Annabeth Chase

She couldn't have been out for more than a few minutes because when she came around she was being dragged along by her arms, her knees and boots dragging across concrete. Every inch of her body hurt.

"She's coming around," a muffled male voice announced and a moment later pain exploded across the back of her skull and the lights went back out.

She woke up as she was unceremoniously dropped to the floor and Annabeth's face made contact with the grimy concrete.

"Master, I found Agent Chase observing us from up there," Ethan announced, probably pointing out her hiding spot.

Groaning Annabeth rose on her hands and found herself in front of what looked like the command tent. Standing in the opening, stood the pure-blooded Sith warrior.

"I thought I smelled a republic whore," he sneered.

Suddenly Annabeth felt an iron vice grip taking hold of her throat with almost impossible strength and she was yanked off the floor and onto an eye level. With the Sith standing at maybe six and a half feet, her feet were left only to kick at empty hair as Annabeth clawed at hands that weren't there.

Through blurry eyes, Annabeth stared at the Sith with his glowing orange eye. It almost looked as if he was reaching out to her. no, ...grabbing at her. He was lifting her up with his mind only as if she weighed little more than a doll.

Only just having returned Annabeth's vision quickly darkened. Her mouth was opened wide as she tried to take a breath that would not come. Just as she thought she would pass out again the Sith dropped her.

Annabeth collapsed onto a heap and felt her service blaster poking hard into her left breast as her weight forced her down on it. The sharp pain brought back to reality and Annabeth gasped for breath, inhaling the stale humid air as if it was a brisk breeze on a glacier back on Alderaan.

The blaster...

Annabeth thought. Though she knew even if she somehow managed to draw it without being stopped, it would do her no good. Still, it was a small miracle they hadn't found it, and it was an ace up her sleeve. It was the last ace up her sleeve.

It was time to accept that she was going to die down here, and that was if she was lucky. For a moment she thought back to her father, encouraging her to find love and start a family. To enjoy life.

She had spent the past few years either working cases, or working out.

Did she regret it? Should she have taken that small-town Republic Security gig on Alderaan, gotten married, and had children?

Facing her demise, she probably did.

Still coughing, and spluttering for air, she defiantly glared up into the Sith's yellow eyes.

"Master, she mentioned Perseus Jackson," Ethan added.

If possible, the hatred in those eyes burned even hotter. "Perseus Jackson! His existence proves that the Galaxy has a sense of humor. A man I truly hope to kill for striking down my old master."

The Sith grabbed his own lightsaber from where he had it slung over his back. She guessed this was one of those saber staffs. It made very little difference to Annabeth. She didn't care what blade killed her. Annabeth knew she was going to die,...and that was if she was lucky.

"So," the Sith growled, activating one of the hilts, and pointed the blade of light at her face, the crimson blade mere inches from her face. "It was you who sprung the trap,..."

Annabeth pushed her fear down into a deep corner of her mind and glared up at him. "Yes, wasn't very good though."

"It was not meant for you," he sneered.

"It was meant for Percy Jackson?" Annabeth asked, guessing from Ethan's report that perhaps this Sith held a personal grudge.

"Him or any other Jedi that came by sniffing," the Sith hissed. "Though I hoped he would find his way here. Did he send you here to do his dirty work?"

Annabeth laughed and wheezed, "In fact he has. To be fair his can hardly be called negligence on his part, so far you Sith have really failed to impress us." It was hardly true, but Annabeth hoped it would provoke the Sith into ending her before he got himself into the mood for some sport. He struck her as the type, and with him already calling her a whore, he fit the profile of someone who would take great pleasure in degrading her. Her dying also meant she would not be able to share any sensitive information.

"She lies, Master," Ethan interceded quietly. "We know for a fact that Agent Chase has been looking for Jackson ever since she crossed paths with him. She represents a third party in the periphery of this operation."

"And you?" Annabeth asked mildly. "A traitor?" Annabeth then spits at Ethan with contempt.

"A traitor?" Ethan asked kneeling down next to her. He pushed a stand of her hair out of her face, in Annabeth's mind another indicator of how this was going to go. "It is not I who betrayed the Republic. It is the Republic who betrayed us. Who abandoned whom, Ms. Chase? I watched my brothers die around me. Men I respected. Men I loved, only to watch the Jedi Council not even bother to show up for the funeral and the Republic ignore their sacrifice altogether."

Annabeth considered pointing out that in a galactic war with armies numbering in the billions on both sides, a few dozen Jedi, while undeniably tragic, was barely worth any headlines in the grand scheme of things.

"What about the Senator?" Annabeth asked. If she was going to die, she might as well figure out a few things.

"He is-."

"My master, ..." Ethan warned, cutting the Sith off mid-sentence.

"She won't get the chance to make use of her knowledge," the Sith said, which sounded good to Annabeth. She was curious though.

"Your precious Senator," the Sith began, slowly walking around Annabeth, the top of his lightsaber still mere inches away from her face.

"Has been an intelligence asset of ours for many years," he mused. "Unfortunately our attempts to liquidate him, now that he has outlived his usefulness, have been frustrated."

A soldier in full armor, a Colonel judging by his rank markings stepped up to him. "Lord Atlas, we have recovered Specialist Shayes body from the wastewater tunnel. Looks like she got him and Miles on her way in."

"Good riddance," Annabeth muttered, now that her curiosity had been satisfied.

"They were good men," the Colonel snapped at her.

Annabeth grinned. "They'd still be alive if they had been. Just like your other men. Got pasted by a single-girl cop with zero military training. If this is the best the Imperial Commandos have to offer..."

The comment earned her a backhanded blow across the face. She had gotten harder blows during the training, but considering the Colonel was wearing an armored gauntlet the blow stung and soon she felt hot blood running down the side of her face.

"This was fun and all, but can we skip to the part where you chop my head off? Your stench is giving me a migraine," Annabeth groaned as her eyes began to swell shut.

"Nice try, Chase," Ethan said. "I fear you won't be dying for quite a while. Now, you will tell us exactly what your little friends know and who else is coming for you."

"Don't know," Annabeth grunted, trying to martial her thoughts to come to with something that resembled a witty answer. "Took a wrong turn on my way to the lavatory and ended up here."

The Sith raised his free hand and Annabeth was once again blasted with a torrent of purple lightning. The pain was like nothing Annabeth had ever felt before, even worse than what Ethan had subjected her to. She could barely hear her own screams.

After a few moments, the pain subsided and Annabeth found herself lying on the floor in a heap. "How about we try again, slave? Who else knows we are here."

"Your mother," Annabeth groaned. "Told her before I left her last night."

"Are you sure you wish to play it this way, Agent," Ethan said. "This could be so much simpler. Tell us what we need to know and the pain can stop."

"You have jug ears," Annabeth taunted forward between her clenched teeth as her muscles only slowly unclamped. It was hardly the wittiest of insults and the Sith used the lightning on her again.

When she finally awoke she found herself locked in a transport container apparently repurposed as a jail.

"Are you alright?" a woman asked.

Annabeth groaned and rose to her knees. She really had to stop falling unconscious, she told herself. It was becoming a bit of a nasty habit. She was not the only prisoner. There were a dozen or so other miserable souls stuck in there with them. Most of them looked like municipal workers, maintenance technicians and so on that had been unfortunate enough to stumble upon the little base. Others though, judging by the finer cut of their by-now tarnished clothes were captives purposefully taken. Fortunately, none of them were any Senators Annabeth recognized, missing one of those and not knowing about it would have been beyond embarrassing.

"Yeah I'm fantastic," Annabeth wheezed and let herself get helped to a bench by two of the workers. The one that had addressed her was a curvy brunette, maybe a bit younger than herself. There were a few other women among them, but most of the prisoners were men. They all looked like they had lost quite a bit of weight recently.

"Are you a cop?" she asked.

"Agent Annabeth Chase, I work for the Senate," she instinctively introduced herself.

"Well, looks like they got you too, Agent," she said.

"What do you do? Who are you?" Annabeth asked, mainly to give herself more time to sort out her thoughts.

"Botanist," the young woman explained.

"What does a Botanist do on Coruscant?" Annabeth asked mildly.

"Algy farms," Katie explained. "I also have a Doctorate in Organic Chemistry so its a good fit."

"How long have you been here?" Annabeth asked.

"Me? Two weeks, but Cero over there has been here for nearly three months," she said.

"How did they catch you?" one of the workers asked gruffly. "Looks like they got you hard.

Annabeth snorted. "Ironically I made it easy for them, they got me sneaking in. I think I killed a few of the fuckers on my way in though,..." Annabeth announced.

There were some half-hearted cheers, mostly from the dock workers. Silence soon fell again. She slipped a hand under her vest and still found her blaster hidden there. It was a small miracle that her weapon was there. The first thing she did with her prisoners was take away any kit they had and search them for weapons. Then, perhaps being stuck down here for months had degraded morale and discipline more than it would seem at first glance.

"So, they just keep you down here?" Annabeth asked.

There was an awkward silence for a few minutes. "Well," Katie finally said, exchanging a glance with the other women. "Some of the Imperials use this jail as their private brothel. Really only started over the past two or three weeks... Smitty tried to stop it, but they killed him."

"May the force be with Smitty," one of the workers echoed and some of the others grunted in agreement.

Annabeth's thoughts raced. Rape was a part of war. These kinds of excesses happened inevitably, even in the forces of the Republic. Most functional armies punished such transgressions harshly. When it happened on a mass scale it usually signified a breakdown of good order and discipline.

"Taleen has gotten the worst of it," Katie said and nodded at a concerningly young-looking Twi'lek girl. Her youthful beauty was marred by hooded eyes and an almost apathetic expression. It didn't come as a surprise to the Empire, the Empire was notoriously xenophobic. If they treated human captives as little more than meat, it was likely that a Twi'lek would face a much worse treatment.

A glum silence spread through the container. "If it makes you feel better, I think they are leaving Coruscant soon. Though I doubt they will just let you all leave."

"At this point, I will take the firing squad over being stuck down here for another month," another maintenance worker groaned.

"So what is the routine?" Annabeth asked, accepting her likely best-case endgame was a summary execution. Being taken along as a prize of war and from this misadventure of theirs and disappearing off into some sadist's harem was not really something she wanted to be alive for. Annabeth decided then and there that if push came to shove, she'd blow her own brain out before they took her with them, hopefully after ruining the day of at least a few of her captors.

"Well, we get taken out once a day one by one to visit the latrine. And when they take us girls to their barracks, they let us wash beforehand," Katie summarized. "Food is shit though."

"Have you guys figured out their shift schedule?" Annabeth asked. "When does their watch change?"

Katie shrugged. "Sorry Agent, we don't really know much about what is going on outside,... They made sure of that."

Annabeth used the time to get the measure of her fellow prisoners. It quickly turned out that most of the women had been taken as hostages to gain a hook on their significant other. One was also a worker. And Katie? She was an academic specialist in a field that was absolutely critical for the survival of Coruscant, so their interest in holding her beyond her generous curves was terrifying. Her overactive imagination instantly constructed half a dozen scenarios. each more terrible than the last.

There was a disgusting logic to keeping the women around though good practice would suggest that tying up loose ends ought to take priority. Throughout millennia, this sort of thing happened in every major and minor conflict. So why not just kill them and tie up loose ends?

The same counted for most of the mechanics. Why would you keep around a good number of able-bodied men who had nothing else to do but spend their time trying to come up with ways to ruin your day? Historically a group of guys together could cause plenty of trouble without needing any specific motivation to do so apart from boredom. These gentlemen were very well motivated. Not summarily executing them made no sense.

Unless...Annabeth thought. They were being kept as living shields for a quick getaway. That would make sense.

With a pained groan, Annabeth rose to her feet and walked to the locked container doors, and gave it an experimental shove. It didn't budge, that would have been too easy... .

"It's locked," one of the workers said as if pointing out something obvious.

For a moment Annabeth considered pulling her blaster but then chose against it. What would be achieved, she would blow her way out right into a camp full of armed soldiers. While morale and discipline might be at an all-time low, they were still mission specialists. It occurred to her that the only reason why she lasted as long as she did, now that she had a quiet moment to think about it, was that they had been ordered to catch her alive. Still, she thought smugly. A few of them would not be going home.

Over the next few hours, Annabeth made a point to learn the names of her fellow captives. It was a small thing, but she cared that she did. She learned that one of the maintenance workers had become a father mere months ago. Or that another had hoped to get married soon. One of the women captured told her she had just returned from her honeymoon. Another was missing their daughter's graduation.

"What is going to happen to us?" Katie asked and Annabeth realized that someone how she had somehow become the person in charge. Probably because she represented Republic law and salvation more than anyone else in the group. Her arrival had shifted power dynamics inside the group, which could be dangerous.

For a moment she considered reholstering her sidearm. It would secure her authority, but with her luck one of her fellow prisoners would be a plant. In that case, she'd have lost one of her last three cards. What remained would be the information they thought she had, and the apparent recreational plans Atlas had for her. Though she was sure it had more to do with living out a power fantasy than simply physical attraction he might have on her. Still, it was a vector Annabeth was willing to work to some degree if it bought her an advantage. After all her mission parameters had changed. There were now civilians at play that she was sworn to protect.

Annabeth sighed and closed her eyes tightly for a moment, trying to will her body to stop aching.

Annabeth took a moment to take a look at where she had been hit by a blaster bolt earlier. It hurt like hell, but her vest had taken the worst of it and she had only suffered second to third-degree burns there. According to Katie there was no necrotic tissue, without proper treatment she would very likely develop a sepsis and die within a week. The one saving grace was she doubted this would go on that long.

So Annabeth closed her eyes for a long moment, sorting her thoughts, and weighing her options. The blaster hidden away under her vest suddenly felt very heavy indeed.

What had her mother said? "Where there is a will, there is a way."

Annabeth cursed as a bad idea began to form in front of her mind's eye.

"Katie, how often do those freaks usually come in here?" Annabeth asked.

"Every few hours, I guess," Katie said quietly. "Don't know if they will come for us sometime soon though..."

Annabeth smiled grimly. "You girls have been outside, you know where the exits are?"

The girls looked back and forth between each other. "Maybe,...there are a few passaged in and out of here. But they are all guarded."

"There are," one of the workers cut in. "We used to use this place to stockpile equipment."

"So, listen up. Here is the plan. I distract them, and as many of you as possible try to get out. Under no circumstance do you guys want to be taken along. Once you have lost value, you will be killed."

"We will never get past a few steps," one of the maintenance workers announced gruffly. "They have blasters, for god's sake!"

"Once you have cleared this place, get back the civilization. You lads will find your way but for the ladies, escape routes are always marked on the walls."

"What are you going to do!" Katie asked, sounding aghast.

Annabeth pulled her own from where it was hidden under her vest. "Provide a suitable distraction."

She holstered her blaster, the familiar weight giving her some comfort.

They waited for at least another half hour before they heard the parison door's locks being handled.

Annabeth rose from her bench and pulled her blaster. "Guys, get ready," she ordered.

The door opened just far enough for her to lay eyes on two men in normal service fatigues. They had carbines slung across their chest, too far away from ready.

For a long moment, they stared down the barrel of Annabeth's blaster. Before comprehension could settle in, Annabeth blew both their brains out within half a second of each other and kicked the door open. To her surprise, the base looked surprisingly empty. In the distance, she could hear the whine of rapid blaster fire and explosions going on somewhere in the distance.

Annabeth hastily holstered her pistol and grabbed one of her captor's carbines while one of the workers grabbed the other one. "Run!" she yelled, not sure where this good fortune had come from, but not willing to try her luck any further. The other prisoners scattered in small groups, while Annabeth made her way in the direction of the command post she had seen.

After scaling around one of the large barrack tents and a storage container, Annabeth found herself looking at the medical tent. A land speeder was rushing through the camp towards it. Even from where she stood she could see injured men being transported to the medical tent.

From her current vantage point, Annabeth spotted a large crowd of soldiers at the shuttle port loading cargo. What the hell was going on?

"Hey, show yourself," someone snapped in a peculiar basic dialect from around the storage container to her left. Annabeth spun around and retraced her footsteps. When she rounded the corner, her carbine raised, she spotted a man in an officer's uniform, with his back turned facing her. Just as she got him in her rifle holographic targeting reticule, he began to turn back to face her. Annabeth promptly shot him in the back, and when he fell, double-tapped him in the back of the head.

She was here to cause confusion, right?

Annabeth hurried back to her earlier position and saw that the land speeder had stopped in front of the medical tent. She wasn't a soldier, so technically, she thought to herself, it wasn't a war crime. As the land speeder pulled up and stopped maybe fifty feet from her, Annabeth opened fire.

Her blaster rounds tore through the unarmored transparent metal windows, striking the driver's dead center. Annabeth moved forward, her carbine level, and promptly shot the medic on the land speeder back as he tried to investigate what was going in the front.

The trooper on the shotgun seat, probably saved by his armor, threw himself out of the driver's cabin, brought up his sidearm, and began to return fire just as Annabeth followed up with two quick bursts of plasma, finally ending that exchange aswell. Annabeth jumped up on the land speeder hood and then looked back into the cargo bay. Four injured men were lying there, looking in rough shape. One tried to raise his own sidearm. Annabeth shot him first and then proceeded to execute the three other men. In her defense, she was hardly in a position to take prisoners.

A combat surgeon or corpsman burst from the tent, either to investigate the commotion outside or to receive the injured. Either way, Annabeth followed up by promptly gunning him down aswell. The next man to come out was a corpsman. Who brought his rifle, and opened fire on her without hesitation. Annabeth threw herself off the hood and landed hard on the far side.

Pain lanced up her arm and Annabeth bit back a cry. Gritting her teeth, she knew she had to move. She heard voices yelling something, probably into his communicator, and rose to her feet.

Annabeth could barely hold her rifle. Had she broken her left humerus? She wasn't sure, but she had to press on regardless. Trying to ignore the pain, and ducking, she made her way around the back of the speeder and almost had her face blown off as she rounded the corner.

"You fucking bitch!" one of them yelled out, bloody murder in his voice. "I am going to fucking kill you!"

Annabeth blindly pointed her carbine around the side of the car and hosed the entire area with blaster fire, not really caring who or what she hit. Accurate fire lashed back out at her in return.

Then, moving backward, she retreated back to another set of containers, really hoping no one came up behind her. Two of the corpsmen began to advance around the land speeder, along with an injured trooper in full armor. The fun time, Annabeth accepted, was now really over.

She opened fire, forcing the men back into cover on the other side of the landspeeder. Finally, she reached the safety of what looked like a workshop just as twenty or so fully armored troopers suddenly appeared down the street, clearly now aware of her little rampage.

Annabeth knew it was time to move, and so she ran, moving back and forth between the cover of large, bulky, and abandoned machinery. Somehow she mannaged to reach the cavern wall and headed towards the large main opening that she assumed served as a passage for the spacecraft and the direction of the major firefight.

Suddenly, Annabeth was forced to admit that she was actually dealing with professional soldiers, and not her old school special needs class.

They had cut her off and were moving towards her straight ahead. When she reversed course, she quickly realized they were coming from the other side aswell. She was boxed in by a well-coordinated search and clearance operation. Her resolve beginning to crumble, Annabeth hastily looked around the grimy machinery and abandoned workshops. Finally, Annabeth spotted an old and rusty shipping container with flaking red paint right next to what looked like it had once been some sort of hydraulic hammer and used the hand and footholds it offered to boost herself up onto the container and lie low. Just in time too. A platoons worth of soldiers appeared from all directions. Their weapon-mounted lights cut through the darkness as they converged and swept the area.

"Lt Asht for Guard," a man in the command squad announced. "The Agent must have someone slipped our perimeter. We captured a few of the other prisoners during the sweet, bringing them forward for Kickback, over." Annabeth cursed under her breath, at least a few of the prisoners had been caught. She had expected they would, but confirmation of this still hit her harder than expected.

Just then a missile streaked through the large mashie hall like a comment. Its rocket motor burned out halfway and the now ballistic projectile arced through the shadow and exploded somewhere deeper into the hall.

"Republic pushing hard, Captain," Another trooper said. "We need to move fast."

The Republic, Annabeth thought, her heart racing. They were coming. Her going MIA, Annabeth thought to herself, must have put a rather heavy-handed response in motion. The timing at least, supported this hypothesis.

The soldiers hurried off again to hold off whatever republic forces were moving in.

She just didn't know...

Once sure they were gone, Annabeth dropped down from the crate and began moving in the direction of the enemy command post. Logic would dictate she hid until rescued, but it sounded like republic security forces had launched a frontal assault on the Imperials FOB, and she assumed they were assaulting prepared positions. If she could somehow hamper the Imperial efforts, it could save a lot of republic lives.

Just then one of the Imperial ships flew past over her head and landed in the area of the Imperial infirmary, likely to pick up the injured. That was no longer her problem.

Without noticing it, Annabeth walked right into the fatal funnel of a crew-served weapon. Angry red streaks of plasma whipped past her and would have torn her to pieces, if she had not dove back into cover, and bashed her head against a wall in the process.

"Fuck!" Annabeth screamed, once again reminded of her lack of military training. A type of training she was now sourly lacking. If she had, it might have occurred to her that the Sith were occupying that position exactly to stop enemy units from outflanking the main defense lines. She was blundering from close call to close call.

Mainly to vent her frustration at this point, and her heart thundering, Annabeth stacked up against the corner and peaked around to return fire only to have her carbine shot right out of her hands.

Annabeth cried out in surprise, certain for a moment that she had been hit, and dropped the weapon. It took her a moment to realize that she hadn't been shot. But her rifle, she noted grimly, was beyond salvation.

"Well Annabeth," she muttered. "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes."

Sighing, she pulled her sidearm again and then looped around and found a safer way to advance further. The shuttle she had noticed earlier, took off and then rushed past over her in the direction of the combat. Clearly, her captors had really begun to pull out. Using her memories of the base's layout, she decided she had to have advanced far enough, and then turned right and made her way back into the camp proper. This was, Annabeth realized, where everyone had disappeared off to.

Imperial soldiers were rushing about, but she could not see enough to find out where. There was a buzz of activity, and the distant sounds of combat had become a lot louder.

Then she saw him, the pure-blooded Sith that had declared his desire to find her different employment as his pet, standing out in the open. She was quite a ways off so it was hard to see, but to her, he seemed like he was in a foul mood. Whatever the reason was, it was probably a good thing. Ethan, she hoped, was off, repelling the Republic soldiers. Hoping to see more, Annabeth cautiously advanced.

"Annabeth, turn around and hide!" Annabeth told herself. Still, she moved closer and then hid behind a stack of crates.

"I do not care, Colonel," the Sith screeched into his communicator. "We are leaving. Have your signals officer raise the Republic forces and inform them we have hostages on board our ship. If they insist on impeding our evacuation, the death of their precious civilians and agents is on their hands."

The anger in his voice put a grim smile on her face. Anything that ruined his mood to such a degree, was something she was certain she would approve of.

"I know we do not have the Agent, you cretin. They don't know that. Do as I command or I will find someone who can!" he snarled. The Sith began to walk off again, and Annabeth stayed in cover. Over the next few minutes, she observed how shuttles came in and began to whisk even more men off to safety. From her position, she could see some of her fellow prisoners being hoarded into them. Clearly, more than she had hoped had been captured.

Slowly Annabeth crept closer, sticking to cover, trying to spot some way to disrupt it, and finally found it. Her eyes fell on a pile of power cells. She was certainly no expert on Starships but recognized them as starter packs to jumpstart starships' fission generators.

"Well, Gentlemen;" she mused and rose from cover, her blaster coming up. "Fuck you all."

Annabeth fired and was rewarded with a flash of radiant white light and felt herself being thrown off her feet. The wave of head that rolled over her burned off what was at this point left of her eyebrows.

After a moment of gasping for air on the floor, she finally managed to regain control of her motor functions.

Just then the Sith screamed in rage.

Still slightly dazed, Annabeth sat up and found herself staring at the large shuttle that had just landed, only that one of its wings had been clearly blown off, and the rest was quickly being engulfed by flames. Even a hundred feet away, the heat being radiated felt like it was burning off her flesh. Countless mangled corpses and severed body parts lay strewn around, men that had been killed by the explosion.

Then she saw him, the towering figure of the Sith, standing doubled over in the smoke.

Almost without thinking, she raised her blaster and fired.

The bright blue bold of plasma struck the Sith warrior in the face, sending him staggering off into the side. For a moment Annabeth dared to hope she had struck a lethal blow. To her horror though, the Sith rose back to his feet and turned his gaze on her with blazing yellow eyes.

The image burned itself into her memory and she would not forget it to her dying day. She had managed to shoot the Sith's lower jaw off, only a burnt husk of meat remained of what had once been a tongue. The Sith roared in rage and pain, his crimson saber staff blazing to life.

She was going to die, Annabeth thought with a strange certainty. Annabeth fired again but her blaster bolt hit only empty air. The Sith was now flying through the air, closing the distance to her in a high arc.

Instinctively Annabeth tightly closed her eyes, not wishing to see death arrive, only to find herself being violently torn backward. Completely disoriented, she skidded across the rough concrete floor.

Annabeth tore her eyes open and found herself lying between piles of rubble and warped and bent parts of metal from the shuttle, thirty feet from where she had just been standing moments ago. The Sith had his lightsaber buried where she had been only a moment again.

Annabeth felt her flight or flight instinct kicking in hard, this time the pendulum swinging hard to the flight side of the spectrum. Her heart thundered in her chest so violently that it almost hurt, and her blood was roaring in her ears. There was something in those burning red eyes that Annabeth did not wish to get to know any closer. Something deeply wrong, and perhaps anathema to life itself. It struck a cord deep in her soul, that should never have been strung.

All remaining resolve she had left melted away as the Sith rose to his feet.

As he slowly advanced on Annabeth she began to scramble backward, her breathing coming in panicked gasps until she backed up against something that she somehow could tell were legs.

"Help!" Annabeth croaked, panic now drowning out the voice, and grabbed at the hem of a cloak. She was too panicked to consider who this might be, to realize that the boots were armored, and the legs dressed in chausses. "You have done marvelously, Agent Chase," someone told her, the voice a calm baritone that cut through her hunted soul like a razor through butter. She was far too panicked to realize the Sith had frozen. "But let me take it from here."

Annabeth looked around and found herself staring up into the green eyes of salvation. It was unmistakably Perseus Jackson. Where last time he had been dressed as a civilian, he now bore the liveries of his order for the Jedi Knight was dressed in the armor his order so favored for battle.

For a moment Annabeth's frantic mind considered that Perseus Jackson might be a traitor as well. But then she noticed he wasn't alone. Silena was following in his wake, and so were Hazel, Frank, and some of the officers she had been with during the initial ambush, and while looked suspiciously like a republic security tactical unit.

Percy Jackson pulled a lightsaber hilt from his belt and as she stepped around her cowering and shaking body. With a hard hiss, a radiant blade of sapphire light blazed into existence.

The Sith roared in frustration, and she vaguely heard Perseus Jackson say something. Regaining some composure Annabeth managed to struggle back to unsteady feet. With a pang of release, she realized that reinforcements had arrived. Republic Commandoes were moving in behind them in Company strength, heavily armored grim-looking warriors. It wasn't only soldiers, more Jedi, their blades glowing with riotous fury advanced among their ranks. To her surprise, she recognized a few of them. Thalia, wielding her own emerald blade, and Artemis, armed with a blue one.

Ethan and fireteam soldiers had emerged from another side passage. The fallen Jedi was dragging Katie Gardener along by her hair as another evacuation shuttle came in for evacuation. A few of the other soldiers were holding recaptured hostages aswell. Ethan pulled Katie against his chest with one arm and held his activated lightsaber across her throat with the other.

"Darth Atlas! Ethan!" Perseus greeted them. "Leaving so soon?"

"Don't interfere, my old friend," Ethan warned. "Or the girl dies!"

Ignoring her body's complaints, Annabeth forced herself to rise to her full height to stand at the Jedi Knights' side.

"How far the mighty Sith have fallen," Perseus taunted. "Hiding behind botanists now, are we?"

Atlas hollered in fury and raised a hand.

A storm of lighting arced toward the two of them. And while Annabeth instinctively raised her hands to protect herself, Perseus calmly stepped forward and somehow caught the furious torrent with his glowing blade.

"I couldn't catch what you are saying there," Perseus continued to taunt the Sith. He was, Annabeth began to realize, trying to goad the Sith into committing to a fight.

The shuttle landed behind the Imperial warriors and the troopers began to retreat up the lowered gangway.

The look the Sith gave her left no need for words. There was a hatred so deep and pure in them, that she was certain she would meet him again someday. Then he too turned around and walked up the gangway. Ethan was last, dragging along Katie by a fist full of her hair. Slowly Perseus advanced, and Ethan brandished his crimson blade at them. "Don't Perseus, we both know you are too weak to risk harming civilians.

Had Annabeth been in charge, she would later figure, she would have given the order to shoot, hostages be damned. Perhaps, fortunately, she wasn't.

The Jedi paused as the traitor Jedi and hostage stepped onto the gangway. The moment they set foot on the ramp, the shuttle took off, quickly beginning to gain altitude. First five, then ten ... The gangway began to close.

As if realizing that freedom was so close and unwilling to suffer her captor's rage during the journey, Katie Gardener made a suicidal lunge for freedom.

The desperation in the action seemed to even take Ethan by surprise, who somehow let the young woman slip from her grasp, and hurl herself off the gangway into empty space below.

Perseus raised a hand and caught the falling girl with force, just as the shuttle began to accelerate away over them. As he gently lowered the young woman to the ground, Thalia finally linked up with them.

"You are not having a good week, are you Annabeth," Thalia greeted her and took her by her arm to keep her from falling over. She had begun swaying slightly. Then Thalia glanced over at her cousin with genuine affection. "And you are in so much trouble."

So, here we go. Feel free to leave a review, I will update TNO next. Editing will progress over the next few days once my brain starts working again.

With regards, Henry Locker over and out.