Master Plo, finding out the weapon is a massive cruiser equipped with a Ion cannon that disables ships and a ton of laser cannons and turbolasers.

3rd(POV)

Admiral Yularen speaks in front of a squad of Clone Troopers as Anakin stands slightly behind him, "This strike force has been commissioned by the Senate to hunt down the enemy's new battleship. As the bulk of our fleets are engaged on the front lines, we'll be on our own. General Skywalker has prepared our attack strategy."

As the Admiral speaks Master Plo and Padawans Ahsoka and Emira walk towards them.

"Thank you, Admiral," Anakin speaks up. "While our capital ships are vulnerable to the enemy's attack, I believe a squad of bombers can outmaneuver their ion weapons. Our target will be the bridge and General Grievous."

"The head clanker," One of the Clone Troopers leans forward and says to the brother in front of him. "Skywalker's getting pretty ambitious."

Anakin continues to give his strategy plan, "Our bombers will attack at high speed to evade the enemy's ion weapon. We'll concentrate our firepower on the bridge superstructure, here. We destroy General Grievous and the ship will fall with him. Any questions?"

One of the clones stands and says, "Just tell us where that metal head is, sir."

Another clone stands up next to him,"Yeah, we've been waiting for a chance to take him out."

The other clones begin to murmur in agreement.

"All right, men, settle down," Anakin orders gentally. "This is an important mission. We destroy Grievous, we can bring the war to a quicker end. Pilots, prepare your bombers."

Master Plo walks up to his fellow Jedi, "Skywalker, this is an aggressive plan. Are you sure your squadron can complete this mission?"

"Let's ask them," Anakin turns to his squadron. "Matchstick!" The trooper turns to his Jedi General, "You think our boys can pull it off?"

Matchstick nods confidently, "Yes, sir! There hasn't been a mission Shadow Squadron couldn't complete."

Another trooper behind him confirms in agreement, "That's right. Minimal casualties, maximum effectiveness. That's us."

Master Plo then speaks up, "I admire your confidence, pilot." He then turns back to Anakin, "Even so, minimal casualties may not be enough to prevent you from breaking Grievous' defenses."

It's then Ahsoka steps forward, "Master Plo is right. With Grievous on that ship's bridge, it's bound to be well-protected."

"From the reports Grievous isn't a foul, the bridge will be very well-protected," Emira speaks up from the other side of Master Plo.

Anakin replies then replies with, "Don't worry you two. We'll destroy that bridge, and Grievous along with it."

With that Anakin walks away confidently.

Master Plo speaks up at the shrinking form of Anakin, "Master Skywalker seems to inspire great confidence in his men."

Ahsoka chuckles, "He does lead by example."

However Emira frowns, "Yeah but is that actually a good thing?"

After a few hours of preparations the troopers had gotten the ships ready for combat. As a final inspection Anakin and Ahsoka walked back into the hangar bay.

Ahsoka begins a conversation with, "So which one's mine?"

"You're with me," Anakin replied quickly. "You'll be my gunner. Somebody's gotta watch my back."

Ahsoka scoffs, "Broadside could do that." She then gestures to R2, "Besides, you have Artoo."

R2: [Whistles in agreement.]

Anakin chuckles at the both of them, "But I so enjoy your company, my Padawan."

Ahsoka interrupts him, "Just admit it. You don't like my flying."

"Well, no," Anakin was verbally backed into a corner. "I...No, it's not that. It's just I…"

Admiral Yularen, Master Plo and his padawan Emira walk towards them.

"Skywalker," Master Plo calls out to get their attention.

As they turn to the group Admiral Yularen speaks up, "The enemy warship has attacked our convoy of medical transports near Ryndellia."

Ahsoka's eyes widened in shock and she asked, "Medical transport?" Her eyes and tone hardened, "Only General Grievous would go after clones who can't fight back."

Emira scoffs at that, "Compassion isn't exactly unknown to droids of Grievous' caliber."

"The Ryndellia system, Near Naboo," Anakin questions in realization. "Isn't that where our medical base is? I'll bet that will be his next target."

Plo then clearifies something, "There are many star clusters in that area. With a ship that big, he will be unable to chart a course that's less than 10 parsecs."

Anakin nods at this, "Looks like we're gonna have to take a shortcut." He turns to the Admiral, "Admiral, warn that station what's coming."

Admiral Yularen nods at him.

"This journey may be treacherous," Master Plo interjects as Anakin begins to climb the ladder. "If you lose any ships before you reach the target…"

Anakin interrupts with, "We won't lose anybody."

Plo determinedly steps forward, "I will come along and fly fighter escort."

Anakin stops climbing and turns back to Master Plo, "Any help is welcome, Master Plo. Just try not to fall behind."

Ahsoka begins to climb the same ladder, "I had a feeling you'd be coming along. Your ship has already been prepped."

Plo nods in acknowledgment before turning to his padawan, "Emira, I would like you to be the gunner for Commander Wolfe."

Emira nods and says, "Yes master, perhaps after this I could get a few lessons on piloting."

Plo nods at her eagerness, "We will see how the council assigns us a new assignment."

Shan(POV)

Master Kenobi enters a holocall with both Admiral Yularen and Nala Se as I watch from behind him, "Nala Se, I only just received word. I've contacted Naboo. They are sending ships to help you and I am on my way, as well."

Nala Se gives a slight nod of her head, "Thank you, Master Jedi."

The short class ends as we continue through hyperspace.

3rd(POV)

Admiral Yularen walks onto the bridge on the Ventater before turning to his bridge captain, "Launch the fighters."

The Y-wing begins to take off from the inside of the ship.

As Anakin flies with Ashoka in the gunner's seat his former master comes on the intercoms, "I hope you know what you're doing, Anakin."

Anakin smiles at that, "Well, if I don't, I won't be around to hear the 'I told you so.'"

Shan couldn't help but to chuckle at the response.

Obi-Wan rolls his eyes, "That's reassuring. Well, take your shortcut, while Shan and I take the long way. But you better be there before I arrive."

Anakin responds with, "I'll be there, Obi-Wan." After the coms cut off due to the mission starting Anakin does a roll call, "Shadow Squadron, tighten formation. Call in."

"Shadow 2, standing by."

"Shadow 3, standing by."

"Shadow 4, standing by."

Artooie beeps to Ashoka.

Ahsoka turns to him, "I know, Artooie. This is gonna be a tough one."

Anakin then cuts in, "Cut the chatter, Ahsoka."

"Shadow 11, standing by."

"Shadow 12, standing by."

Master Plo flies up in his Delta-7 and hyperspace ring, "Fighter escort ready."

Minutes later a voice comes over the coms, "This is Admiral Yularen. You are cleared for hyperspace jump. Good hunting, sir."

"Thanks, Admiral," Anakin replies before addressing the troops. "All right, boys, let's go."

"Broadside, if we make it through this one, drinks are on me," One of the troopers says.

Broadside replies with, "I can already taste it."

So after they all enter hyperspace.

After coming out of hyperspace Shadow Squadron flies towards the nebula, "Okay, if we can just manage to navigate through my shortcut, we'll be alright."

"A nebula can be very unpredictable," Master Plo says. "I advise caution."

Shadow 2 speaks up, "Don't worry about us, Master Jedi. We can hold our own. Right, Shadow Squadron?"

"Copy that, Shadow 2," Shadow 1 answers.

"Does anyone care what the Padawan thinks?" Ahsoka says in mild frustration.

"Of course we care, Snips!" Anakin says playfully, "But we're still going through that nebula"

"Pfft, Snips, that's a good one Master Skywalker," Emira says through her laughter.

At that Anakin interrus becomes pecked, "Oh and what was her nickname as a Youngling?"

"Emira please don't," Ahsoka pleaded.

Emira decides to do both, "Oh we just called her Soka."

Artooie beeps to her in sympathy.

"Thanks, Artooie," Ahsoka says thankfully.

"This soup is thick," Shadow 2 comments, "Can you see anything?"

"Just keep your eyes on my thruster, Shadow 2," Master Skywalker instructs.

"They'll have to," Ahsoka comments as she slaps the scanners. "The scanners are useless."

"This is old-fashioned flying," Master Skywalker replies. "You have to feel your way through to stay on course."

"Skywalker is right, Ahsoka," Master Plo says through the coms. "Clear your mind, young one, and you will see the path."

"Right now, I can't see anything at all," Ahsoka says.

Emira then decides to speak up, "Master Plo is right Ahsoka, allow the force to guide your actions."

Broadside comments, "I always know where I'm going."

"Yeah?" Matchstick asks. "Where's that, Broadside?"

Broadside confidently replies with, "I'm going to blow up that battleship."

"A clear path if ever there was one," Master Plo chuckles to himself.

"A very clear path," Emira comments.

After a few minutes Ahsoka asks, "So, Skyguy, how did you know about this shortcut?"

Master Skywalker replies with, "It's an old smuggler's route. The pilots used to talk about it on Tatooine."

"Smuggler's route?" Ahsoka asks in shock. "Ha! That makes me feel better!"

Anakin then comments, "They call it the Balmorra Run."

"Balmorra Run?" Plo asks in shock.

"Wait seriously," Emira asks in just as much shock.

One of the sensors caughts Ahsoka's attention, "I think I'm picking up contact."

"Yeah I'm picking up one as well," Emira comments as well.

"Skywalker!" Plo quickly tries to explain, "Listen to me! We need to turn around!"

Anakin replies with, "We can't. Not if we're gonna catch Grievous."

"Another contact!" Ahsoka says as another contact appears, "This one's much larger."

"Skywalker!" Plo interjects with, "Balmorra is the nesting ground of the giant Neebray mantas!"

"Neebray mantas!" Emira says in shock, "That's not good!"

"Another?" Ahsoka continues to address, "Another!

"Take evasive action!" Anakin orders.

Artooie beeps in concern however it turns into a screaming beep as the Neebray mantas come into view. The Neebray mantas are space fairing mammal-like creatures, they have large fin-like wings, two vertical fins towards the back and three eyes split on the sides of their head.

Ahsoka gasps at them, "Those gas-gulpers are huge!"

Master Plo quickly informs the squadron, "Don't shoot, or they'll panic!"

"They'll panic?" Ahsoka says in a near panic, "I'm about to panic!"

"Everyone please calm down!" Emira shouts through the coms and a silence comes over everyone, "These gentle giants won't go into a protective frenzy as long they don't think they're endangered, so please refrain from firing your weapons."

"Very well put, General," Commander Wolfe says.

Emira breathes, "Thank Commander."

Broadside grumbles to himself, "You gotta be kidding me there are so many of them!"

From the corner of Emira's eyes she watches as Matchstick's Y-wing clips one of the Neebray, "I'm hit! My stabilizer is out!"

"Pull it together, Matchstick!" Anakin says in resolution.

"I'm okay. I got it," Matchstick says as regains control of his Y-wing.

"Emira," Ahsoka calls out through coms. "Are you sure these things are gentle giants, they look like they're gonna make a meal out of us!"

Emira scoffs at that, "Of course I am Ahsoka, it's their natural predator the Zilla that you have to watch out for."

"They have a predator," Matchstick yelled from his cockpit.

"Oh yeah it's completely terrifying," Emira begins to go on. "But only very been the report of the single one and the large scar over its eye-"

"Emira you're rambling again," Ahsoka cuts her off before turning to her master. "Master, I think the squadron should form up behind us."

"Huh that's actually a good idea Ahsoka," Anakin says to his Padawan. "All wings, line up behind me!"

"Roger that, boss," Broadside said as the rest of Shadow Squadron formed up behind Anakin's Y-wing.

"We should hurry!" Master Plo exclaims, "They will not follow us beyond the nebula."

As they begin to follow Master Skywalker.

As they travel over another Neebray they come face to face with another one.

"That one looks hungry," Ahsoka says as we begin to pass by a practical large one.

Anakin chuckles to himself, "Nah, it's just smiling at you."

"And what a beautiful smile it is," Emira says breathlessly.

She and Anakin began to laugh with each other.

Around five minutes later Shadow Squadron and its Jedi escort were making their way out of the nebula.

"We're coming out of it!" Ahsoka informed the squadron, "Let's hope your shortcut pays off."

"We're not far behind Grievous now," Anakin also informs.

Shan(POV)

As we trail through hyperspace going towards the Ryndellia system, Master Kenobi and I stand on the bridge. Admiral Yularen turns his body to us.

"The medical station reports 50% of patients evacuated," Admiral Yularen informs us.

Master Kenobi frowns at that, "That's not good enough."

I couldn't help but frown at that as well, "Their window to escape is shortening, let's hope we can make it in time."

Master Kenobi nods at this and says, "Yes let's hope indeed."

Admiral Yularen then says, "Well at this rate we'll never be finished before the enemy arrives. General Skywalker still has a chance to catch Grievous."

Obi-Wan nods at this as well and says, "If he does, we have to be ready."

Admiral Yularen is the one to nod this time, "Yes, sir."

3rd(POV)

A Shadow Squadron flies towards the Medical Station Master Plo notices something, "Shadow 2, what is the damage to your ship?"

Emira looks out the view port to see the truth, there's a trail of smoke coming from the left wing engine.

"Just a scratch, sir," Broadside tries to blow it off.

Plo tries to inform the trooper, "We must not take any more unnecessary risks. If we lose even a single ship, our mission is that much closer to failure."

"Understood, Master Plo," Anakin says before coming to a conclusion. "But we didn't lose any ships, and I didn't-"

"Sir, another contact!" Matchstick suddenly interjects.

"Emira, I thought you said those things wouldn't follow us," Ahsoka suddenly says in mild fear.

However it's Matchstick who says, "Not following, coming out of hyperspace. It's a ship, it's the Malevolence."

True to his words the Malevolence exits out of hyperspace with a boom. Immediately Shadow Squadron started their attack. However the Malevolence begins to deploy Vulture Droids.

"We've got fighters coming in!" Ahsoka says as the Vulture Droids begin to fire at them.

"Hold it steady," Anakin orders as he swerves slightly out of the way of a blaster. "Come on, hold it steady. Get those fighters off of us!" He says to his Padawan.

"Your fancy flying is making it difficult!" Ahsoka says as she fails to shoot a Vulture Droid, it's then she notices the Malevolence firing its ion blast, "Incoming!"

"Make towards the edge of the ray now!" Anakin orders as he directs his Y-wing up to scale the ion ray.

As the rest of the squadron follows suit Anakin orders, "Give it everything you've got."

As they trail up the ray Ahsoka notices something, "Shadow 2, your speed is dropping. What's wrong?"

"Nothing, sir," Matchstick says in response. "Just trying to keep it together."

Anakin then questions, "You can make it, Matchstick."

"Hang on!" Matchstick says before his left engine explodes taking the rest of the Y-wing.

The debris falls into Shadow 12 otherwise known as Tag, "Watch out!"

As the Anakin and Ahsoka round the ray three others unfortunately don't make it.

Anakin looks down in grife, "Shadow Squadron, check in."

Ahsoka is the one who reads out the list mournfully, "We lost Matchstick and Tag."

"Shadows 6, 7 and 10 were caught in the ray," Emira says afterwards just as mournfully.

Unusually there's a moment of silence in the battle field before wordlessly they all fire their engines.

"Stay on course," Plo orders as more Vulture Droids begin to fire at them.

"This flak is heavy!" Broadstick says as he is narrowly hit.

Sensing the near death and getting into range of the turbo tower Anakin orders, "All deflectors, double front!"

As the lazer flake comes in a little too close for her comfort Ahsoka says, "Master, we need a new plan!"

"We can make it Ahsoka just hang in there." Anakin says before swerving out of the way of some more braster fire, "Watch those towers, boys!

Broadstick continues to swerve out of the way but it's clear that he's having trouble, "We're too close! Loosen up!"

"Master, you can make it, but everyone else is getting shot down!" Ahsoka yells as she continues to try to keep them safe, "Master!"

Plo shoots down another Vulture Droid before offering another solution, "If we can do enough damage, the weapon may overload when Grievous tries to fire."

Anakin takes a few split seconds before ordering, "Shadow Squadron, new target. We're taking out the starboard ion cannon."

Shadow Squadron redirect themselves towards the ion cannon.

As they maneuver through the support beams Anakin orders, "Torpedoes away!"

The torpedoes soar through the void of space before exploding upon contact on the main electrical component of the cannon. The explosions echo through the Malevolence and erupt out the other end.

As Shadow Squadron flies away from the exploding ship Plo Koon says, "Good work, Shadow Squadron!"

Anakin glances back at his Padawan, "Nice job, Ahsoka!"

Ahsoka smiles at the praise.

Three Republic warships entered the system with individual booms. Immediately after entering the system Anakin begins to be hailed by the Negotiator.

Obi-Wan's voice enters the ships coms, "Anakin, do you copy?"

"I'm here," Anakin answers with an almost tired sigh.

"Congratulations." Obi-wan congratulates his former Padawan, "It looks like your mission was a success."

"Partially, but Grievous is still alive." Anakin says gloomy before addressing an issue with his men, "The battle was pretty rough on my men. We're heading for the medical station."

Obi-Wan nods at this, "We'll take it from here. But don't worry, we'll call when we need you."

Anakin nods as well before redirecting his ship towards the medical station, "I'll be waiting, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan gives one final nod before addressing his men, "All right, let's finish what Anakin started. Ahead full."

With that the three Ventures open fire on the Malevolence.

Meanwhile in the medical center.

Plo Koon and Emira walk up to the young Jedi Knight, "Great job, Master Skywalker. Your leadership skills are most impressive."

Anakin smiles back at his elder, "You didn't do so bad yourself."

Ahsoka couches into her hand, "Uh, excuse me, I believe it was my suggestion to change the plan."

"And lets not forget about the time I kept everyone calm while going through the Balmorra Run," Emira

Anakin pauses for a moment before saying, "That is technically true."

"From a certain point of view," Master Plo seems to agree.

Anakin then turns to a passing trooper, "Make sure our ships are ready. We'll only have a short time before Obi-Wan calls us for support."

The trooper nods with a salute, "Yes, sir."

Minutes later Anakin enters the command deck of the medical center with Ahsoka following closely behind him.

Nala Se gives a slight nod of her head before addressing the Jedi General, "General Skywalker, I wanted to thank you for your valiant effort today. Do not take the lives you saved lightly."

Anakin frowns at that before looking down, "I don't." It was clear that the few deaths of Shadow Squadron still weighed heavily on his conscience, "But I also can't take the lives I lost lightly."

Nala Se blinks slowly for she was still unaccustomed to the Jedi's treatment of the clones, "I see."

Anakin straightens up and says, "If you will excuse me, I must prepare for the coming battle."

Anakin walks out and Nala Se comments to the Young Padawan, "Your master is a very curious Jedi."

Ahsoka glances back at her, "He is one of a kind."

Shan(POV)

After a successful bombing run by Master Skywalker, Master Plo, Emira and Ahsoka along with Shadow Squadron, the cruiser has been severely crippled and is on the run from our cruisers.

My master and I stand on the bridge as our ships move ahead full speed and every single one of the turbolasers that has a view range of the Malevolence open fire across all three of our cruisers. The secret medical facility we had in this sector is already well out of range from the retreating worship so all we need to focus on right now is annihilating that monstrosity, and hopefully the droid General along with it.

"After how many defenseless ships General Grievous has destroyed, it's nice to see him and that ship defenseless and on the run for a change," I comment as our guns continue to not let up.

"That may be so but we still have to destroy it. Commander, what is the damage level to the enemy ship?" My master asks the clone commander a lower level below us.

"She's lost a primary shield and stabilizers. But the ship is so massive, it can take all the fire our cannons can give it," The clone commander of the ship informs us.

The thing is massive compared to ours so it's going to take a little while to properly take it down but without its Ion cannon, the ship is basically done for essentially.

"We may need some backup to finish it off," I comment

"That's why we're here."

At the new but familiar voice, we turn around to see the Jedi members of the strike force coming up to us. At their sight BD begins to bounce happily on my shoulder, while beeping excitedly.

"Anakin, good to see you back in one piece," My Master says.

"Always Master," Master Skywalker replies to my master as I walk up to Ahsoka and Master Plo.

"Khotoyah, Master Plo, Emira, Ahsoka," I greet the three of them in the Kel Dor's language. 'I'm glad Ahsoka's been teaching me some of the language.'

BD greets happily: Ahsoka it's good to see you again.

"Khotoyah, Shan. I see you're getting better in learning my people's language," Master Plo replies and compliments me.

"It's good to see you too BD," Ahsoka greets just as happily.

"So this is the infamous BD unit you've been hanging around with," Emira says with a quizzical eye.

I smile at that before gesturing them forward, "Some here and there. The greeting I've gotten down on point but I still have a long way to go before I can even think of holding a conversation."

"Don't worry, I'll get you there eventually," Ahsoka says as she places a hand on my shoulder.

Emira then walks past me, "Trust me Shan practice does make perfect and you'll get it eventually."

"Thanks," I reply as we all are now at the window.

"Anakin, were you able to contact Master Luminara?" My master asks him.

"Yes, Master. She's busy with a fleet of separatist reinforcements nearby. She won't be able to give us support until she's turned them away."

"Then we'll have to make due with what we have," With that sentiment from my master, all the ships in our fleet continue to rain laser shots on that behemoth. "Admiral, status report."

"They're not attempting to jump to hyperspace," Admiral Yularen, which I think is cool that he's not a clone, informs us. "Their hyperdrive must be damaged," He surmises.

"This is our chance. All ships, target the bridge, maximum firepower," My master orders and everyone does so.

Ahsoka, Emira and I move forward to examine the control readings we have of the entire battle asway for us to do at least something useful while we stand here. I continue to have a grinning smile in slight satisfaction as this monstrosity that has been hounding the Republic is completely defenseless and at our mercy.

"We're almost there. Just a little more," I comment until I hear something from Ahsoka's side of the console.

"Huh? What the- Shan, Emira, check this out," Ahsoka calls me over in confusion. "What does this look like to you?"

Leaning in close to the screen, I see what's got her confused, a new signal suddenly popped up near the enemy ship, "Is that a ship signal?"

"It is. Master, we're picking up a signal vessel. A single vessel is coming out of hyperspace," Emira informs everyone out loud.

"Enemy reinforcements?" Master Skywalker guesses but it's wrong as a closer look I see what exactly the signal is.

"No. It looks like…" Ahsoka trails off as she looks at me.

'This… can't be right.' I shake my head in disbelief before looking back at everyone, "The ship… it's got a Naboo transponder."

"Gunners, stand down. What in blazes are they doing out here?"

"You two, contact that ship," Master Skywalker orders us to do it and we do it.

I key in the comm while Ahsoka speaks to whoever is piloting said ship.

"Naboo cruiser, identify yourself."

"This is senator Amidala."

"Padme? What are you doing out here?" Master Skywalker quickly and worriedly asks the senator.

"I was sent on a special mission. The senate was told the banking clan wanted to negotiate a treaty," She tells us as her form comes in the way of the holotransmitter.

"Get out of there as fast as you can!" Before she can even think to do what Master Skywalker requests, the senator's transmission form begins to cut out as something happens, "Padme, what's happening?"

A quick look at the readings shows her ship drifting dangerously close to the enemy.

"I'm being pulled inside the droid cruiser by a tractor beam. I will not be made a separatist bargaining chip. Continue your attack. You must destroy this monstrous ship!" She says and almost orders us with firm conviction, willing to sacrifice herself to make sure that thing is taken down before her transmission cuts off entirely.

'I'm not one who wants to sacrifice innocent lives to destroy the enemy, but if that thing gets away, way more lives are going to be taken,' Logically, sacrificing the senator's life to destroy that thing along with General Grievous is a fair price. What's right, it's not.

Thankfully I don't have to make the call as I look at Master Skywalker who seems to struggle really hard and mentally debating whether to continue or stop the assault, "Admiral, order our ships to stop firing."

While in the long run, it may not be logical, but it's a good thing to do. The Admiral signals for everyone of our ships to stop firing and after a few seconds of firing, eventually our cannons all halt but we continue to follow. As soon as we do, Master Skywalker turns around and begins leaving.

"Where do you think you're going?" My master asks a departing Skywalker.

"Somebody has to save her skin," Master Skywalker simply replies without stopping.

"I thought you might say that," My master tiredly says as he follows too, leaving the rest of us here on the bridge.

"There he goes again, craving adventure and excitement," Master Plo comments on the somewhat brash Jedi Master of Ahsoka's.

"You get used to it," Ahsoka simply says as we watch both of them go.

I let out a sigh before someone tapped my shoulder, "You better go with them."

"What, you think so?" I ask and look at Emira.

"Come on," Emira says, getting my attention. "We've already went on a dangerous bombing mission. Now it's time for you to go on a dangerous rescue mission," She tells me as she jabs a finger to my chest.

I stare at her for a second before I glance at Master Plo, who cups his chin in thought, before I smile back at Emira and Ahsoka.

"You know, that's true," I began walking towards the door backwards. "They can use the help. I'll see you both once this whole mess is over, let's go BD." I wave a quick bye to them before turning around and sprinting down the hallways after the Jedi Masters with BD still on shoulder.

3rd(POV)

"Do you think it's wise for him to join them on this mission?" Plo-Koon asks Ahsoka and Emira once Shan is gone.

"He survived Ventress and an army of droids so I think a small rescue mission with both his and my Master he can make due," She explains before turning fully to the Master Jedi.

Master Plo says to himself, "Hmmm."

Emira smiles at her master, "I'm sure he'll be fine, Master."

Shan(POV)

I run out the elevator and immediately look around the hanger to try to find my Master and Skywalker. While I don't see them personally, I do see Master Skywalkers junker ship, the Twilight as he mentioned it's to be called, engines turn on. It's pretty much the only ship that we have on standby that can be used for this slight stealth mission so I book it to the ship. As soon as I run up the loading ramp, it closes behind me.

"Uh-oh. Better quickly ask him." I move through the ship until I find the door heading into the bridge, "Master!" I say just as the door opens and my Master looks back at me with wide-eyes, "Request permission to— Whoa!" Suddenly I am thrown to the ground behind me as the ship takes off and lurches forward, I groan as I get up from the ground and move into the doorway again. "To… join… the mission," I sheepishly ask.

"Shan, what are you doing here?!" My master asked in surprise at my presence.

"I believe he asked to join our mission, Master. Oh well, we're already out of the cruiser. Guess he's joining us," Master Skywalker says nonchalantly as he pilots us out the cruiser.

"Anakin, I did not agree to bring him along. What are you even doing here?" My master asks the question to me.

"I wanted to ask you if I could join you but I just barely caught you in this ship when the ramp closed behind me and lifted up," I say.

"Lighten up, Master. This'll be the perfect chance for him to get some more experience in the field," Master Skywalker proposes but my master isn't as convinced.

"Master, I don't even need to fight Grievous, I can hang back with Master Skywalker and secure the Senator," I try to reason.

"He does have a point Master, I mean, remember back to Geonosis?" Master Skywalker says, causing my master to roll his eyes and lean back in his seat.

"Oh don't bring that up."

"Wait, wasn't that when you two plus the senator were captured and forced to fight in an arena?" I ask them, causing them to both turn and look at me with questioning looks, "I do my research on who my Master is going to be. Plus the whole thing was pretty well-known."

"Yes, well, that's true," My master replies before he gets a sly smile on his face and turns to his former student. "In fact, how is it that you had lost your lightsaber, Anakin?"

Master Skywalker gets a nervous look on his face as he remembers something that I don't think he wants brought up, "O-oh… well I don't think your Padawan needs to know about—"

"He let it get cut in half on a conveyor belt."

"My arm was stuck!"

"And let's not forget before that when you dropped after landing on that assassin's speeder."

"W-well, yeah but I did manage to find her!"

'I feel like a third wheel here,' I can't help but think as they talk back and forth with each other.

My view switches between the two of them as they continue to speak and recount past events and trying to reason why they happened though. Looking forward, I get nervous as I watch us drifting dangerously close to the Malevolence.

"Uhh, Masters?" I say worriedly.

"Come now Anakin—"

"Master please don't—"

"Watch it!" I yell out and grab the controls over Master Skywalker's hands and jerk the ship to the side, away from the deadly ship we are trying to stealthily land on and not trying to let them know we are coming.

They immediately stop talking as the ship jerks to the side and Master Skywalker is able to regain control and focuses on flying again.

Both masters are gripping their seats a little tightly after the sudden jerking motion.

"Thank you Shan," Master Skywalker thanked me once he got the ship under control.

"No problem."

"Let's be careful from now on. If they spot us, we'll be pulverized," My master advises since we almost crashed into the behemoth.

"They're too busy repairing the ship. They don't have time to notice us," Master Skywalker is pretty confident in that ideal and while I like it, hopefully the enemy shares the same thoughts, or programming in some cases.

"Subtlety has never been one of your strong points, Anakin."

"Everything I know I learned from you, Master."

"Is that something I should expect in my training?"

"Yes."

"No." Master Skywalker agrees with my question but at the same time my master, my teacher, doesn't.

They both look at each other before shaking their heads and going back to getting us to that ship. Soon enough, thanks to Master Skywalker's focused flying, we eventually come to the emergency hatch of the ship and dock on it.

"Anakin, you're crazy. Spinning is not flying," My master comments about his flying as we ride the elevator up to the entrance into the ship.

"But it's a good trick."

"We do not want to be spotted," Just as my master says that, the door opens and there are two B1 droids there who are very surprised to see us.

"WOAH!" BD exclaimed with raised antennas.

"I knew it! It's them!"

"Ohhh, no."

ZEW ZEW

Both droids lose their heads as two blaster bolts take their heads off. Both Masters turn back to see me with my arm out and with my modified DC-17 blaster barrel pointed out.

I holster it soon after and nod forward, "We're clear."

"Nice one," Master Skywalker compliments me before we walk forward into the enemy ship. "You stay here, R2," He quickly commands the astromech droid to do while we continue on ahead, I keep my hand on my blaster in case we suddenly run into trouble in these hallways but we are forced to stop when Master Skywalker gets a call on his communicator. "Yes?"

"Master, we've found the senator. I'm patching her through," Ahsoka calls in before she gets cut off.

"Padme?" Master Skywalker asks before he is answered to his slight relief.

"Anakin!"

"Are you alright? Where are you?" He asks, concerned.

"On the lower levels. I'm fine, but I don't know for how long. Droids are everywhere."

"Obi-Wan, his Padawan and I are on board too."

"What?! What are you doing here?" She asks loudly and very surprised.

Supposedly I guess she was expecting the fleet to have continued opening fire on the Malevolence but we didn't, definitely not with her on-board.

"We came to get you off this ship. Ahsoka, how can we get to the senator?" Master Skywalker asks his Padawan.

"According to our scans, there seems to be a larger open area in the center of the ship. It should be halfway between the two of you."

"Open area? Wonder what that is," I ask as I look at my master, who shrugs in return.

"We're on our way. Did you hear that, Padme?"

"I'll be there," With the connection cut off, we know our destination and make our way to where we need to go.

A few twists and turns, running down long hallways but eventually we make it to what the open area is. Once we see it, my eyes widen and see just what it is.

"Oh Force, this thing has its own rail transit system!" I exclaim loudly in surprise.

Easily this thing is bigger than any other ship in the entire Republic fleet but I had no idea that it had to employ a literal transit train system to all sections of the ship as each train carries supplies and materials to no doubt keep this thing in working order. In several places and sections of the open train area I see many rails destroyed and broken with a few trains destroyed here and there. The trains are working overtime to keep this thing functioning considering its been hit pretty hard thanks to Master Skywalker and Shadow Squadrons crippling attack on the Ion cannon. This whole thing is a feat of engineering, from the Ion weapon capable of disabling any cruiser ship in one hit, to the size, train system, and to top it all off the hundreds upon hundreds of turbolasers that can put down more firepower than any other ship is something to behold, and fear. As much as I would love to examine it, check it out and so on, I'm feeling much more satisfaction for this monstrosity to be nothing more than a lifeless floating husk of its former self from all the clone lives it took since it first sprung up.

"Wow. Never seen this before on a ship," Master Skywalker comments as well on the engineering.

If I remember correctly, I believe he was regarded by pretty much everyone as being one of the best pilots in the Republic Army and Jedi Order so I shouldn't be surprised he has a fascination with ships as well.

"Yes, though impressive, we're still going to destroy it once we get the senator off of it. Speaking of, I don't see her, Anakin," My master states, focusing on the matter at hand.

'Fawn over the weapons later, save the hostage now.'

"She's here, master. I sense it," Without any indication to find the senator, we are forced to simply wait and watch for any signs of her. "There!"

Not even a minute passes before we spot and hear several blaster bolts go off from a level below our own. We see the senator and her protocol droid run from the droids while she fires back.

"Let's go, Shan," My master says as we ignite our lightsabers and jump forward.

I too jump and run just behind them until we all land on a moving cargo train heading for the senator.

While we rode the cargo train to our objective, a trio of B1 droids came to the open area on patrol and immediately spotted us riding the train that's passing their position.

"Look, Jedi," One droid says as they spot the three of us moving on the train.

"Fire!" The second one orders.

"No, wait," The third tries to stop them but it's too late.

Its friends could only fire once and it's enough for my Masters to deflect the shots right back at the droids.

"I knew that was a bad idea," The surviving droid moans after seeing the others taken down so quickly and easily by their own shots.

When it turns back to the Jedi on the train, he spots the younger Jedi aiming his arm mounted blaster at him and just as he expects to be taken offline but he lowers the weapon and turns around as they leave well out of range.

The droid has no idea how lucky he was.

"Why didn't you shoot?" Master Skywalker asks.

"He was just one droid. Not much reason for me to shoot him you know," I answer.

"Quite right," My master agrees.

"Besides, we have bigger things to worry about," My master says as he points to the senator and her droid down below.

They both jump off and land on another cargo train but the gold droid bounces off it and lands on another one further down.

"Padme!" Master Skywalker yells and jumps far onto a lower moving train to get to the senator.

Next what happens further complicates things as a B2 battle droid launches a plasma blast further down the tracks the senator is on, destroying the rail tracks completely.

"That's not good," I mutter and get ready to go down to help but my master grabs my shoulder to stop me.

"Patience, young one. You'll see Anakin is versed in… adapting to certain situations," My master comments and informs me. With his arm still on me, we watch as the senator jumps to Master Skywalker but before she can fall to her death, he uses the force to carry her to him safely, "See."

"Oh, nice. You were right, Master."

"He may be bold but he is resourceful," He comments about his old student before calling out to them. "Nice catch! I'll fetch the droid!" He yells to them before turning to me, "Go with them."

"Are you sure Master?" I ask curiously.

"The Senator was the main reason for us being here. Couldn't hurt to give them some backup while I grab the droid."

'I can't really fault the idea,' I nod at the reasoning. "You got it Master. I'll see you back at the ship!" I say to him just as I jump off the train and bounce to the lower levels.

"Be careful!" My master calls out as I descend.

I jump off of lower rails and other trains until just before the train Master Skywalker and the senator are passing through a tunnel, I land on the last car and roll into a crouch. BD jumped off of my back and with his lighter weight he fell slower. As I stand BD lands back on my back with the help of his thrusters.

"Oof! Gotta work on the landing," I mutter and begin making my way to the other passengers.

"Anakin, I got separated from your droid," My master's voice comes on over our communicators as I continue to carefully jump up and over many boxes and between cars.

Seeing as how the train is going at high speed, the wind resistance is kind of against me so I have to be careful, lest I be thrown off or hit something.

"Ugh, I'll take care of it."

"I've sent Shan down to help you get the Senator out of here."

"What?! C'mon, Master! I don't need any help."

"Sorry, Master Skywalker!" I shout as I jump off a car and land on the one he and the senator are on, in which they are really close together for some reason, gonna chalk it up to her being grateful. They look at me as I walk up to them, "Kind of too late for me to go back now."

"Uhh, fine." He mutters before keying in his comm again, "We'll meet you back at the Twilight then."

"No, we can't leave yet," The senator suddenly speaks up. "I overheard Grievous. Their hyperdrive is almost repaired," She gives us some grave news.

Overtime we can whittle the ship until it's destroyed but if the hyperdrive is repaired, then the Malevolence can escape, get repaired and eventually terrorize Republic space again.

"I'm already headed in that direction, so I'll make certain that the hyperdrive stays offline," My master informs us on our comlinks.

"Roger that, Master. We're getting you out of here," He tells the senator before calling someone else. "R2, I need you to help me find 3PO. He's on the rail jet," He calls and informs R2. "I know. I know. He does. Look, just find him for me, and I'll be there soon," He turns back to us. "Alright, the train should be stopping soon. When we stop, we get off and should be able to work our way to 3P0," Master Skywalker says and once he finishes talking, the trains do come to a stop. "Alright, let's get going."

"Right behind you," The senator and I follow Master Skywalker as we hopefully try to find the droid.

3rd(POV)

On the bridge of the Negotiator, Obi-wan Kenobi's prime Jedi cruiser in the Republic army, follows the Malevolence at a steady pace and while they could easily fire upon it, not while their fellow Jedi and allies are still aboard the vessel.

Jedi Master Plo Koon continues to monitor the ship with Admiral Yularen nearby and Padawans Emira Tang and Ahsoka Tano impatiently waiting, the latter of which is tapping her fingers on the console is anything to go by, while the former nervously twirls of her hair around her finger.

Master Plo sees the younglings' impatience for waiting from the tapping, fiddling and the scowls on their faces, "Patience, young ones they will return soon enough."

Emira finally notices her finger and hair before coughing into the same hair and apologizing to her master, "I apologize Master."

"Sorry, Master Plo," She apologizes and straightens up and crosses her arms. "I just don't like standing here doing nothing. If the senator wasn't captured, it'd at least be a nice show to see that thing finally be destroyed but instead, we can only stand here and hope that everyone makes it out okay," She voices her concern on the whole matter.

"Unfortunately I have to agree, with Master Skywalker's unpredictable alongside Shan's, I fear they'll do something even crazier," Emira confesses her worries.

While before they were alright with the idea that their friend Shan would join the masters in a rescue mission on that giant ship, now that he's already on the enemy flaming warship do they feel concern for their safety.

"Yes, while it may be infuriating to be here and not able to do anything to help out our comrades, you must have patience and trust that they will be able to accomplish the mission and return to us safely and without harm," The Kel Dor Jedi advises what they have to do.

It may not be the most glamorous of things to do but it's the best they can do right now.

Ahsoka and Emira look to each other and then their master and/or old friend for a little while before sighing and staring back at the Malevolence, "I hope your right Master Plo."

"Even though General Skywalker may sometimes be a bit… brash in his actions. He almost always comes out on top of the situation," Admiral Yularen adds his own opinion on the matter, gaining the Jedi's attention. "And with General Kenobi and General Vizsla there to lend aid, we should expect them back no worse for wear. When they'll be back though… depends on how big of an escape Skywalker wants to make."

The three Jedi don't really fault the thinking as they turn back to the view windows, all the while, Emira has a small smile on her face, 'Shan's resourceful too. I'm sure he'll be fine.'

Shan(POV)

"MOVE! MOVE! MOVE! I'll cover you!" I yell loudly before I lay down covering firing for Master Skywalker and the senator as we run from the squad of droids that found us.

As soon as both of them run past me, Master Skywalker and I deflect blaster shots back at the droids, the senator stops at the corner and fires a few shots at our enemies, allowing me to move and shoot across the hallway to my friends. As soon as we turn the corner and move down another hallway, Master Skywalker and the senator move behind some cover on the right side of the hallway while I take the opposite side of them.

The senator and I pop out of our covers every so often to take down as many of the droids as we can while Master Skywalker calls my master.

I still use both my arm blasters while the senator uses her Naboo blaster pistol, "Obi-Wan? Come in, Obi-Wan."

"Anakin, I'm afraid Grievous is onto us," My master replies.

"Yeah, we noticed," He states the obvious.

"Kind of busy here Master!" I too yell into the commlink quickly before I pop out and nail a B1's head off before blocking another blaster bolt before finally going back in.

"We'll rendezvous back at the Twilight. The fleet must engage the-ZZt!" Before my master can't finish talking, his voice cuts off.

"Master? Master!" I tried to call him but the transmission was indeed cut.

BD tries to reconnect but no luck.

"Obi-Wan? Come in. Obi-Wan!"

"What's wrong?!" The senator asks.

"They're jamming us," He tells us what they're most likely doing.

I go to shoot again but the remaining B2 droids are getting really close now and I'm forced to start slicing and dicing.

I deactivated my lightsaber as Master Skywalker says, "That was great Shan, that should buy us some time."

"I suppose you have a plan," The senator surmises as we walk out of cover.

"Follow me," Without any indication of giving us any details, we simply follow him.

When we go back the way we were going the way before, I can't help but keep glancing my way to the senator. More specifically, the blaster she's been using.

"Anakin, the Padawan keeps staring at me," As soon as she says that, I realize I was staring at her much longer than I intended.

"Shan, quit checking out the senator," My eyes widened and I blanked at the insinuation before shaking my head no as well as my hands.

"N-no! No no no no! That's not what I was staring at it was—" I stop my yelling before I take a deep breath before staring directly at the senator and pointing at her hand, "Senator, is that an ELG-3A Naboo blaster pistol?"

"Oh, yeah. I should have known," I hear Master Skywalker but I ignore him in favor of hearing the senators answer.

She actually looks at me a little surprised before holding up the weapon for a clearer.

"Actually yes, it is. How did you know?" She asks curiously.

"Out of all the Padawans Obi-wan could have gotten, he got the one that has a passion for weapons," Master Skywalker proceeds to comment about me first.

"Oh, I guess that explains why he has a blaster on his arm."

"Hmm," I chuckle at how I made them.

"Just me that's by choice Pad- Uh Senator."

"… Oh," The senator seems to somewhat get what Master Skywalker means, before she stops talking.

Once I bring myself out of my funk after a few seconds do I turn to her again, "Senator, could I see your weapon for a second?"

"Now?" She asks in a little surprise, no doubt because we are in the middle of an enemy battleship so she doesn't want to be defenseless when we run into more enemies.

"Don't worry, we're clear for now. Besides, he won't stop looking at your weapon until he has a chance to look at it with his own two hands," Thankfully Master Skywalker backs me somewhat.

She looked hesitant at the weapon before handing it towards me with the handle. I holster my lightsaber and take the weapon in both hands, carefully examining it. BD also takes the liberty to scan the blaster.

"Thank you so much," I get a feel for the weapon as I feel its grip with one hand and rolling it around. "Wow. So small yet powerful. The barrel itself looks like it could easily snap off but it won't. Light too," I begin to comment about the weapon for the first time I've held one.

"I've never seen a Jedi so amazed by blasters before."

"Join the club. Even the clones are surprised."

"The clones? Why would they be—"

"Intruders! Bla—"

PEW PEW PEW

As soon as we pass into an intersection, we come across a small patrol of four B1 droids. Before they can start blasting us, or even finish the sentence, I fire three precise shots in rapid succession right at them, nailing three of them in the head before they fall over on the fourth one behind them. Master Skywalker didn't even have a chance to turn on his lightsaber before the droids fell to the ground offline.

Both he and the senator stare at me in surprise at my accuracy and quick response to the enemy patrol that almost got the jump on us, "That's the thing you two. Most people, especially the Jedi, see blasters as being clumsy, easy to use where anyone can use them with barely any training. I don't see it as that." I casually begin to say as I slowly walk up to the droids on the floor, "While there is some truth to that, it takes skill and finesse to truly be the deadliest person with a blaster against all kinds of opponents."

I stop in front of the fourth droid covered by one of its friends. It tries to move the bodies but I slowly move the senator's blaster over its head and fire.

PEW

Just like its friends, it falls offline without any other problem, "In fact, I believe the bounty hunter Jango Fett was able to kill some Jedi with his blasters." I mention that little bit as I walk back over to the senator.

That was something that got my interest when I was looking up the various blaster weapons, vehicles and artillery. The Jedi, or any force wielder with a lightsaber really, have been known far and wide for their ability to be quick enough to deflect blaster bolts but it's pretty much the first time I've heard of a non-force user capable of shooting a Jedi dead.

"That goes to show that even the famed blaster deflecting lightsaber wielders can be killed with a blaster, one-on-one."

'Droids don't count, or multiple people taking on one Jedi,' I think as I aim the blaster at the senator for a second before I twirl her blaster in my hand until the grip is facing her.

She stares at me with wide eyes before taking her weapon back. I turn to Master Skywalker and see him staring at me with a smirk and crossed arms.

I nod and pull out my lightsaber, "Let's keep moving. This ship isn't going to destroy itself."

"On that you are right," He agrees and goes back to leading us to where we need to go.

Several minutes pass as we continue to move in silence to where we're going until we eventually find ourselves in an elevator. The elevator is a little cramped but we manage nonetheless. Master Skywalker still hasn't told us where we're going but as soon as the door opens, find out.

"-The good news- uhh…" Whatever the droid was going to say, it peters off as he spots us.

Master Skywalker runs in, lightsaber on as he begins cutting down the pilot droids here on the bridge. What he doesn't see is the two B2 droids moving in from behind him.

"Anakin!"

"Master watch out!" As soon as the senator and I call out, one of the droids turns to us.

I quickly aim my arm blaster and fire, however they begin to stumble and short circuit. I then rush forward and begin to disassemble them. The droids go down hard, dead.

"Ever since I've known you, you've been playing with droids," The senator comments to the older Jedi.

"I used to put them together. Now I only take them apart."

"Nothing wrong with that," I comment as well.

"So where do we start?" The senator asks once we see that we have cleared the bridge of the enemy

"First we need to get rid of these droids so they won't know we were here. I'm gonna hotwire the ship, give Grievous a little surprise," He quickly gives us a summary of what he has planned as he sits down on one of the pilot seats and begins fiddling with it.

"I guess I'll clean up the droids then," The senator figures out that she has to do the menial task of clearing the droid bodies.

"Ehhh, don't worry senator. I got you," I offer my help to her since that's really all the only other thing I can do right now. "BD help out Master Skywalker."

BD beeps happily before running over to the console and plugs in.

"Thanks… Shan, was it?" She asks my name and I nod.

"Yes, correct. Padme, right?"

"That's right."

"Nice to meet you ma'am."

"Likewise," We exchange handshakes and pleasantries while we have the chance before we start working gathering the scrap metal.

Thankfully there are about a half dozen droid bodies here for us to gather so the B1's are light enough for us to move individually but we need to work together to move the B2's without much effort. Soon enough that's what we're doing as we both lean down to pick up one of the big droids.

"So senator, you and Master Skywalker seem close. Do you two have a bit of history with each other?" I ask, wanting to strike up conversation and solve my own curiosity.

SLAM

"Ow!" I wish I didn't because what the senator was doing was picking up the B2 droid and when I was going to assist, I asked my question and I'm not sure if it was the right time because I now have the dead droid slammed onto my foot.

"Oh! Sorry!"

"What's going on back there?"

"Nothing, Anakin! M-My hand just slipped," The senator quickly dissuades Master Skywalker from taking an interest in just what happened. Once I've stopped hoping on my foot does she come up to me to apologize, "I am soooo sorry. I didn't mean to drop it on you. I'm sorry."

"Ahhh… alright. I get it. Sorry for asking the question," I grumble, still a little ticked off at having gotten hurt like that.

"No no it's not that I just…" She sighs before pulling me a little distance away so we can speak without Master Skywalker hearing us, "Alright, you just… surprised me is all with the question."

"Why? You two seem pretty… friendly with each other and I figured you knew each other more than just simple acquaintances."

"What makes you think that?" She asks.

"Well, for you both refer to each other on a first name basis. My master and Master Skywalker do that too but that's because they were former master and apprentice. I don't know about you two so I was just curious. If you don't want to talk, fine then so we can get back to cleaning," I offer for her and I'm about to go but she stops me.

"No no, it's fine. Just wasn't expecting it," She sheepishly says and gestures for me to move back to her and I do. "You're right we do know each other. We're… close friends for a long time. Since before he even became a Jedi," I look at her surprised at the info.

'Before he was a Jedi? Wow, that was long ago.'

"Before I even became a senator, I was the Queen of Naboo for a time and during when the Confederacy was starting to become a threat, I met Anakin on his home planet Tatooine when our ship was damaged and after winning a pod race, he joined us when Master Qui-Gon Jinn was able to arrange his freedom when he found out he was force sensitive," We glance at the working Jedi before looking back at each other. "Since he was nine-years-old, he was always nice and supportive of me during my reign as queen, charming too if you can believe it, and he helped me when I needed it, mostly guard duty for some assignments but we're… longtime friends," She finishes saying with a smile. I continue to stare at her for a few more seconds before looking at him again who's still typing away.

I smile before nodding to the senator and say, "Thank you, Senator. It's nice to have some context at least and for you to tell me that."

"No problem."

"Now, let's go ahead and finish cleaning up the mess. As soon as Master Skywalker and BD finish doing whatever he's doing, we're outta' here."

"Right," She agrees with me and we go back to cleaning up the mess.

While we're working though, I can't help but get the feeling she wasn't telling me exactly everything that was the truth about their relationship with each other but this was all mostly for my curiosity so I guess I shouldn't really get into it.

A few minutes later, we're down to the last droid and Master Skywalker is finished, "That ought to do it. How's the housecleaning going?" He asks.

"Nnnnn! Gah!" I shove the B2 into the door with the rest and close it before nodding to the senator.

"Done. Let's get out of here," She says.

BD runs up to me and climbs up to my shoulders.

We go back into the cramped elevator and head down to the floor that has the emergency hatch we originally used. We ran back to the ship in relative silence and thankfully without any problems as either we took care of the patrols or they've been diverted elsewhere to look for us. Either way it's a clear way to go.

"Wait, what about 3PO?" The senator suddenly asks as we stop at a sliding.

"Oh crap. Your droid. Right, we forgot about him." I say as well.

"How are we going to find him?" She asks worried about him.

"Don't worry. I'm sure he'll turn up," As soon as Master Skywalker says that, he opens the door and we are met with two droids. "3PO, what are you doing? Don't just stand there," He tells the gold protocol droid along with R2 and starts running. "Let's get back to the ship," We continue to follow him this time with two new tagalongs.

We move at a brisk pace through more hallways and turns but not as fast as we were before because the droids are kind of slow, 3PO especially. Nonetheless things are still quiet until we turn one last corner to our ship.

"Alright, let's go," I say as we take off down the hallway to where the Twilight is docked.

Soon enough I hear the others following me. In just another turn we make it back to the elevator that leads to our ship.

"Power up the engines, R2," Master Skywalker tasks the astromech to do.

"Master, we made it to the ship. Where are you?" I called my master on the comm.

"Hold the ship!" Instead of on the comm, my master comes running around the corner with a barrage of blasters nipping at his heels.

Soon the droids come around and start firing at us too.

"Master, come on!" I yell as I open fire around him in an effort to take out the droids.

Unfortunately, the droids chasing him are of the Droideka models and their shields prevent my shots and blaster redirections from doing anything to them. Still that doesn't stop me from trying to cover him somewhat until Master Skywalker uses the force to carry some boxes in front of their firing range, preventing them from killing us and giving us the chance to descend back into the ship.

"I'll contact the fleet," My master says as he and Master Skywalker take the pilot seats.

"R2, release the docking clamp," The astromech goes ahead and does that and unlocks us from the ship before we begin traveling away from the Malevolence.

We don't get far though, for we are soon attacked by droid fighters on our tail.

"We got company," I say.

"Time for some clever tricks, Anakin," My master comments to his former student.

"That's what I was thinking," He replies and the senator and I have to hold on a bit as he swerves us around the incoming laser shots.

Thankfully, we have some slight cover as our cruisers begin to open fire on the enemy forces again now that we are not on the ship anymore. Still we are being hammered by the enemy fighters.

"You know, we have guns. You can shoot back any time," He points out an obvious truth that we should have realized before.

My master stares at his former student before turning to me with an encouraging smile, "Shan, care to try your hand?"

I smile at my master's words and pop my fingers in preparation. I reach up and grab the manual control view range for the guns on this ship.

"Gladly," I pull it down before I lean in and begin scanning all around until I manage to aim the gun behind us.

"You think your Padawan can do this?" I don't bother listening to Master Skywalker's question as I spot droid fighters gaining on us.

Smirking, I press the buttons and watch as the gun turret on the right wing of the Twilight opens fire on them. What I take note however as I fire is the lead starfighter that's chasing us. If I remember correctly, it's the General of the droid army that's flying the Belbullab-22 starfighter and hammering our ship. I think either way the pilot is good. It swerves out of the way of the barrage of shots but I shift the rest of my aim to vulture droids and begin taking them down one-by-one.

"I think he has this."

"Thank you, Master!" I lightly yell as I jerk to the side a little, taking down a vulture droid that was getting too close, and forcing the special ship to dodge yet again, making it miss its shots.

"Nice shot, my Padawan."

"Almost like shooting a blaster… but with a bigger gun," I comment as I continue to fire but at a steady careful pace.

Timing my shots as best I can.

"Pardon me, Sir, but R2's scan of the enemy's ship indicates their hyperdrive is activating," 3PO informs us of the situation.

'Guess my Master wasn't able to shut down the hyperdrive. Not surprised considering how many droids might have been waiting.'

"Don't worry about it."

"What?" My master questions surprised and slightly confused at his former students' words.

I continue to fire a bit more but suddenly the ships following us turn around and begin to retreat. Once they're out of range, I shift my view to the Malevolence and to my surprise it begins to turn directly to the nearby moon. Normally you'd turn away from crashing into the moon but whatever Master Skywalker did has made the warship fly straight and crash into the moon. I tear myself away from the view screen as the ship blows up in a massive bright light. Looking out the window, I can see the explosion better without the intensity of the controls I was using.

"Woah," I mutter as I stare at the explosion far off.

"I imagine you had something to do with that," My master comments to Skywalker, who offers a smile in return.

"All part of the plan, Master," He replies and from here on, it's smooth sailing back to the fleet without us being fired upon by the enemy.Chapter 5: Battle of the Malevolence

Belief is not a matter of choice, but of conviction.

Our Clone Starfleet is under siege. Dozens of Republic warships have been destroyed in merciless surprise attacks that leave no survivors. Rumors spread of a terrible new Separatist weapon. In the face of growing fear, the Jedi Council sends Master Plo Koon and his Padawan Emira Tang to hunt down the Menace before it strikes again.

Emira(POV)

I stand on the bridge of our Venture when our Lieutenant walks up to us.

He speaks up with, "The enemy ship has its speed, general."

Master Plo says, "They must have realized we are tracking them."

Our Lieutenant then says, "The fleet is holding its position, sir."

Master Koon then says, "I think it wise to report our position before we attack."

As we walk over to the holoprojector the Lieutenant says, "Skywalker's fleet is nearby, in the Bith system."

"Good," Master Plo says before continuing. "Perhaps he can reinforce us."

"It would be good to have some extra reinforcement during a situation," I say as we continue to walk.

Our Lieutenant then says, "From what I hear, Skywalker's always ready for a fight."

"So I've heard," Master Koon comments.

Master Koon turns on the hologram to show Master Skywalker and his Padawan Ahsoka.

"Khotoyah, Master Plo, Emira." Ahsoka greets.

"Khotoyah, little 'soka," Master Plo greets back.

"Khotoyah, Ahsoka," I greet as well.

"How's the hunt for the mystery weapon going?" Master Skywalker gets down to business.

Master Plo replies with, "We've tracked it to the Abregado system. We need reinforcements."

"I'll have to ask the council, Master Plo." There's a bit of static in the feed but I notice that Ahsoka looks a bit concerned, "I was given strict orders to protect our staging area."

The static becomes even worse so Wolfe rushes over to try to fix the transmission issue.

"Master Plo, what's happen--?" Ahsoka's voice gets cut off.

"What's wrong with the transmission?" Master Plo questions.

"There's too much interference, sir." Wolfe says, "We've lost 'em."

"Two guesses on who's jamming us," I say while looking towards the view port.

Wolfe continues to try to regain the transmission.

"The enemy ship is closing," One of the clones on one of the consoles says.

Master Plo turns to Wolfe, "Prepare for battle."

Soon enough the fighters began to be deployed.

Wolfe speaks up at the readings, "We're picking up a large energy reading from the target, sir."

"Master, it has to be that circular object on the side of the ship," I say to my master.

"Open fire," Master Plo says.

However Wolfe says, "We're not in range yet, sir."

Sure enough the energy reading becomes appropriate, the ship fires an electrical field at us.

"Incoming," I yell out.

"Brace for impact," Master Plo yells.

As the electrical field hits it actually passes through the ship itself.

"We're losing all our power," Wolfe yells, making it clear that this is an ion attack. "That energy field has left us defenseless!"

"If it has happened to us then it most likely happened to the others," I say to the two of them.

Out of nowhere the ship shakes, they're firing at us.

Wolfe then yells, "They're tearing us apart one by one."

I watch as one of the Ventures gets destroyed.

Master Plo turns away from the bridge and yells out, "Quickly, into the pods!"

We proceed to make our way to the escape pods.

As I enter the pod and hear Master Plo say, "We don't have much time. Get inside. Hurry!"

As we eject we watch as the Venture explodes.

Shan(POV)

I watch as Master Skywalker explains what happened to Master Plo Koon however I wasn't in the hologram, "And we have had no further contact with General Plo Koon. The absence of distress beacons indicates that his fleet was…" He looks over to Ahsoka, "That his fleet was destroyed, like the others. We are about to prepare a rescue mission."

It's then that Chancellor Palpatine speaks up, "Hasn't Clone Intelligence reported this weapon never leaves any survivors?"

"The Separatists are being unusually tidy. They don't want any witnesses," Master Kenobi states.

"Tragic are these losses but prevent more we must," Master Yoda says sadly.

Emira(POV)

Around fifteen minutes later we waited in the escape pod.

Wolfe says, "The power grid burned out. We've got no engine, communications, or… or life support recharge."

Sinker says, "So we'll just sit here and hold our breath."

The third clone said, "Someone will come looking for us, right?"

We turn to Master Plo for guidance and he says, "Let's get the power restored so we are here to be found."

"Yes General," The three clones say in sync.

"Yes Master," I said.

"Actually Emira," Master Plo says to catch my attention. "I would like you to meditate and attempt to reach Padawan Tano through the Force."

I blink in surprise, "Are you sure Master?"

Master Plo nods, "Although I'm close to her I believe you'll be able to reach her."

I nod, " Yes Master."

I then began to meditate.

Shan(POV)

Windu begins to inform us, "All our battle groups will be reassigned to guard our supply convoys, including yours, Skywalker. I'm afraid we can't risk any more ships with a rescue mission."

"Wait!" Ahsoka says, getting our attention, "Just because there haven't been any survivors before doesn't mean there won't be any this time."

"Boldly spoken for one so young," Chancellor Palpatine says.

"She is learning from Anakin," Master Kenobi says.

Master Skywalker speaks up, "Excuse my Padawan. We will deploy as you have instructed, master."

With that the hologram cuts off.

I turn to Master Kenobi, "You know he'll go to look."

Master Kenobi sighs, "That's what I'm afraid of."

Emira(POV)

As I meditate I hear Wolfe's voice, "The air in here is getting a bit stale."

Sinker retorts with, "Don't look at me. It's Boost, sir. He only takes a bath when he's on leave."

Boost retorts with his own, "Save it. Just keep working on the pod, not your jokes."

"Do you think we've got a chance, general?" Wolfe asks.

Master Plo replies with, "I don't believe in chance, Commander. I know if we work together, we will stay alive and someone will find us."

"With all due respect, general," Sinker says dismissively. "Strategically, it doesn't make any sense for someone to come look for us. If I was in command, I'd be hunting that weapon down."

"I value your life more than finding that weapon," Master Plo says.

"Sir, there's another pod out there," Boost speaks up.

With that I stop meditating to walk over to see.

Wolfe speaks up with, "If we only had power, we could contact them."

"Well, how about we just wave hello when the viewport comes around?" Boost suggests.

I watch as Master Plo uses the force to rotate the pod around. To our horror the viewport is completely destroyed with one half of a clone's body outside.

"They're dead," Sinker says.

"Someone busted that pod wide open," Wolfe says.

Master Plo then speaks up, "We are not alone out here."

Shan(POV)

Commander Cody turns to Master Kenobi and says, "Our ship's in defensive formation, sir."

Master Kenobi nods, "All right, commander. I'll check on Anakin's progress."

We walk back toa screen, where Admiral Vern and Captain Rex appear.

Master Kenobi begins, "Admiral, how is the escort?"

The Admiral answers, "Oh. Convoys are proceeding on schedule, general. No sign of enemy activity."

"And where's Skywalker?" Master Kenobi says.

The Admiral looked down slightly, "Uh, the general felt a redeployment of this fleet would increase our defensive perimeter."

"I see thank you Admiral. That'll be all," Master Kenobi says.

The screen turns off before Obi-Wan turns away and assumes his classic thinking pose.

"Problem sir?" Commander Cody asks.

"Anakin has just redeployed himself… again," He answers.

Emira(POV)

It's been around an hour or so since we saw that busted pod.

The unnamed clone, how I've come to learn is named Wolf and Boosts continue to work on communications. While the three clones have been breathing normally due to being humans while I have been using the Force to keep my breathing to a quarter of my normal breathing. But for Master Plo that mask of his let him breathe in an oxygen rich environment.

Boost corrects Sinker, "No, that's not it. This one goes there, that one goes there."

"Are you sure?" Sinker replies, "We don't want to make things worse."

Boost scoffs, "How, are we gonna make things worse?"

Master Plo speaks up to them, "When you ask for trouble, you should not be surprised when it finds you."

"I think trouble has already found us, sir," Sinker says.

"What if we connect these two wires, right here?" Boost asks as he connects two wires together.

It's then the power comes back on line.

"I'm getting something," Wolfe says as the counsels come to life.

A Clones voice fades in over the radio, "This is pod 197… We're under attack. Is anyone out there?"

"It's one of our other pods," Wolfe says.

"I repeat, we are under attack… Is anyone out there?" The clone seems to be in a panic.

"That signal is weak, they must be close by," Master Plo says in detrimation.

The clone on the radio says in an increasing panic, "They've locked onto our ship! They've locked onto our ship!"

"Our position is mark 12, at point 0.26," The clone on the radio exclaims.

"I have visual contact," Wolfe says as he points to the Pod.

"Pod 1-9-7-7, do you copy?" Master Plo asks loudly.

"The droids are hunting for survivors," The Clone on the radio yells. "They're cutting through!"

"Things just got a lot worse," Sinker says grimly.

Shan(POV)

I watch as Master Kenobi contacts Master Skywalker.

When the hologram gets put through, Master Kenobi asks, "Anakin, where are you?"

Master Skywalker replies happily, "Hello Master. Uh, we made a quick stop in the Abregado system."

Master Kenobi crosses his arms, "A rescue mission, I suppose. You have other orders."

"It was my idea, Master Obi-Wan," Ahsoka says, quickly catching his attention.

Master Kenobi sighs, "Oh I'm sure." He turns to Master Skywalker, "Well, have you found any survivors?"

"No, you were right," Master Skywalker says sadly. "The Separatists don't want any witnesses."

"All the more reason for you to rejoin the defensive escorts," Master Kenobi says sternly. "We need you, Anakin. You're going to miss the rendezvous with the fleet if you don't hurry."

"I know Master," Master Skywalker says sadly. "We're on our way."

The hologram ends.

Emira(POV)

"I fill them," I whisper loud enough for Master Plo to hear. "Both Ahsoka and Master Skywalker are in the system."

"Are you sure it's them?" Master Plo asks.

I nod before standing, "Yes Master, Master Skywalker radienced through the Force like a star, while Ahsoka is like an untamed tornado."

"That's them, that means we just have to hold out until they find us," Master Plo says.

"I think they see us," Boost says worriedly.

"It is time to go," Master Plo says determinately before turning and walking towards the airlock.

At that I reach under a bench and pull out a survival suit and helmet.

"Go?" The Wolfe questions, "Where are you going sir?"

"Outside to destroy the enemy," Master Plo turns to the Wolfe while I put on the suit. "I can withstand the pressure for a brief time. Put your helmets on."

"If you say so sir," Boost says.

Master Plo says, "This is a difficult situation, but there remains a possibility we will survive."

"That's good enough for me," Boost said determinately.

"Come on, let's go," Wolf says just as determinately.

Master Plo turns to Wolfe, "Wolfe, keep the communications signal alive. Emira, stay here and try to contact Padawan Ahsoka. You two are our only chance for someone to find us."

"Let's just hope someone's looking for us," The Lieutenant says.

As Master Plo and his Wolf Pack engaged the droids, unfortunately the droids began to squeeze the pod.

I quickly decided to send pulses through the Force to help Ahsoka and Master Skywalker to our location.

"Is there anyone out there?" Ahsoka's voice comes through the radio, "Come in. This is Ahsoka Tano. Is there anyone out there? Come in." She repeats.

"It's Ahsoka. She must be close," Wolfe says hopefully.

"Keep the signal alive, commander," Master Plo responds without turning back to us.

"We're losing the signal," Wolfe says in fear. "The pod can't take much more damage."

I watch as Master Plo throws Sinker at the pod hunter before cutting through the clamps.

Shan(POV)

Master Windu says through the hologram, "We must find a way to destroy this mystery weapon."

Master Yoda then speaks up in his usual riddle speech, "In this war, a step ahead of us, Dooku always seems."

"Tell me, has there been any word from Master Plo Koon or his fleet?" Chancellor Palpatine asks.

Master Windu says sadly, "No, we must fear the worst."

It's then I notice that Master Kenobi is about to speak up, "Actually, I just received word that Anakin has found the remains of Master Plo's fleet and is searching the debris for survivors."

Chancellor Palpatine asks, "On whose authority has he done this?"

"His own, I'm afraid," Master Kenobi replies.

Master Windu says, "With his fleet out of position, we are left vulnerable."

Master Kenobi says, "Oh his fleet is right where it should be, he's taken only a small ship, and his padawan."

"Twice the trouble, they have become," Master Yoda says. "A wreckless decision, Skywalker has made."

"Let us hope it is not a costly one," Chancellor Palpatine says.

Emira(POV)

After dealing with the pod hunter Wolfe and I managed to get into coms to Master Plo and the remaining members of his wolf pack.

Sinker sighs, "Well, General, another fine mess we've gotten into."

"Your sense of humor is improving," Master Plo says.

Sinker continues, "I don't mean to say I told you so, but I never believed anyone would come looking for us."

"Time to go, Ahsoka," I hear Master Skywalker say disappointedly.

They're about to leave us.

"Ahsoka we're still alive," I whisper through the force.

"We have to stay," Ahsoka says confidently.

"Ahsoka, I want to believe Master Plo is alive but..." Master Skywalker says in clearly disappointed as well.

"I know they're alive!" As Ahsoka gets closer, she comes into view, "I can sense them."

"Sergeant," Master Plo begins. "Why are you so certain no one is coming?"

"We're just clones sir, we're meant to be expendable," Sinker explains.

"Not to me," Master Plo affirms.

(3rd POV)

The light of Twilight shines down on the escape pod.

Ashoka points to the pod, "There they are!"

"Ready the tow cable..." Master orders his droid.

After R2 loaded the cable, Ahsoka turned to his Master, "Cable loaded Master."

The cable launches and magnetical locks onto the pod, before beginning to pull them into the Twilight.

Once inside the Twilight the gravity pulls the troopers while Master Plo slumps down and begins to breathe in the atmosphere.

Ashoka gestures to her Master, "Come on, hurry!" Ashoka rushes over to the fallen Master, "Are you okay Master Plo?" Ashoka then noticed that there were still people in the pod, "There's someone in the pod."

Master Skywalker pulls the view port open to relieve Commander Wolfe and Padawan Emira. As Anakin helps Wolfe onto the floor and Emira slumps to the floor as well before the door opens to relieve a medical droid.

Anakin asks, "Will they be alright?"

The medical droid turns his head, "The pressure suits offer some protection, but they require a medical frigate for recovery. I will stabilize them sir."

Ahsoka assures, "Your men are safe now."

Master Plo begins to slowly ask, "Tell me, were there any survivors?"

"We couldn't find anybody else," Master Skywalker says.

"The hunters must have destroyed the rest," Emira says sadly.

"They are one with the force now," Master Plo says as he places his hand on her shoulder. "But we must never forget them."

"I'm sorry, Master Plo," Ahsoka said sadly as she hugged him.

A little while later Ashoka, Master Plo and Master Skywalker walk into the cockpit.

Master Plo begins to explain the events they have just lived through, "We tracked the mystery weapon to this system, that is when we found out it was an ion cannon."

Ahsoka turns to him with a question, "An ion cannon?"

Master Plo answers with, "A weapon that neutralizes all power to our ships, leaving the targets defenseless."

Master Skywalker then notices something on the scanner, "There's a massive vessel approaching."

Master Plo begins to frantically turn off the power, "Shut down the power systems before they detect us." Suddenly Aartoo beeps in a scared tone, "The droid!"

Ahsoka rushes over to Aartoo, "Sorry little guy." She then shuts him off before walking back to her seat in silence.

As the ship begins to appear at the port view Ahsoka comments, "That is one big, cruiser-crusher."

Back in the hanger the lights shutting off get the troopers, Padawan and droid's attention,

Sergeant Sinker looks up towards the ceiling, "Hey, what's with the lights?"

"Power has gone out," Boost answers.

Commander Wolfe realizes, "Maybe that ship has returned. We should get up to the bridge."

As Wolfe begins to move it's Emira who speaks up, "Hold on Commander you can't in your condition."

The Medical Droid stops him from falling, "She's right you're too weak. Let me go see what is wrong."

After helping Commander Wolfe onto the ground the medical droid begins to walk towards the cockpit.

Inside the cockpit the cruiser-crusher begins to slow down and turn around.

"They're coming back," Anakin says in worried relation.

Plo asked curiously, "Are all the systems shut down?"

The Medical Droid appears from the hanger, "Is there a problem sir?"

"We forgot to shut off the medical droid," Ahsoka states the obvious.

Wordlessly the three of them rush to get the ship back online.

Anakin states frantically, "We've got to get the power back on now."

The Medical Droid offers to help with, "May I be of assistance?"

"No thanks," Anakin rejects immediately. "Just get in the back and take care of the clones."

The Medical Droid nods before walking back into the hanger, "That is my programming, sir."

Anakin continues frantically, "Come on, we've gotta get out of here."

Ahsoka responded just as frantically, "I know! I know!"

Within moments the ship is fully powered and blasting off through the debris field. While the ship begins to charge its ion cannon.

Anakin begins to stir the Twilight, "R2, program the navicomputer. Be ready to get us out of here."

Ahsoka snips back with, "You forgot, we turned him off!"

Plo goes and turns on the astromech, the droid comes back to life with his lights and a beeping sound.

Plo greets him, "Koh-to-ya, droid."

Aartoo beeps a greeting back.

"R2, program the hyperdrive," Ahsoka orders the little astromech.

R2 rolls to the socket but turns his dome around and beeps questioningly for confirmation.

Ahsoka snaps, "Anywhere, hurry!"

As Anakin flies the Twilight a massive energy signature appears to follow them.

"Master?" Ahsoka asks worriedly.

R2 beeps in reconnection that the coordinates have been set.

"We're clear," Ahsoka says in confirmation as they clear the debris field.

About an hour later on the Resolute Anakin and Commander Wolfe walk down the landing strip of the Twilight.

Commander Wolfe turns to him, "Thanks for getting us out of there in one piece General Skywalker."

"You have my padawan to thank for that," Anakin deflects the praise to his Padawan. "She always said you guys would pull through."

"General Plo said someone would come for us, we're glad he was right," Wolfe explains as they reach the bottom.

"Skywalker," Plo Koon says as he walks down the ramp. "It is time to give our report to the Council."

Anakin scoffs before walking away, "Right, the Council report..." However he turns back to his Padawan and gestures for her to follow, "Come on, Ahsoka."

Ahsoka stands in shock, "You want me there, I figured because of before?"

Anakin rolls his eyes at her, "Ahsoka… throughout it all you never gave up." That gets a smile out of Ahsoka, "You did a great job." Anakin coughs into his hand, "Besides if I'm getting in trouble for this, you're gonna share some of the blame too." He chuckles to himself, "So come on, let's go."

Anakin begins to walk away towards Plo Koon.

Ahsoka smiles before walking after her master, "Right beside you, Skyguy."

Shan(POV)

I was meditating in my quarters by staring into my starless black blade before I was called to the meeting room.

Truth be told, I believe the council is concerned about my skills so they've decided to assign me to Master Obi Wan. I've trained each and every day. I'm constantly out there drilling the sequences into my instincts from blaster deflection to combat -due to the combat droids- after hours of drills I would normally decide to meditate on one of the many roofs.

Honestly it would have been nice to get time to rest after dealing with the Hutt's mission but there was no rest for the wicked. As for my little side project, Captain Rex and Commander Cody were able to help me out with it. It's basically a stun blast to disable droids or to knock out sentient beings. They're basically the barrel of DC-15A mounted to one of the Clones' vambraces.

It's then I noticed that my saber, it has a number of unique features all of them where unintentional; for example my blade will often produces an electrical effect in response to my heightened emotional state however due to my training it's an indication that my emotions are slipping but in my opinion the most unique feature is the fact that when in lightsaber combat the blades are drawn to each other almost like magnetic pull.

Several things have happened since we were able to secure an agreement with the Hutts. Namely the first being how Master Yoda was able to secure the alliance of the Toydaria system, further improving the Republic's movements in Hutt space but there is something even more important at the moment.

Right now however we have to focus on some type of mysterious weapon that has topped out of seemingly nowhere. Something has been annihilating whole Republic fleets for weeks now and because of how many we've been losing, and the fact no one is left alive from the attacks, Republic movements have been severely limited for fear of losing anyone to the weapon. All movements have been restricted to key locations that are of the utmost importance to the war effort.

The mystery of the Separatist weapon was eventually uncovered though at the loss of three more of our cruisers. Master Plo-Koon and his Padawan Emira were sent to the Abregado system to investigate reports of the mysterious weapon before we lost contact with him shortly after.

Ahsoka was distraught at the idea of Master Plo possibly being killed and wanted nothing more than to go and investigate the Master Jedi's location. I'm not surprised how much she wanted to make sure he was alright because of her history with him. It was he after all that brought her to the Temple in the first place, in which I am grateful for him bringing me one of my closest friends to grow up and train with.

However after saving Master Plo, finding out the weapon is a massive cruiser equipped with a Ion cannon that disables ships and a ton of laser cannons and turbolasers.

3rd(POV)

Admiral Yularen speaks in front of a squad of Clone Troopers as Anakin stands slightly behind him, "This strike force has been commissioned by the Senate to hunt down the enemy's new battleship. As the bulk of our fleets are engaged on the front lines, we'll be on our own. General Skywalker has prepared our attack strategy."

As the Admiral speaks Master Plo and Padawans Ahsoka and Emira walk towards them.

"Thank you, Admiral," Anakin speaks up. "While our capital ships are vulnerable to the enemy's attack, I believe a squad of bombers can outmaneuver their ion weapons. Our target will be the bridge and General Grievous."

"The head clanker," One of the Clone Troopers leans forward and says to the brother in front of him. "Skywalker's getting pretty ambitious."

Anakin continues to give his strategy plan, "Our bombers will attack at high speed to evade the enemy's ion weapon. We'll concentrate our firepower on the bridge superstructure, here. We destroy General Grievous and the ship will fall with him. Any questions?"

One of the clones stands and says, "Just tell us where that metal head is, sir."

Another clone stands up next to him,"Yeah, we've been waiting for a chance to take him out."

The other clones begin to murmur in agreement.

"All right, men, settle down," Anakin orders gentally. "This is an important mission. We destroy Grievous, we can bring the war to a quicker end. Pilots, prepare your bombers."

Master Plo walks up to his fellow Jedi, "Skywalker, this is an aggressive plan. Are you sure your squadron can complete this mission?"

"Let's ask them," Anakin turns to his squadron. "Matchstick!" The trooper turns to his Jedi General, "You think our boys can pull it off?"

Matchstick nods confidently, "Yes, sir! There hasn't been a mission Shadow Squadron couldn't complete."

Another trooper behind him confirms in agreement, "That's right. Minimal casualties, maximum effectiveness. That's us."

Master Plo then speaks up, "I admire your confidence, pilot." He then turns back to Anakin, "Even so, minimal casualties may not be enough to prevent you from breaking Grievous' defenses."

It's then Ahsoka steps forward, "Master Plo is right. With Grievous on that ship's bridge, it's bound to be well-protected."

"From the reports Grievous isn't a foul, the bridge will be very well-protected," Emira speaks up from the other side of Master Plo.

Anakin replies then replies with, "Don't worry you two. We'll destroy that bridge, and Grievous along with it."

With that Anakin walks away confidently.

Master Plo speaks up at the shrinking form of Anakin, "Master Skywalker seems to inspire great confidence in his men."

Ahsoka chuckles, "He does lead by example."

However Emira frowns, "Yeah but is that actually a good thing?"

After a few hours of preparations the troopers had gotten the ships ready for combat. As a final inspection Anakin and Ahsoka walked back into the hangar bay.

Ahsoka begins a conversation with, "So which one's mine?"

"You're with me," Anakin replied quickly. "You'll be my gunner. Somebody's gotta watch my back."

Ahsoka scoffs, "Broadside could do that." She then gestures to R2, "Besides, you have Artoo."

R2: [Whistles in agreement.]

Anakin chuckles at the both of them, "But I so enjoy your company, my Padawan."

Ahsoka interrupts him, "Just admit it. You don't like my flying."

"Well, no," Anakin was verbally backed into a corner. "I...No, it's not that. It's just I…"

Admiral Yularen, Master Plo and his padawan Emira walk towards them.

"Skywalker," Master Plo calls out to get their attention.

As they turn to the group Admiral Yularen speaks up, "The enemy warship has attacked our convoy of medical transports near Ryndellia."

Ahsoka's eyes widened in shock and she asked, "Medical transport?" Her eyes and tone hardened, "Only General Grievous would go after clones who can't fight back."

Emira scoffs at that, "Compassion isn't exactly unknown to droids of Grievous' caliber."

"The Ryndellia system, Near Naboo," Anakin questions in realization. "Isn't that where our medical base is? I'll bet that will be his next target."

Plo then clearifies something, "There are many star clusters in that area. With a ship that big, he will be unable to chart a course that's less than 10 parsecs."

Anakin nods at this, "Looks like we're gonna have to take a shortcut." He turns to the Admiral, "Admiral, warn that station what's coming."

Admiral Yularen nods at him.

"This journey may be treacherous," Master Plo interjects as Anakin begins to climb the ladder. "If you lose any ships before you reach the target…"

Anakin interrupts with, "We won't lose anybody."

Plo determinedly steps forward, "I will come along and fly fighter escort."

Anakin stops climbing and turns back to Master Plo, "Any help is welcome, Master Plo. Just try not to fall behind."

Ahsoka begins to climb the same ladder, "I had a feeling you'd be coming along. Your ship has already been prepped."

Plo nods in acknowledgment before turning to his padawan, "Emira, I would like you to be the gunner for Commander Wolfe."

Emira nods and says, "Yes master, perhaps after this I could get a few lessons on piloting."

Plo nods at her eagerness, "We will see how the council assigns us a new assignment."

Shan(POV)

Master Kenobi enters a holocall with both Admiral Yularen and Nala Se as I watch from behind him, "Nala Se, I only just received word. I've contacted Naboo. They are sending ships to help you and I am on my way, as well."

Nala Se gives a slight nod of her head, "Thank you, Master Jedi."

The short class ends as we continue through hyperspace.

3rd(POV)

Admiral Yularen walks onto the bridge on the Ventater before turning to his bridge captain, "Launch the fighters."

The Y-wing begins to take off from the inside of the ship.

As Anakin flies with Ashoka in the gunner's seat his former master comes on the intercoms, "I hope you know what you're doing, Anakin."

Anakin smiles at that, "Well, if I don't, I won't be around to hear the 'I told you so.'"

Shan couldn't help but to chuckle at the response.

Obi-Wan rolls his eyes, "That's reassuring. Well, take your shortcut, while Shan and I take the long way. But you better be there before I arrive."

Anakin responds with, "I'll be there, Obi-Wan." After the coms cut off due to the mission starting Anakin does a roll call, "Shadow Squadron, tighten formation. Call in."

"Shadow 2, standing by."

"Shadow 3, standing by."

"Shadow 4, standing by."

Artooie beeps to Ashoka.

Ahsoka turns to him, "I know, Artooie. This is gonna be a tough one."

Anakin then cuts in, "Cut the chatter, Ahsoka."

"Shadow 11, standing by."

"Shadow 12, standing by."

Master Plo flies up in his Delta-7 and hyperspace ring, "Fighter escort ready."

Minutes later a voice comes over the coms, "This is Admiral Yularen. You are cleared for hyperspace jump. Good hunting, sir."

"Thanks, Admiral," Anakin replies before addressing the troops. "All right, boys, let's go."

"Broadside, if we make it through this one, drinks are on me," One of the troopers says.

Broadside replies with, "I can already taste it."

So after they all enter hyperspace.

After coming out of hyperspace Shadow Squadron flies towards the nebula, "Okay, if we can just manage to navigate through my shortcut, we'll be alright."

"A nebula can be very unpredictable," Master Plo says. "I advise caution."

Shadow 2 speaks up, "Don't worry about us, Master Jedi. We can hold our own. Right, Shadow Squadron?"

"Copy that, Shadow 2," Shadow 1 answers.

"Does anyone care what the Padawan thinks?" Ahsoka says in mild frustration.

"Of course we care, Snips!" Anakin says playfully, "But we're still going through that nebula"

"Pfft, Snips, that's a good one Master Skywalker," Emira says through her laughter.

At that Anakin interrus becomes pecked, "Oh and what was her nickname as a Youngling?"

"Emira please don't," Ahsoka pleaded.

Emira decides to do both, "Oh we just called her Soka."

Artooie beeps to her in sympathy.

"Thanks, Artooie," Ahsoka says thankfully.

"This soup is thick," Shadow 2 comments, "Can you see anything?"

"Just keep your eyes on my thruster, Shadow 2," Master Skywalker instructs.

"They'll have to," Ahsoka comments as she slaps the scanners. "The scanners are useless."

"This is old-fashioned flying," Master Skywalker replies. "You have to feel your way through to stay on course."

"Skywalker is right, Ahsoka," Master Plo says through the coms. "Clear your mind, young one, and you will see the path."

"Right now, I can't see anything at all," Ahsoka says.

Emira then decides to speak up, "Master Plo is right Ahsoka, allow the force to guide your actions."

Broadside comments, "I always know where I'm going."

"Yeah?" Matchstick asks. "Where's that, Broadside?"

Broadside confidently replies with, "I'm going to blow up that battleship."

"A clear path if ever there was one," Master Plo chuckles to himself.

"A very clear path," Emira comments.

After a few minutes Ahsoka asks, "So, Skyguy, how did you know about this shortcut?"

Master Skywalker replies with, "It's an old smuggler's route. The pilots used to talk about it on Tatooine."

"Smuggler's route?" Ahsoka asks in shock. "Ha! That makes me feel better!"

Anakin then comments, "They call it the Balmorra Run."

"Balmorra Run?" Plo asks in shock.

"Wait seriously," Emira asks in just as much shock.

One of the sensors caughts Ahsoka's attention, "I think I'm picking up contact."

"Yeah I'm picking up one as well," Emira comments as well.

"Skywalker!" Plo quickly tries to explain, "Listen to me! We need to turn around!"

Anakin replies with, "We can't. Not if we're gonna catch Grievous."

"Another contact!" Ahsoka says as another contact appears, "This one's much larger."

"Skywalker!" Plo interjects with, "Balmorra is the nesting ground of the giant Neebray mantas!"

"Neebray mantas!" Emira says in shock, "That's not good!"

"Another?" Ahsoka continues to address, "Another!

"Take evasive action!" Anakin orders.

Artooie beeps in concern however it turns into a screaming beep as the Neebray mantas come into view. The Neebray mantas are space fairing mammal-like creatures, they have large fin-like wings, two vertical fins towards the back and three eyes split on the sides of their head.

Ahsoka gasps at them, "Those gas-gulpers are huge!"

Master Plo quickly informs the squadron, "Don't shoot, or they'll panic!"

"They'll panic?" Ahsoka says in a near panic, "I'm about to panic!"

"Everyone please calm down!" Emira shouts through the coms and a silence comes over everyone, "These gentle giants won't go into a protective frenzy as long they don't think they're endangered, so please refrain from firing your weapons."

"Very well put, General," Commander Wolfe says.

Emira breathes, "Thank Commander."

Broadside grumbles to himself, "You gotta be kidding me there are so many of them!"

From the corner of Emira's eyes she watches as Matchstick's Y-wing clips one of the Neebray, "I'm hit! My stabilizer is out!"

"Pull it together, Matchstick!" Anakin says in resolution.

"I'm okay. I got it," Matchstick says as regains control of his Y-wing.

"Emira," Ahsoka calls out through coms. "Are you sure these things are gentle giants, they look like they're gonna make a meal out of us!"

Emira scoffs at that, "Of course I am Ahsoka, it's their natural predator the Zilla that you have to watch out for."

"They have a predator," Matchstick yelled from his cockpit.

"Oh yeah it's completely terrifying," Emira begins to go on. "But only very been the report of the single one and the large scar over its eye-"

"Emira you're rambling again," Ahsoka cuts her off before turning to her master. "Master, I think the squadron should form up behind us."

"Huh that's actually a good idea Ahsoka," Anakin says to his Padawan. "All wings, line up behind me!"

"Roger that, boss," Broadside said as the rest of Shadow Squadron formed up behind Anakin's Y-wing.

"We should hurry!" Master Plo exclaims, "They will not follow us beyond the nebula."

As they begin to follow Master Skywalker.

As they travel over another Neebray they come face to face with another one.

"That one looks hungry," Ahsoka says as we begin to pass by a practical large one.

Anakin chuckles to himself, "Nah, it's just smiling at you."

"And what a beautiful smile it is," Emira says breathlessly.

She and Anakin began to laugh with each other.

Around five minutes later Shadow Squadron and its Jedi escort were making their way out of the nebula.

"We're coming out of it!" Ahsoka informed the squadron, "Let's hope your shortcut pays off."

"We're not far behind Grievous now," Anakin also informs.

Shan(POV)

As we trail through hyperspace going towards the Ryndellia system, Master Kenobi and I stand on the bridge. Admiral Yularen turns his body to us.

"The medical station reports 50% of patients evacuated," Admiral Yularen informs us.

Master Kenobi frowns at that, "That's not good enough."

I couldn't help but frown at that as well, "Their window to escape is shortening, let's hope we can make it in time."

Master Kenobi nods at this and says, "Yes let's hope indeed."

Admiral Yularen then says, "Well at this rate we'll never be finished before the enemy arrives. General Skywalker still has a chance to catch Grievous."

Obi-Wan nods at this as well and says, "If he does, we have to be ready."

Admiral Yularen is the one to nod this time, "Yes, sir."

3rd(POV)

A Shadow Squadron flies towards the Medical Station Master Plo notices something, "Shadow 2, what is the damage to your ship?"

Emira looks out the view port to see the truth, there's a trail of smoke coming from the left wing engine.

"Just a scratch, sir," Broadside tries to blow it off.

Plo tries to inform the trooper, "We must not take any more unnecessary risks. If we lose even a single ship, our mission is that much closer to failure."

"Understood, Master Plo," Anakin says before coming to a conclusion. "But we didn't lose any ships, and I didn't-"

"Sir, another contact!" Matchstick suddenly interjects.

"Emira, I thought you said those things wouldn't follow us," Ahsoka suddenly says in mild fear.

However it's Matchstick who says, "Not following, coming out of hyperspace. It's a ship, it's the Malevolence."

True to his words the Malevolence exits out of hyperspace with a boom. Immediately Shadow Squadron started their attack. However the Malevolence begins to deploy Vulture Droids.

"We've got fighters coming in!" Ahsoka says as the Vulture Droids begin to fire at them.

"Hold it steady," Anakin orders as he swerves slightly out of the way of a blaster. "Come on, hold it steady. Get those fighters off of us!" He says to his Padawan.

"Your fancy flying is making it difficult!" Ahsoka says as she fails to shoot a Vulture Droid, it's then she notices the Malevolence firing its ion blast, "Incoming!"

"Make towards the edge of the ray now!" Anakin orders as he directs his Y-wing up to scale the ion ray.

As the rest of the squadron follows suit Anakin orders, "Give it everything you've got."

As they trail up the ray Ahsoka notices something, "Shadow 2, your speed is dropping. What's wrong?"

"Nothing, sir," Matchstick says in response. "Just trying to keep it together."

Anakin then questions, "You can make it, Matchstick."

"Hang on!" Matchstick says before his left engine explodes taking the rest of the Y-wing.

The debris falls into Shadow 12 otherwise known as Tag, "Watch out!"

As the Anakin and Ahsoka round the ray three others unfortunately don't make it.

Anakin looks down in grife, "Shadow Squadron, check in."

Ahsoka is the one who reads out the list mournfully, "We lost Matchstick and Tag."

"Shadows 6, 7 and 10 were caught in the ray," Emira says afterwards just as mournfully.

Unusually there's a moment of silence in the battle field before wordlessly they all fire their engines.

"Stay on course," Plo orders as more Vulture Droids begin to fire at them.

"This flak is heavy!" Broadstick says as he is narrowly hit.

Sensing the near death and getting into range of the turbo tower Anakin orders, "All deflectors, double front!"

As the lazer flake comes in a little too close for her comfort Ahsoka says, "Master, we need a new plan!"

"We can make it Ahsoka just hang in there." Anakin says before swerving out of the way of some more braster fire, "Watch those towers, boys!

Broadstick continues to swerve out of the way but it's clear that he's having trouble, "We're too close! Loosen up!"

"Master, you can make it, but everyone else is getting shot down!" Ahsoka yells as she continues to try to keep them safe, "Master!"

Plo shoots down another Vulture Droid before offering another solution, "If we can do enough damage, the weapon may overload when Grievous tries to fire."

Anakin takes a few split seconds before ordering, "Shadow Squadron, new target. We're taking out the starboard ion cannon."

Shadow Squadron redirect themselves towards the ion cannon.

As they maneuver through the support beams Anakin orders, "Torpedoes away!"

The torpedoes soar through the void of space before exploding upon contact on the main electrical component of the cannon. The explosions echo through the Malevolence and erupt out the other end.

As Shadow Squadron flies away from the exploding ship Plo Koon says, "Good work, Shadow Squadron!"

Anakin glances back at his Padawan, "Nice job, Ahsoka!"

Ahsoka smiles at the praise.

Three Republic warships entered the system with individual booms. Immediately after entering the system Anakin begins to be hailed by the Negotiator.

Obi-Wan's voice enters the ships coms, "Anakin, do you copy?"

"I'm here," Anakin answers with an almost tired sigh.

"Congratulations." Obi-wan congratulates his former Padawan, "It looks like your mission was a success."

"Partially, but Grievous is still alive." Anakin says gloomy before addressing an issue with his men, "The battle was pretty rough on my men. We're heading for the medical station."

Obi-Wan nods at this, "We'll take it from here. But don't worry, we'll call when we need you."

Anakin nods as well before redirecting his ship towards the medical station, "I'll be waiting, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan gives one final nod before addressing his men, "All right, let's finish what Anakin started. Ahead full."

With that the three Ventures open fire on the Malevolence.

Meanwhile in the medical center.

Plo Koon and Emira walk up to the young Jedi Knight, "Great job, Master Skywalker. Your leadership skills are most impressive."

Anakin smiles back at his elder, "You didn't do so bad yourself."

Ahsoka couches into her hand, "Uh, excuse me, I believe it was my suggestion to change the plan."

"And lets not forget about the time I kept everyone calm while going through the Balmorra Run," Emira

Anakin pauses for a moment before saying, "That is technically true."

"From a certain point of view," Master Plo seems to agree.

Anakin then turns to a passing trooper, "Make sure our ships are ready. We'll only have a short time before Obi-Wan calls us for support."

The trooper nods with a salute, "Yes, sir."

Minutes later Anakin enters the command deck of the medical center with Ahsoka following closely behind him.

Nala Se gives a slight nod of her head before addressing the Jedi General, "General Skywalker, I wanted to thank you for your valiant effort today. Do not take the lives you saved lightly."

Anakin frowns at that before looking down, "I don't." It was clear that the few deaths of Shadow Squadron still weighed heavily on his conscience, "But I also can't take the lives I lost lightly."

Nala Se blinks slowly for she was still unaccustomed to the Jedi's treatment of the clones, "I see."

Anakin straightens up and says, "If you will excuse me, I must prepare for the coming battle."

Anakin walks out and Nala Se comments to the Young Padawan, "Your master is a very curious Jedi."

Ahsoka glances back at her, "He is one of a kind."

Shan(POV)

After a successful bombing run by Master Skywalker, Master Plo, Emira and Ahsoka along with Shadow Squadron, the cruiser has been severely crippled and is on the run from our cruisers.

My master and I stand on the bridge as our ships move ahead full speed and every single one of the turbolasers that has a view range of the Malevolence open fire across all three of our cruisers. The secret medical facility we had in this sector is already well out of range from the retreating worship so all we need to focus on right now is annihilating that monstrosity, and hopefully the droid General along with it.

"After how many defenseless ships General Grievous has destroyed, it's nice to see him and that ship defenseless and on the run for a change," I comment as our guns continue to not let up.

"That may be so but we still have to destroy it. Commander, what is the damage level to the enemy ship?" My master asks the clone commander a lower level below us.

"She's lost a primary shield and stabilizers. But the ship is so massive, it can take all the fire our cannons can give it," The clone commander of the ship informs us.

The thing is massive compared to ours so it's going to take a little while to properly take it down but without its Ion cannon, the ship is basically done for essentially.

"We may need some backup to finish it off," I comment

"That's why we're here."

At the new but familiar voice, we turn around to see the Jedi members of the strike force coming up to us. At their sight BD begins to bounce happily on my shoulder, while beeping excitedly.

"Anakin, good to see you back in one piece," My Master says.

"Always Master," Master Skywalker replies to my master as I walk up to Ahsoka and Master Plo.

"Khotoyah, Master Plo, Emira, Ahsoka," I greet the three of them in the Kel Dor's language. 'I'm glad Ahsoka's been teaching me some of the language.'

BD greets happily: Ahsoka it's good to see you again.

"Khotoyah, Shan. I see you're getting better in learning my people's language," Master Plo replies and compliments me.

"It's good to see you too BD," Ahsoka greets just as happily.

"So this is the infamous BD unit you've been hanging around with," Emira says with a quizzical eye.

I smile at that before gesturing them forward, "Some here and there. The greeting I've gotten down on point but I still have a long way to go before I can even think of holding a conversation."

"Don't worry, I'll get you there eventually," Ahsoka says as she places a hand on my shoulder.

Emira then walks past me, "Trust me Shan practice does make perfect and you'll get it eventually."

"Thanks," I reply as we all are now at the window.

"Anakin, were you able to contact Master Luminara?" My master asks him.

"Yes, Master. She's busy with a fleet of separatist reinforcements nearby. She won't be able to give us support until she's turned them away."

"Then we'll have to make due with what we have," With that sentiment from my master, all the ships in our fleet continue to rain laser shots on that behemoth. "Admiral, status report."

"They're not attempting to jump to hyperspace," Admiral Yularen, which I think is cool that he's not a clone, informs us. "Their hyperdrive must be damaged," He surmises.

"This is our chance. All ships, target the bridge, maximum firepower," My master orders and everyone does so.

Ahsoka, Emira and I move forward to examine the control readings we have of the entire battle asway for us to do at least something useful while we stand here. I continue to have a grinning smile in slight satisfaction as this monstrosity that has been hounding the Republic is completely defenseless and at our mercy.

"We're almost there. Just a little more," I comment until I hear something from Ahsoka's side of the console.

"Huh? What the- Shan, Emira, check this out," Ahsoka calls me over in confusion. "What does this look like to you?"

Leaning in close to the screen, I see what's got her confused, a new signal suddenly popped up near the enemy ship, "Is that a ship signal?"

"It is. Master, we're picking up a signal vessel. A single vessel is coming out of hyperspace," Emira informs everyone out loud.

"Enemy reinforcements?" Master Skywalker guesses but it's wrong as a closer look I see what exactly the signal is.

"No. It looks like…" Ahsoka trails off as she looks at me.

'This… can't be right.' I shake my head in disbelief before looking back at everyone, "The ship… it's got a Naboo transponder."

"Gunners, stand down. What in blazes are they doing out here?"

"You two, contact that ship," Master Skywalker orders us to do it and we do it.

I key in the comm while Ahsoka speaks to whoever is piloting said ship.

"Naboo cruiser, identify yourself."

"This is senator Amidala."

"Padme? What are you doing out here?" Master Skywalker quickly and worriedly asks the senator.

"I was sent on a special mission. The senate was told the banking clan wanted to negotiate a treaty," She tells us as her form comes in the way of the holotransmitter.

"Get out of there as fast as you can!" Before she can even think to do what Master Skywalker requests, the senator's transmission form begins to cut out as something happens, "Padme, what's happening?"

A quick look at the readings shows her ship drifting dangerously close to the enemy.

"I'm being pulled inside the droid cruiser by a tractor beam. I will not be made a separatist bargaining chip. Continue your attack. You must destroy this monstrous ship!" She says and almost orders us with firm conviction, willing to sacrifice herself to make sure that thing is taken down before her transmission cuts off entirely.

'I'm not one who wants to sacrifice innocent lives to destroy the enemy, but if that thing gets away, way more lives are going to be taken,' Logically, sacrificing the senator's life to destroy that thing along with General Grievous is a fair price. What's right, it's not.

Thankfully I don't have to make the call as I look at Master Skywalker who seems to struggle really hard and mentally debating whether to continue or stop the assault, "Admiral, order our ships to stop firing."

While in the long run, it may not be logical, but it's a good thing to do. The Admiral signals for everyone of our ships to stop firing and after a few seconds of firing, eventually our cannons all halt but we continue to follow. As soon as we do, Master Skywalker turns around and begins leaving.

"Where do you think you're going?" My master asks a departing Skywalker.

"Somebody has to save her skin," Master Skywalker simply replies without stopping.

"I thought you might say that," My master tiredly says as he follows too, leaving the rest of us here on the bridge.

"There he goes again, craving adventure and excitement," Master Plo comments on the somewhat brash Jedi Master of Ahsoka's.

"You get used to it," Ahsoka simply says as we watch both of them go.

I let out a sigh before someone tapped my shoulder, "You better go with them."

"What, you think so?" I ask and look at Emira.

"Come on," Emira says, getting my attention. "We've already went on a dangerous bombing mission. Now it's time for you to go on a dangerous rescue mission," She tells me as she jabs a finger to my chest.

I stare at her for a second before I glance at Master Plo, who cups his chin in thought, before I smile back at Emira and Ahsoka.

"You know, that's true," I began walking towards the door backwards. "They can use the help. I'll see you both once this whole mess is over, let's go BD." I wave a quick bye to them before turning around and sprinting down the hallways after the Jedi Masters with BD still on shoulder.

3rd(POV)

"Do you think it's wise for him to join them on this mission?" Plo-Koon asks Ahsoka and Emira once Shan is gone.

"He survived Ventress and an army of droids so I think a small rescue mission with both his and my Master he can make due," She explains before turning fully to the Master Jedi.

Master Plo says to himself, "Hmmm."

Emira smiles at her master, "I'm sure he'll be fine, Master."

Shan(POV)

I run out the elevator and immediately look around the hanger to try to find my Master and Skywalker. While I don't see them personally, I do see Master Skywalkers junker ship, the Twilight as he mentioned it's to be called, engines turn on. It's pretty much the only ship that we have on standby that can be used for this slight stealth mission so I book it to the ship. As soon as I run up the loading ramp, it closes behind me.

"Uh-oh. Better quickly ask him." I move through the ship until I find the door heading into the bridge, "Master!" I say just as the door opens and my Master looks back at me with wide-eyes, "Request permission to— Whoa!" Suddenly I am thrown to the ground behind me as the ship takes off and lurches forward, I groan as I get up from the ground and move into the doorway again. "To… join… the mission," I sheepishly ask.

"Shan, what are you doing here?!" My master asked in surprise at my presence.

"I believe he asked to join our mission, Master. Oh well, we're already out of the cruiser. Guess he's joining us," Master Skywalker says nonchalantly as he pilots us out the cruiser.

"Anakin, I did not agree to bring him along. What are you even doing here?" My master asks the question to me.

"I wanted to ask you if I could join you but I just barely caught you in this ship when the ramp closed behind me and lifted up," I say.

"Lighten up, Master. This'll be the perfect chance for him to get some more experience in the field," Master Skywalker proposes but my master isn't as convinced.

"Master, I don't even need to fight Grievous, I can hang back with Master Skywalker and secure the Senator," I try to reason.

"He does have a point Master, I mean, remember back to Geonosis?" Master Skywalker says, causing my master to roll his eyes and lean back in his seat.

"Oh don't bring that up."

"Wait, wasn't that when you two plus the senator were captured and forced to fight in an arena?" I ask them, causing them to both turn and look at me with questioning looks, "I do my research on who my Master is going to be. Plus the whole thing was pretty well-known."

"Yes, well, that's true," My master replies before he gets a sly smile on his face and turns to his former student. "In fact, how is it that you had lost your lightsaber, Anakin?"

Master Skywalker gets a nervous look on his face as he remembers something that I don't think he wants brought up, "O-oh… well I don't think your Padawan needs to know about—"

"He let it get cut in half on a conveyor belt."

"My arm was stuck!"

"And let's not forget before that when you dropped after landing on that assassin's speeder."

"W-well, yeah but I did manage to find her!"

'I feel like a third wheel here,' I can't help but think as they talk back and forth with each other.

My view switches between the two of them as they continue to speak and recount past events and trying to reason why they happened though. Looking forward, I get nervous as I watch us drifting dangerously close to the Malevolence.

"Uhh, Masters?" I say worriedly.

"Come now Anakin—"

"Master please don't—"

"Watch it!" I yell out and grab the controls over Master Skywalker's hands and jerk the ship to the side, away from the deadly ship we are trying to stealthily land on and not trying to let them know we are coming.

They immediately stop talking as the ship jerks to the side and Master Skywalker is able to regain control and focuses on flying again.

Both masters are gripping their seats a little tightly after the sudden jerking motion.

"Thank you Shan," Master Skywalker thanked me once he got the ship under control.

"No problem."

"Let's be careful from now on. If they spot us, we'll be pulverized," My master advises since we almost crashed into the behemoth.

"They're too busy repairing the ship. They don't have time to notice us," Master Skywalker is pretty confident in that ideal and while I like it, hopefully the enemy shares the same thoughts, or programming in some cases.

"Subtlety has never been one of your strong points, Anakin."

"Everything I know I learned from you, Master."

"Is that something I should expect in my training?"

"Yes."

"No." Master Skywalker agrees with my question but at the same time my master, my teacher, doesn't.

They both look at each other before shaking their heads and going back to getting us to that ship. Soon enough, thanks to Master Skywalker's focused flying, we eventually come to the emergency hatch of the ship and dock on it.

"Anakin, you're crazy. Spinning is not flying," My master comments about his flying as we ride the elevator up to the entrance into the ship.

"But it's a good trick."

"We do not want to be spotted," Just as my master says that, the door opens and there are two B1 droids there who are very surprised to see us.

"WOAH!" BD exclaimed with raised antennas.

"I knew it! It's them!"

"Ohhh, no."

ZEW ZEW

Both droids lose their heads as two blaster bolts take their heads off. Both Masters turn back to see me with my arm out and with my modified DC-17 blaster barrel pointed out.

I holster it soon after and nod forward, "We're clear."

"Nice one," Master Skywalker compliments me before we walk forward into the enemy ship. "You stay here, R2," He quickly commands the astromech droid to do while we continue on ahead, I keep my hand on my blaster in case we suddenly run into trouble in these hallways but we are forced to stop when Master Skywalker gets a call on his communicator. "Yes?"

"Master, we've found the senator. I'm patching her through," Ahsoka calls in before she gets cut off.

"Padme?" Master Skywalker asks before he is answered to his slight relief.

"Anakin!"

"Are you alright? Where are you?" He asks, concerned.

"On the lower levels. I'm fine, but I don't know for how long. Droids are everywhere."

"Obi-Wan, his Padawan and I are on board too."

"What?! What are you doing here?" She asks loudly and very surprised.

Supposedly I guess she was expecting the fleet to have continued opening fire on the Malevolence but we didn't, definitely not with her on-board.

"We came to get you off this ship. Ahsoka, how can we get to the senator?" Master Skywalker asks his Padawan.

"According to our scans, there seems to be a larger open area in the center of the ship. It should be halfway between the two of you."

"Open area? Wonder what that is," I ask as I look at my master, who shrugs in return.

"We're on our way. Did you hear that, Padme?"

"I'll be there," With the connection cut off, we know our destination and make our way to where we need to go.

A few twists and turns, running down long hallways but eventually we make it to what the open area is. Once we see it, my eyes widen and see just what it is.

"Oh Force, this thing has its own rail transit system!" I exclaim loudly in surprise.

Easily this thing is bigger than any other ship in the entire Republic fleet but I had no idea that it had to employ a literal transit train system to all sections of the ship as each train carries supplies and materials to no doubt keep this thing in working order. In several places and sections of the open train area I see many rails destroyed and broken with a few trains destroyed here and there. The trains are working overtime to keep this thing functioning considering its been hit pretty hard thanks to Master Skywalker and Shadow Squadrons crippling attack on the Ion cannon. This whole thing is a feat of engineering, from the Ion weapon capable of disabling any cruiser ship in one hit, to the size, train system, and to top it all off the hundreds upon hundreds of turbolasers that can put down more firepower than any other ship is something to behold, and fear. As much as I would love to examine it, check it out and so on, I'm feeling much more satisfaction for this monstrosity to be nothing more than a lifeless floating husk of its former self from all the clone lives it took since it first sprung up.

"Wow. Never seen this before on a ship," Master Skywalker comments as well on the engineering.

If I remember correctly, I believe he was regarded by pretty much everyone as being one of the best pilots in the Republic Army and Jedi Order so I shouldn't be surprised he has a fascination with ships as well.

"Yes, though impressive, we're still going to destroy it once we get the senator off of it. Speaking of, I don't see her, Anakin," My master states, focusing on the matter at hand.

'Fawn over the weapons later, save the hostage now.'

"She's here, master. I sense it," Without any indication to find the senator, we are forced to simply wait and watch for any signs of her. "There!"

Not even a minute passes before we spot and hear several blaster bolts go off from a level below our own. We see the senator and her protocol droid run from the droids while she fires back.

"Let's go, Shan," My master says as we ignite our lightsabers and jump forward.

I too jump and run just behind them until we all land on a moving cargo train heading for the senator.

While we rode the cargo train to our objective, a trio of B1 droids came to the open area on patrol and immediately spotted us riding the train that's passing their position.

"Look, Jedi," One droid says as they spot the three of us moving on the train.

"Fire!" The second one orders.

"No, wait," The third tries to stop them but it's too late.

Its friends could only fire once and it's enough for my Masters to deflect the shots right back at the droids.

"I knew that was a bad idea," The surviving droid moans after seeing the others taken down so quickly and easily by their own shots.

When it turns back to the Jedi on the train, he spots the younger Jedi aiming his arm mounted blaster at him and just as he expects to be taken offline but he lowers the weapon and turns around as they leave well out of range.

The droid has no idea how lucky he was.

"Why didn't you shoot?" Master Skywalker asks.

"He was just one droid. Not much reason for me to shoot him you know," I answer.

"Quite right," My master agrees.

"Besides, we have bigger things to worry about," My master says as he points to the senator and her droid down below.

They both jump off and land on another cargo train but the gold droid bounces off it and lands on another one further down.

"Padme!" Master Skywalker yells and jumps far onto a lower moving train to get to the senator.

Next what happens further complicates things as a B2 battle droid launches a plasma blast further down the tracks the senator is on, destroying the rail tracks completely.

"That's not good," I mutter and get ready to go down to help but my master grabs my shoulder to stop me.

"Patience, young one. You'll see Anakin is versed in… adapting to certain situations," My master comments and informs me. With his arm still on me, we watch as the senator jumps to Master Skywalker but before she can fall to her death, he uses the force to carry her to him safely, "See."

"Oh, nice. You were right, Master."

"He may be bold but he is resourceful," He comments about his old student before calling out to them. "Nice catch! I'll fetch the droid!" He yells to them before turning to me, "Go with them."

"Are you sure Master?" I ask curiously.

"The Senator was the main reason for us being here. Couldn't hurt to give them some backup while I grab the droid."

'I can't really fault the idea,' I nod at the reasoning. "You got it Master. I'll see you back at the ship!" I say to him just as I jump off the train and bounce to the lower levels.

"Be careful!" My master calls out as I descend.

I jump off of lower rails and other trains until just before the train Master Skywalker and the senator are passing through a tunnel, I land on the last car and roll into a crouch. BD jumped off of my back and with his lighter weight he fell slower. As I stand BD lands back on my back with the help of his thrusters.

"Oof! Gotta work on the landing," I mutter and begin making my way to the other passengers.

"Anakin, I got separated from your droid," My master's voice comes on over our communicators as I continue to carefully jump up and over many boxes and between cars.

Seeing as how the train is going at high speed, the wind resistance is kind of against me so I have to be careful, lest I be thrown off or hit something.

"Ugh, I'll take care of it."

"I've sent Shan down to help you get the Senator out of here."

"What?! C'mon, Master! I don't need any help."

"Sorry, Master Skywalker!" I shout as I jump off a car and land on the one he and the senator are on, in which they are really close together for some reason, gonna chalk it up to her being grateful. They look at me as I walk up to them, "Kind of too late for me to go back now."

"Uhh, fine." He mutters before keying in his comm again, "We'll meet you back at the Twilight then."

"No, we can't leave yet," The senator suddenly speaks up. "I overheard Grievous. Their hyperdrive is almost repaired," She gives us some grave news.

Overtime we can whittle the ship until it's destroyed but if the hyperdrive is repaired, then the Malevolence can escape, get repaired and eventually terrorize Republic space again.

"I'm already headed in that direction, so I'll make certain that the hyperdrive stays offline," My master informs us on our comlinks.

"Roger that, Master. We're getting you out of here," He tells the senator before calling someone else. "R2, I need you to help me find 3PO. He's on the rail jet," He calls and informs R2. "I know. I know. He does. Look, just find him for me, and I'll be there soon," He turns back to us. "Alright, the train should be stopping soon. When we stop, we get off and should be able to work our way to 3P0," Master Skywalker says and once he finishes talking, the trains do come to a stop. "Alright, let's get going."

"Right behind you," The senator and I follow Master Skywalker as we hopefully try to find the droid.

3rd(POV)

On the bridge of the Negotiator, Obi-wan Kenobi's prime Jedi cruiser in the Republic army, follows the Malevolence at a steady pace and while they could easily fire upon it, not while their fellow Jedi and allies are still aboard the vessel.

Jedi Master Plo Koon continues to monitor the ship with Admiral Yularen nearby and Padawans Emira Tang and Ahsoka Tano impatiently waiting, the latter of which is tapping her fingers on the console is anything to go by, while the former nervously twirls of her hair around her finger.

Master Plo sees the younglings' impatience for waiting from the tapping, fiddling and the scowls on their faces, "Patience, young ones they will return soon enough."

Emira finally notices her finger and hair before coughing into the same hair and apologizing to her master, "I apologize Master."

"Sorry, Master Plo," She apologizes and straightens up and crosses her arms. "I just don't like standing here doing nothing. If the senator wasn't captured, it'd at least be a nice show to see that thing finally be destroyed but instead, we can only stand here and hope that everyone makes it out okay," She voices her concern on the whole matter.

"Unfortunately I have to agree, with Master Skywalker's unpredictable alongside Shan's, I fear they'll do something even crazier," Emira confesses her worries.

While before they were alright with the idea that their friend Shan would join the masters in a rescue mission on that giant ship, now that he's already on the enemy flaming warship do they feel concern for their safety.

"Yes, while it may be infuriating to be here and not able to do anything to help out our comrades, you must have patience and trust that they will be able to accomplish the mission and return to us safely and without harm," The Kel Dor Jedi advises what they have to do.

It may not be the most glamorous of things to do but it's the best they can do right now.

Ahsoka and Emira look to each other and then their master and/or old friend for a little while before sighing and staring back at the Malevolence, "I hope your right Master Plo."

"Even though General Skywalker may sometimes be a bit… brash in his actions. He almost always comes out on top of the situation," Admiral Yularen adds his own opinion on the matter, gaining the Jedi's attention. "And with General Kenobi and General Vizsla there to lend aid, we should expect them back no worse for wear. When they'll be back though… depends on how big of an escape Skywalker wants to make."

The three Jedi don't really fault the thinking as they turn back to the view windows, all the while, Emira has a small smile on her face, 'Shan's resourceful too. I'm sure he'll be fine.'

Shan(POV)

"MOVE! MOVE! MOVE! I'll cover you!" I yell loudly before I lay down covering firing for Master Skywalker and the senator as we run from the squad of droids that found us.

As soon as both of them run past me, Master Skywalker and I deflect blaster shots back at the droids, the senator stops at the corner and fires a few shots at our enemies, allowing me to move and shoot across the hallway to my friends. As soon as we turn the corner and move down another hallway, Master Skywalker and the senator move behind some cover on the right side of the hallway while I take the opposite side of them.

The senator and I pop out of our covers every so often to take down as many of the droids as we can while Master Skywalker calls my master.

I still use both my arm blasters while the senator uses her Naboo blaster pistol, "Obi-Wan? Come in, Obi-Wan."

"Anakin, I'm afraid Grievous is onto us," My master replies.

"Yeah, we noticed," He states the obvious.

"Kind of busy here Master!" I too yell into the commlink quickly before I pop out and nail a B1's head off before blocking another blaster bolt before finally going back in.

"We'll rendezvous back at the Twilight. The fleet must engage the-ZZt!" Before my master can't finish talking, his voice cuts off.

"Master? Master!" I tried to call him but the transmission was indeed cut.

BD tries to reconnect but no luck.

"Obi-Wan? Come in. Obi-Wan!"

"What's wrong?!" The senator asks.

"They're jamming us," He tells us what they're most likely doing.

I go to shoot again but the remaining B2 droids are getting really close now and I'm forced to start slicing and dicing.

I deactivated my lightsaber as Master Skywalker says, "That was great Shan, that should buy us some time."

"I suppose you have a plan," The senator surmises as we walk out of cover.

"Follow me," Without any indication of giving us any details, we simply follow him.

When we go back the way we were going the way before, I can't help but keep glancing my way to the senator. More specifically, the blaster she's been using.

"Anakin, the Padawan keeps staring at me," As soon as she says that, I realize I was staring at her much longer than I intended.

"Shan, quit checking out the senator," My eyes widened and I blanked at the insinuation before shaking my head no as well as my hands.

"N-no! No no no no! That's not what I was staring at it was—" I stop my yelling before I take a deep breath before staring directly at the senator and pointing at her hand, "Senator, is that an ELG-3A Naboo blaster pistol?"

"Oh, yeah. I should have known," I hear Master Skywalker but I ignore him in favor of hearing the senators answer.

She actually looks at me a little surprised before holding up the weapon for a clearer.

"Actually yes, it is. How did you know?" She asks curiously.

"Out of all the Padawans Obi-wan could have gotten, he got the one that has a passion for weapons," Master Skywalker proceeds to comment about me first.

"Oh, I guess that explains why he has a blaster on his arm."

"Hmm," I chuckle at how I made them.

"Just me that's by choice Pad- Uh Senator."

"… Oh," The senator seems to somewhat get what Master Skywalker means, before she stops talking.

Once I bring myself out of my funk after a few seconds do I turn to her again, "Senator, could I see your weapon for a second?"

"Now?" She asks in a little surprise, no doubt because we are in the middle of an enemy battleship so she doesn't want to be defenseless when we run into more enemies.

"Don't worry, we're clear for now. Besides, he won't stop looking at your weapon until he has a chance to look at it with his own two hands," Thankfully Master Skywalker backs me somewhat.

She looked hesitant at the weapon before handing it towards me with the handle. I holster my lightsaber and take the weapon in both hands, carefully examining it. BD also takes the liberty to scan the blaster.

"Thank you so much," I get a feel for the weapon as I feel its grip with one hand and rolling it around. "Wow. So small yet powerful. The barrel itself looks like it could easily snap off but it won't. Light too," I begin to comment about the weapon for the first time I've held one.

"I've never seen a Jedi so amazed by blasters before."

"Join the club. Even the clones are surprised."

"The clones? Why would they be—"

"Intruders! Bla—"

PEW PEW PEW

As soon as we pass into an intersection, we come across a small patrol of four B1 droids. Before they can start blasting us, or even finish the sentence, I fire three precise shots in rapid succession right at them, nailing three of them in the head before they fall over on the fourth one behind them. Master Skywalker didn't even have a chance to turn on his lightsaber before the droids fell to the ground offline.

Both he and the senator stare at me in surprise at my accuracy and quick response to the enemy patrol that almost got the jump on us, "That's the thing you two. Most people, especially the Jedi, see blasters as being clumsy, easy to use where anyone can use them with barely any training. I don't see it as that." I casually begin to say as I slowly walk up to the droids on the floor, "While there is some truth to that, it takes skill and finesse to truly be the deadliest person with a blaster against all kinds of opponents."

I stop in front of the fourth droid covered by one of its friends. It tries to move the bodies but I slowly move the senator's blaster over its head and fire.

PEW

Just like its friends, it falls offline without any other problem, "In fact, I believe the bounty hunter Jango Fett was able to kill some Jedi with his blasters." I mention that little bit as I walk back over to the senator.

That was something that got my interest when I was looking up the various blaster weapons, vehicles and artillery. The Jedi, or any force wielder with a lightsaber really, have been known far and wide for their ability to be quick enough to deflect blaster bolts but it's pretty much the first time I've heard of a non-force user capable of shooting a Jedi dead.

"That goes to show that even the famed blaster deflecting lightsaber wielders can be killed with a blaster, one-on-one."

'Droids don't count, or multiple people taking on one Jedi,' I think as I aim the blaster at the senator for a second before I twirl her blaster in my hand until the grip is facing her.

She stares at me with wide eyes before taking her weapon back. I turn to Master Skywalker and see him staring at me with a smirk and crossed arms.

I nod and pull out my lightsaber, "Let's keep moving. This ship isn't going to destroy itself."

"On that you are right," He agrees and goes back to leading us to where we need to go.

Several minutes pass as we continue to move in silence to where we're going until we eventually find ourselves in an elevator. The elevator is a little cramped but we manage nonetheless. Master Skywalker still hasn't told us where we're going but as soon as the door opens, find out.

"-The good news- uhh…" Whatever the droid was going to say, it peters off as he spots us.

Master Skywalker runs in, lightsaber on as he begins cutting down the pilot droids here on the bridge. What he doesn't see is the two B2 droids moving in from behind him.

"Anakin!"

"Master watch out!" As soon as the senator and I call out, one of the droids turns to us.

I quickly aim my arm blaster and fire, however they begin to stumble and short circuit. I then rush forward and begin to disassemble them. The droids go down hard, dead.

"Ever since I've known you, you've been playing with droids," The senator comments to the older Jedi.

"I used to put them together. Now I only take them apart."

"Nothing wrong with that," I comment as well.

"So where do we start?" The senator asks once we see that we have cleared the bridge of the enemy

"First we need to get rid of these droids so they won't know we were here. I'm gonna hotwire the ship, give Grievous a little surprise," He quickly gives us a summary of what he has planned as he sits down on one of the pilot seats and begins fiddling with it.

"I guess I'll clean up the droids then," The senator figures out that she has to do the menial task of clearing the droid bodies.

"Ehhh, don't worry senator. I got you," I offer my help to her since that's really all the only other thing I can do right now. "BD help out Master Skywalker."

BD beeps happily before running over to the console and plugs in.

"Thanks… Shan, was it?" She asks my name and I nod.

"Yes, correct. Padme, right?"

"That's right."

"Nice to meet you ma'am."

"Likewise," We exchange handshakes and pleasantries while we have the chance before we start working gathering the scrap metal.

Thankfully there are about a half dozen droid bodies here for us to gather so the B1's are light enough for us to move individually but we need to work together to move the B2's without much effort. Soon enough that's what we're doing as we both lean down to pick up one of the big droids.

"So senator, you and Master Skywalker seem close. Do you two have a bit of history with each other?" I ask, wanting to strike up conversation and solve my own curiosity.

SLAM

"Ow!" I wish I didn't because what the senator was doing was picking up the B2 droid and when I was going to assist, I asked my question and I'm not sure if it was the right time because I now have the dead droid slammed onto my foot.

"Oh! Sorry!"

"What's going on back there?"

"Nothing, Anakin! M-My hand just slipped," The senator quickly dissuades Master Skywalker from taking an interest in just what happened. Once I've stopped hoping on my foot does she come up to me to apologize, "I am soooo sorry. I didn't mean to drop it on you. I'm sorry."

"Ahhh… alright. I get it. Sorry for asking the question," I grumble, still a little ticked off at having gotten hurt like that.

"No no it's not that I just…" She sighs before pulling me a little distance away so we can speak without Master Skywalker hearing us, "Alright, you just… surprised me is all with the question."

"Why? You two seem pretty… friendly with each other and I figured you knew each other more than just simple acquaintances."

"What makes you think that?" She asks.

"Well, for you both refer to each other on a first name basis. My master and Master Skywalker do that too but that's because they were former master and apprentice. I don't know about you two so I was just curious. If you don't want to talk, fine then so we can get back to cleaning," I offer for her and I'm about to go but she stops me.

"No no, it's fine. Just wasn't expecting it," She sheepishly says and gestures for me to move back to her and I do. "You're right we do know each other. We're… close friends for a long time. Since before he even became a Jedi," I look at her surprised at the info.

'Before he was a Jedi? Wow, that was long ago.'

"Before I even became a senator, I was the Queen of Naboo for a time and during when the Confederacy was starting to become a threat, I met Anakin on his home planet Tatooine when our ship was damaged and after winning a pod race, he joined us when Master Qui-Gon Jinn was able to arrange his freedom when he found out he was force sensitive," We glance at the working Jedi before looking back at each other. "Since he was nine-years-old, he was always nice and supportive of me during my reign as queen, charming too if you can believe it, and he helped me when I needed it, mostly guard duty for some assignments but we're… longtime friends," She finishes saying with a smile. I continue to stare at her for a few more seconds before looking at him again who's still typing away.

I smile before nodding to the senator and say, "Thank you, Senator. It's nice to have some context at least and for you to tell me that."

"No problem."

"Now, let's go ahead and finish cleaning up the mess. As soon as Master Skywalker and BD finish doing whatever he's doing, we're outta' here."

"Right," She agrees with me and we go back to cleaning up the mess.

While we're working though, I can't help but get the feeling she wasn't telling me exactly everything that was the truth about their relationship with each other but this was all mostly for my curiosity so I guess I shouldn't really get into it.

A few minutes later, we're down to the last droid and Master Skywalker is finished, "That ought to do it. How's the housecleaning going?" He asks.

"Nnnnn! Gah!" I shove the B2 into the door with the rest and close it before nodding to the senator.

"Done. Let's get out of here," She says.

BD runs up to me and climbs up to my shoulders.

We go back into the cramped elevator and head down to the floor that has the emergency hatch we originally used. We ran back to the ship in relative silence and thankfully without any problems as either we took care of the patrols or they've been diverted elsewhere to look for us. Either way it's a clear way to go.

"Wait, what about 3PO?" The senator suddenly asks as we stop at a sliding.

"Oh crap. Your droid. Right, we forgot about him." I say as well.

"How are we going to find him?" She asks worried about him.

"Don't worry. I'm sure he'll turn up," As soon as Master Skywalker says that, he opens the door and we are met with two droids. "3PO, what are you doing? Don't just stand there," He tells the gold protocol droid along with R2 and starts running. "Let's get back to the ship," We continue to follow him this time with two new tagalongs.

We move at a brisk pace through more hallways and turns but not as fast as we were before because the droids are kind of slow, 3PO especially. Nonetheless things are still quiet until we turn one last corner to our ship.

"Alright, let's go," I say as we take off down the hallway to where the Twilight is docked.

Soon enough I hear the others following me. In just another turn we make it back to the elevator that leads to our ship.

"Power up the engines, R2," Master Skywalker tasks the astromech to do.

"Master, we made it to the ship. Where are you?" I called my master on the comm.

"Hold the ship!" Instead of on the comm, my master comes running around the corner with a barrage of blasters nipping at his heels.

Soon the droids come around and start firing at us too.

"Master, come on!" I yell as I open fire around him in an effort to take out the droids.

Unfortunately, the droids chasing him are of the Droideka models and their shields prevent my shots and blaster redirections from doing anything to them. Still that doesn't stop me from trying to cover him somewhat until Master Skywalker uses the force to carry some boxes in front of their firing range, preventing them from killing us and giving us the chance to descend back into the ship.

"I'll contact the fleet," My master says as he and Master Skywalker take the pilot seats.

"R2, release the docking clamp," The astromech goes ahead and does that and unlocks us from the ship before we begin traveling away from the Malevolence.

We don't get far though, for we are soon attacked by droid fighters on our tail.

"We got company," I say.

"Time for some clever tricks, Anakin," My master comments to his former student.

"That's what I was thinking," He replies and the senator and I have to hold on a bit as he swerves us around the incoming laser shots.

Thankfully, we have some slight cover as our cruisers begin to open fire on the enemy forces again now that we are not on the ship anymore. Still we are being hammered by the enemy fighters.

"You know, we have guns. You can shoot back any time," He points out an obvious truth that we should have realized before.

My master stares at his former student before turning to me with an encouraging smile, "Shan, care to try your hand?"

I smile at my master's words and pop my fingers in preparation. I reach up and grab the manual control view range for the guns on this ship.

"Gladly," I pull it down before I lean in and begin scanning all around until I manage to aim the gun behind us.

"You think your Padawan can do this?" I don't bother listening to Master Skywalker's question as I spot droid fighters gaining on us.

Smirking, I press the buttons and watch as the gun turret on the right wing of the Twilight opens fire on them. What I take note however as I fire is the lead starfighter that's chasing us. If I remember correctly, it's the General of the droid army that's flying the Belbullab-22 starfighter and hammering our ship. I think either way the pilot is good. It swerves out of the way of the barrage of shots but I shift the rest of my aim to vulture droids and begin taking them down one-by-one.

"I think he has this."

"Thank you, Master!" I lightly yell as I jerk to the side a little, taking down a vulture droid that was getting too close, and forcing the special ship to dodge yet again, making it miss its shots.

"Nice shot, my Padawan."

"Almost like shooting a blaster… but with a bigger gun," I comment as I continue to fire but at a steady careful pace.

Timing my shots as best I can.

"Pardon me, Sir, but R2's scan of the enemy's ship indicates their hyperdrive is activating," 3PO informs us of the situation.

'Guess my Master wasn't able to shut down the hyperdrive. Not surprised considering how many droids might have been waiting.'

"Don't worry about it."

"What?" My master questions surprised and slightly confused at his former students' words.

I continue to fire a bit more but suddenly the ships following us turn around and begin to retreat. Once they're out of range, I shift my view to the Malevolence and to my surprise it begins to turn directly to the nearby moon. Normally you'd turn away from crashing into the moon but whatever Master Skywalker did has made the warship fly straight and crash into the moon. I tear myself away from the view screen as the ship blows up in a massive bright light. Looking out the window, I can see the explosion better without the intensity of the controls I was using.

"Woah," I mutter as I stare at the explosion far off.

"I imagine you had something to do with that," My master comments to Skywalker, who offers a smile in return.

"All part of the plan, Master," He replies and from here on, it's smooth sailing back to the fleet without us being fired upon by the enemy.

---

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