The doors to Invisible Hand's bridge opened, and the platoon of Magna-guards and battle droids entered with their Jedi captives in tow. Grievous turned from the Nemoidian he was berating for incompetence, and his anger turned to joy at finally seeing the infamous Anakin Skywalker face-to-face. Indeed, his lightsaber would look beautiful in his collection. Kenobi's was also a welcome addition, but Skywalker was more renowned, more admired, more saluted by soldiers, civilians, and even children than by any other Jedi in the Galaxy. The thought of tainting that legacy and dashing the dreams of all those civilians by slaying their hero made him giddily stride toward them, right arm spreading out dramatically.

"Anakin Skywalker, General Kenobi, we've been waiting for you. That was quite the rescue, wasn't it?" What was that little blue astromech doing with them? Wasn't it Skywalker's pet droid he took everywhere? Yes, the one he tried to decipher but had slipped through his fingers back in the Clone Wars' early days. In a second he made up his mind to throw it out the airlock once the Jedi were taken care of. After cutting it into as many pieces as his lightsabers could manage, of course.

He stepped up to Skywalker to peer into his blue eyes, making the Jedi turn his head away in annoyance. "I was expecting someone of your reputation to be a little…older." He had hoped to instill fear in the young Jedi, but an involuntary wheeze spoiled his fun.

Skywalker righted his head. "General Grievous, you're a bit shorter than I expected."

So he still had plenty of spite. "Jedi scum," he said as he walked back, but his disappointment changed to pleasure as a droid pilot handed him the Jedi's lightsabers. "Your lightsabers will make a fine addition to my collection." he gloated as he pocketed them in his cape.

"Not this time," Kenobi said, his face lighting up. "Artoo?"

The little blue astromech whistled and wailed in droidspeak as if it had been tased, and all of its panels and ports burst open revealing tools, drills, and tasers that shot sparks, frightening the battle droids guarding the Jedi. Grievous felt a tug at his cape, and the Jedi's lightsabers flew out and into their waiting hands, activating and breaking their cuffs.

No, not now! Not when he was savoring his victory over these odious Jedi! "Crush them!" he shouted, directing his Magna-guards to attack. "Make them suffer!" Grievous backed away, letting them soften up the Jedi for him. He shoved a few droid pilots aside, barking at them to stay at their stations. The flashing words and images on their pads and screens told him the ship would not last much longer. Republic ships were all around them, pounding its sides to scrap, and the Wizard's Tower was gone, blown off by a barrage of concussion missiles. He mentally recounted where the escape pods were, he would need one soon.

Kenobi and Skywalker took the guards down one by one, Skywalker cutting off all the limbs first while Kenobi took off the heads and finished them with a cut across the torso. They had fought Grievous's staff-wielding minions dozens of times before, but they always seemed to get the drop on them with a new, unorthodox move or stance. Given they were trained by Grievous himself, this was to be expected, hence they remained dreaded opponents. Many Jedi that had challenged Grievous never made it past them, and the few that did were so exhausted that Grievous easily dispatched them. Kenobi and Skywalker weren't ordinary Jedi, however, and they had plenty of energies to spare as they cornered Grievous at the room's far end next to the windows.

Grievous seized one of the guards' phrik staffs and held it poised to strike. He weighed his options, two of the most powerful Jedi the Republic had to offer were about to attack him at the front and back. He had fought Kenobi before and he was familiar with his fighting style, but Skywalker's was entirely new. And if the rumors were true, he was even more powerful than his master. His eyes darted for a millisecond to his ship's nose, and the rising flames just below the bridge, and he knew what he had to do.

"You lose, Jedi!" he proclaimed as he plunged the staff into the bridge's window. It cracked and shattered, and the other windows followed suit as the pressure forced their molecules apart and into the vacuum of space, along with some unlucky droids and Nemoidians. Grievous let the vacuum take him out, then he shot a tether from his arm just below the bridge. The momentum swung him downward, and his clawed feet dug into the ship's plating, finding purchase and securing him. Let the Jedi escape that.

Grievous pulled out a commlink from within his cape. "Loathsom, what's your status?"

"The retreat is ready, General." the Kerkoiden commander replied. "All ships except Invisible Hand are in position. Is yer flagship still operable?"

"Negative, leave it for the Republic, it will distract them." Grievous ran across the ship's hull over the bridge. "I'm heading to the escape pods, send a squadron to pick me up."

"Understood, squadron away in two minutes."

Loathsom was an ugly blue alien, but at least he wasn't stupid, unlike the Nemoidians. Grievous hustled faster as more explosions rocked the ship, nearly making him lose his footing. A small circular door opened in front of him, and he jumped inside. A quick dash to the nearest pod, and he was sitting comfortably inside.

"Time to abandon ship," he said to himself as he entered the launch code, and away the pod went from the burning flagship, and just in time as a stray missile struck the launching bay and blew it into oblivion. He was already far enough way to be safe, but a few pods that launched prematurely weren't so lucky. No matter, their occupants could be replaced.

A droid gunship passed close overhead, flanked by two squadrons of trifighters, and halted, and a long steel claw grabbed the pod and turned back the way it came, the trifighters in tow, their nose cannons automatically firing at anything that moved in their path. Loathsom had prepared a convoy for his rescue, perhaps Grievous should keep him closer at his side, he often had to make hasty escapes, after all.

As the convoy made its way back to the fleet, Grievous's thoughts turned to his newfound leadership. With Dooku and Sidious gone, he was the seniormost commander left in the Confederacy. But how could he manage such a position? He was a military man, campaigns and tactics and armies were his entire universe. Politicking was as alien to him as the Felucian jungle was to a Tatooine bantha. He barely understood what those blow-hard senators babbled about during a meeting Dooku had once forced him to attend to observe. He had made a brief remark at the opening declaring his leadership of the droid army and promising to lead the Confederacy to victory, but they had looked more frightened of him than inspired. It didn't help he had an ill-timed coughing fit in the middle of it, much to Dooku's chagrin.

Another concern nagged at him: what about the megacorporations? It was no secret most of their heads and executives held nothing but contempt for him, though the feeling was mutual. He had to get them in line else risk a coup and them shutting off his armies. Perhaps cracking a few of their hollow skulls would work. But before that, he would make sure the tactical droids could lead autonomously and without any remote kill switches. Some tinkering in the factories would do the trick, and supervising production would surely increase output without their meddling with petty fiscal quarters and financial objectives. Money was not a goal, the destruction of the Republic was.

The convoy drew into the hanger of Loathsom's flagship, the Javelin, where many more fighters and bombers had docked to join the retreat. Grievous peered out of the escape pod, and saw Loathsom in the center of the hangar bay waiting for him. The fighters touched down and released the pod, and Loathsom ordered a group of Super battle droids to open it, but Grievous wrenched it open with his fingers before they could. The pod's door loudly clattered to the floor, and the general emerged, his cape dramatically fluttering behind his swift steps.

Loathsom bowed. "General Grievous, a pleasure to have ye aboard."

"The pleasure is all mine," Grievous rasped, then coughed. "Is the fleet ready to jump to hyperspace?"

"Absolutely. Please, if ye may, come with me to the bridge, I have the course set for Utapau." Loathsom then turned to a droid commander by his side. "Tell the bridge to start the jump."

After a short walk to an elevator and another short walk, they were on the bridge, watching the blurs of stars and nebulae shoot by in blue light as the Javelin shot away from the warzone and the center of the degenerate Republic, back to friendly territory, and fresh enemies to cut down.

XXXXX

Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi clambered onto nav computers as the Invisible Hand plummeted toward the surface of Coruscant. Grievous's stunt with the front window had nearly sucked them out, but their heightened senses allowed them to grab onto the computers anchored to the floor just in time. Anakin reached around to push a button that closed the windows with metal in case of emergency, just before Kenobi had lost his grip on his leg. The remaining pilots and droids fled the bridge in panic, while Artoo steadied himself to Grievous's chair in the room's center. Once the suction stopped, the Jedi got up and saw the room was empty except for Artoo, but that gave little comfort when another bang signaled the ship's death kneel.

"I think it's time we abandoned ship too," Kenobi said as he nearly fell over when another explosion rocked the deck.

Skywalker looked out the window, and it had turned brighter outside, brighter because the ship was facing Coruscant's surface and rapidly descending toward it. "I think it's too late for that, master."

Kenobi jumped into one of the controls. "Do what you can, let's make this a decent landing." Skywalker did the same, wrestling with the control to pick the ship back up to steady its descent. Artoo beeped nervously and steadied himself against Skywalker.

"Try to contact the ground, tell them to get civilians out the way."

They were suddenly wrenched forward by a blast in the rear of the ship, and then it felt slightly lighter. "We lost something!"

"Open the exhaust ports, that'll slow us down."

The ship fell further and faster still even as the ports opened, and flames licked up the sides and caressed the bridge's windows. Artoo beeped hurriedly.

"Calm down Artoo, we've got this."

The ship was low enough that Skywalker could see skyscrapers and the endless lines of ship traffic between them, and in another minute the ground came into view. They were going to land on a runway, but it looked like they were going too fast to stop on it. Small ships were orbiting the frigate, shooting jets of water at the myriad of fires around the ship, at least preventing the fires from spreading when they landed.

They were lower now, almost at the ground. "Brace yourselves!" Kenobi yelled.

The ship hit the ground with a metal shriek and its plates of metal groaned as they were sheared off by the impact and the sliding across the runway. What was left of the Invisible Hand gradually but quickly, slid to a halt, itself a smoking wreck of a frigate destined for a scrapyard once the fires subsided.

Skywalker lurched himself up, and Artoo gave a cheerful beep that the ordeal was over. "That wasn't so bad."

Kenobi adjusted his hair. "You can say that again, let's tell the ground to come pick us up."

As if on cue, a man's voice came over Kenobi's intercom. "Master Kenobi, are you there?"

"We're still alive, Master Windu. We're in the bridge."

"Sit tight, we're sending a squad to pick you up."

Artoo beeped again.

"That's right Artoo, Coruscant's safe once more." Kenobi smiled, but he knew in the back of his mind the war was far from over. The CIS was in full retreat from the Core Worlds, and Dooku was dead, but Grievous had escaped and was surely plotting his next move. And yet, he sensed a sort of clarity he did not have before, one that had come back to him after a long absence, as far back around the time he first met Anakin. It must be because Dooku was dead, with the Separatists' shadowy leader gone the war had to end soon. Grievous was still alive, but he had no political skills, he couldn't be a decisive leader, could he?