Captain Cishrilb Brimmen of the CIS Invisible Hand grimaces as his ship shakes under the barrage of the new ISD Victory 1 class vessel's missiles. The shields of the Invisible Hand bloomed as the missiles struck against them, exploding brilliantly before the gunnery crews turned to face the threat. The Neimoidian quickly started shouting orders over the blaring alarms of the ship he had commanded for over three years, the last captain having met a grizzly end on the fist of General Grievous. The ship stopped shuddering as an entire wing of Vulture Bombers blew the upper hull of the Victory I to the void, sending personnel of the Republic into the vacuum.
The missile payloads soon followed as the bombing run completed its course, the Victory I's missile pods on the sides of its triangular body going up in a massive explosion that caused the vessel to crush itself. It was a gruesome display but one that had become commonplace in the galaxy wide war.
"Have the repair droids along with the engineering teams report to the aft section," Cishrilb ordered over the com-links, "Have Tri-droid teams four and eight be ready to launch, give them vulture teams twenty-three and fifty-one. Have the Lurkers Grave and Hand of Separation send in more bombing runs on our right flank, the Republic dogs are reinforcing that flank with the 212's Sky Corps fleet."
As his orders were carried out, his ship shook before one of the sensor officers spoke up. The Zeltron woman grimaced as her dark red skin flushed from the warmer atmosphere of the bridge, her outfit clinging to her frame as she spoke up.
"Sir!" Her husky if parched voice said, "sensors have picked up two Eta-2 Actis-class light interceptors. One Yellow and Red, both having the signatures of the Jedi Generals Anakin Skywalker and Obi-wan Kenobi."
Captain Cishrilb grimaced before nodding, "Understood, also, commander, get some water before you pass out from heat stroke. I'd rather not have my best sensor officer lost from this combat situation."
As she nodded, whipping her brow as a droid moved up with a heavy container, Cishrilb quickly got the General on the line.
"General, the jedi are here…shall I proceed with the plan?"
"Yes," The tones of General Grievous came through as the Captain stilled before relaxing, "bring them in, I'll handle the rest."
Antifighter flak flashed on all sides. Even louder than the clatter of shrapnel and the snarl of his sublight drives, his cockpit hummed and rang with near hits from the turbolaser fire of the capital ships crowding space around him. Sometimes his whirling spinning dive through the cloud of battle skimmed bursts so closely that the energy-scatter would slam his starfighter hard enough to bounce his head off the supports of his pilot's chair. The drives of the multiple starfighters and droids in a cascading dance of death, leaving nothing but smoking wreckage and the bodies of the dead in their wake.
The Eta-2 Actis-class spun nimbly out of the way of another barrage of particle beams that would have torn the thin wings completely off the vessel with near practiced ease. An ease that was not shared by the pilot.
Right now, Obi-Wan Kenobi envied the clones: at least they had helmets.
"Arfour," he said on internal comm, "can't you do something with the inertials?"
The droid ganged into the socket on his starflghter's left wing whistled something that sounded suspiciously like a human apology. Obi-Wan's frown deepened. R4-P17, one of the only astromech droids that actually had survived the last year of the war with him, had been spending too much time with Anakin's eccentric astromech; it was picking up R2-D2's bad habits.
New bursts of flak bracketed his path. He reached into the Force, feeling for a safe channel through the swarms of shrapnel and sizzling nets of particle beams.
There wasn't one.
"Oh, lovely."
He locked a snarl behind his teeth, twisting his starfighter around another explosion that could have peeled its armor like an overripe Ithorian starfruit. He hated this part. Hated it.
Flying's for droids.
Not only was it for droids, it was obvious why the Separatists used them in a new religious manner. They were faster, didn't need pilots and were getting smarter every single kriffing day.
His cockpit speakers crackled.
"There isn't a droid made that can outfly you, Master."
He could still be surprised by the new depth of that voice. The calm confidence. The maturity. It seemed that only last week Anakin had been a ten-year-old who wouldn't stop pestering him about Form I lightsaber combat. Sometimes, Obi-wan wished that he could return to those days and not have to worry about who had been killed on the battlefield by the enemy. The Clones of the 212th hurt more with every loss because of the war.
"Sorry," he muttered, kicking into a dive that slipped a turbolaser burst by no more than a meter, "Was that out loud?"
"Wouldn't matter if it wasn't. I know what you're thinking."
"Do you?"
He looked up through the cockpit canopy to find his onetime Padawan flying inverted, mirroring him so closely that but for the transparisteel between them, they might have shaken hands. Obi-Wan smiled up at him.
"Some new gift of the Force?"
"Not the Force, Master. Experience. That's what you're always thinking."
Obi-Wan kept hoping to hear some of Anakin's old cocky grin in his tone, but he never did.
Not since Christophsis. Not since Zygerria. Not since Jabiim. Perhaps not since Geonosis. Not since the bombing of the Jedi Temple and loss of his one and only padawan. Not since…not since everything the council had put Anakin through honestly.
The war had burned it out of him. Obi-Wan still tried, now and again, to spark a real smile in his former Padawan. And Anakin still tried to answer. They both still tried to pretend the war hadn't changed them.
It had gotten worse after Ahsoka Tano had come aboard the Negotiator and Anakin split the 501st for his onetime padawan, creating the 332nd Company. They left with Bo Katan aboard the Republic's Dawn, one of the few Venator II's in service, along with two regular Venators which had to leave due to the battle now taking place over Coruscant.
The same battle that had been going horribly ever since the news arrived on the Negotiator. The Supreme Chancellor had been taken, Master Mace Windu was in critical condition in the temple due to some known force. General Grievous was commanding the forces in the space around the capital of the Republic with the precision of being that casually did this on the weekends.
That made Obi-wan's insides twist.
General Grievous, the former Kaleesh Warlord turned Cyborg Generalof the Separatists. The being that had slaughtered multiple Jedi from Masters to Padawans without any remorse, a being that had been winning victories across the Galaxy but also had a reputation of being like one of those Holonet morning cartoon villains that the younglings watched. That had been true…before the events of Hypori…and even now.
"There's Grievous's ship," Anakin said, as Obi-wan looked up at the approaching shape of Grievous's personal flagship, the invisible Hand, "The one covered in Vulture Droids."
"Ah, I see."
Vice Captain Vace Cernelai got back onto her feet as her vessel, the Venator Shield of the Innocent, stopped shaking from the barrage of the assault of the three Munificent-class star frigates. They had only stopped when five Acclamator-class assault ships came in with their starfighters, and it seemed that the 212th sky Corp's navy assets had arrived finally.
The female Alderaanian Navy Officer grimaced as one of the Clone officers handed her a datapad before saying, "We're lucky the Corp arrived or we would have been space scrap."
"I know, Coral," She said the name of the Clone, whose face had a tattoo of the sea creature on his face, "Now, see if you can get the engineering crews to get the kriffing shields back on."
"Of course captain."
Vace started giving out orders before something seemed to happen as video feeds on many of the screens blanked out before a new feed appeared.
"Where is this?" She asked one of the crew in the crew pits.
"Its being transmitted across all bandwidths and signals across the galaxy, Ma'am," The clone answered as she blinked in confusion, "its coming from the Invisible Hand."
Anakin slid along the bank of chairs on one side of the immense situation table
that dominated the center of the General's Quarters' main room; Obi-Wan mirrored him on the opposite side. Silent lightning flashed and flared: the room's sole illumination came from the huge curving view wall at its far end, a storm of turbolaser blasts and flak bursts and the miniature supernovae that were the deaths of entire ships.
A stark shadow against that backdrop of carnage: the silhouette of one tall chair.
Anakin caught Obi-Wan's eye across the table and nodded toward the dark shape
ahead. Obi-Wan replied with the Jedi hand signal for approach with caution, and
added the signal for be ready for action.
Anakin's mouth compressed. Like he needed to be told. After all the trouble they'd had with the turbolifts, anything could be up here by now. The place could
be full of droidekas, for all they knew.
The lights came back on.
Anakin froze.
The dark figure in the chair-it was Chancellor Palpatine, it was, and there were
no droids to be seen, and his heart should have leapt within his chest, but Palpatine looked bad.
The Chancellor looked beyond old, looked ancient like Yoda was ancient: possessed of incomprehensible age. And exhausted, and in pain. And worseAnakin saw in the Chancellor's face something he'd never dreamed he'd find there, and it squeezed breath from his lungs and wiped words from his brain.
Palpatine looked frightened.
No, not frightened, utterly terrified.
Anakin didn't know what to say.
He couldn't imagine what to say. All he could imagine was what Grievous and Dooku must have done to put terror on the face of this brave good man-And that imagining ignited a sizzle in his blood that drew his face tight and clouded his heart and started again the low roll of thunder in his ears: thunder from Aargonar.
From Jabiim.
Thunder from the Tusken camp.
Thunder from the loss of Ahsoka after her near execution and the kriffing bantha dung that the Jedi Council tried to shove down her throat.
Thunder from Umbara.
If Obi-Wan was struck by any similar distress, it was invisible. That or he had silently studied and created plans within his mind to counter anything that may occur. With his customary grave courtesy, the Jedi Master inclined his head.
"Chancellor," he said, a calmly respectful greeting as though they had met by chance on the
Grand Concourse of the Galactic Senate.
Palpatine's only response was a tight murmur. "Anakin, behind you-!"
Anakin didn't turn.
He didn't have to. It wasn't just the clack of boot heels and clank of magnapeds crossing the threshold of the entrance balcony; the Force gathered within him and around him in a sudden clench like the fists of a startled Man.
In the Force, he could feel the focus of Palpatine's eyes: the source of the fear
that rolled off him in billows like vapor down a block of frozen air.
And he could feel the even colder wave of power, colder than the frost on a mynock's mouth,
that slid into the room behind him like an ice dagger into his back.
Funny, he thought. After Ventress, somehow I always expect the dark side to be
hot. . .
However, Ventress was different and changed after her betrayal from Dooku. Anakin couldn't fault her for changing either.
Something unlocked in his chest. The thunder in his ears dissolved into red smoke that coiled at the base of his spine. His lightsaber found his hand, and his lips peeled off his teeth in a smile that a krayt dragon would have recognized.
That trouble he was having with talking went away.
"This," he murmured to Palpatine, and to himself, "is not a problem."
He turned and then noticed something was very wrong, wrong as Dooku looked broken and lost. He gazed towards Anakin and Obi-wan with something so far broken that it was staring into a hollow shell. On either side of him, a pair of Magnaguards with active electrostaffs stared at them with glowing crimson photoreceptors. This was wrong, the Force swirled as the feelings of confusion filled it. Anakin glanced over at Obi-wan before the Force rang with warning, but it was much too fast for the pair.
Both were hurled away from Palpatine as Anakin slammed into the situation table while Kenobi hit the staircase with a heavy thud. Head throbbing, Anakin got up to his knees before something shimmered behind the chair that kept Palpatine chained. The Force hissed like a cornered Nexu as a figure appeared; tall, metallic and cloaked in white.
General Grievous, at last.
However, something was off about Grievous. His stance, the cough that was so intrinsic to the droid General was gone. Rolling his shoulders back, Anakin watched as the white cloak parted to reveal the cybernetic form. This body wasn't the same as the one everyone had seen on the holonet. And his eyes, they were not reptilian yellow. They were glowing emerald flames, something that unsettled Anakin to his very core.
"Obi-wan Kenobi," Grievous said, standing straight behind Sheev Palpatine, "Anakin Skywalker, Jedi of the Republic…you are both my prisoners."
Count Yan Dooku knew he and Sidious were beaten, outsmarted and outmaneuvered by a Cybernetic Kalseeh Warlord. He didn't know when that had occurred until Grievous had told both him and Palpatine to their faces that he had known the entire time, and he wasn't happy that his mind had been tampered with either. He had used his unknown powers, as it wasn't anything that was within the Force as it screamed, whimpered and tried to flee from it.
It was a sensation that he never believed he had ever felt before.
Both Sidious and Dooku had been cursed by Grievous with this power that had sealed them away from the Force except for being able to sense it. That was it, which was also causing Sidious to fear the General as his powers overwhelmed his own. While Sidious was a black hole, Grievous was staring into the abyss that the black hole sat in. The abyss was staring back at the hole and had started to squeeze it shut.
Now, Grievous was staring at the pair of Jedi that had been key to the Grand Plan as he waited three heartbeats before both Jedi had their weapons pointed at the cyborg.
"Such…stubbornness," The cyborg General said before chuckling darkly, "Just like the leech that you both allowed to thrive upon the Republic's artery."
Both Jedi looked confused at that statement before Grievous put a hand on Sidious's shoulder, "The same man you both have been seeing for nearly fifteen years."
That got both Jedi to gape in horror at the cyborg before Anakin snapped first, always first to anger, "Palpatine is a good-"
"Good?" Grievous laughed, a sound that was like a deep rasp, "The man you call "good" is as evil as the darkess Goddess of the Abyss. The man that has been controlling both sides of the war. This is Sidious, the being you've been hunting for ages."
"Liar," Anakin snarled before something happened, the Force wailed as one of the chairs that had been sitting innocently at the situation table lept at Anakin, "Holy-!"
The metal chair melted then formed into thick bands that wrapped around the Jedi Knight with frightening accuracy as Grievous watched, his other hand curled with fingers moving until Anakin was fully wrapped in metal. The General then lowered his hand before his eyes narrowed at the other Jedi as he shifted his cloak to show off two new hilts that were magnetized to his hips.
One was the curved lightsaber hilt of Count Dooku but the other was a single hand weapon that Grievous pulled off his hip and held it up to the light.
"Aurodium," Grievous said as he turned the hilt in a few fingers, "Phrik and with a high quality Electrum finish. All things that can only be found with a high end expensive bank account, and with a synthetic crystal made up of melted down kyber crystals."
He activated the weapon and a crimson blade erupted from the hilt as Grievous looked it over, eyes narrowing in disgust before sneering at the pair of Jedi. Dooku then realizes what he was going to do moments before the pair of Jedi did, he was going to kill Sidious. Then he held up a vial in his hand, made of a clear silver liquid.
"This is the strongest truth serum ever brewed," He said with a sneer, "it overrides the mind, heart and body and forces the one given the serum to answer truthfully and completely."
He then used the crimson blade to slash off the top of the vial before forcing Palpatine to swallow all the contents. Palpatine shuddered before his eyes turned blank as Grievous growled something in Kaleesh.
"Your name, date of birth and actual profession."
Palpatine shuddered before he said, "Sheev Palpatine, born on Naboo around 7893 CRC, Dark Lord of the Sith currently employed as the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic."
Grievous's eyes smirked or in this case, danced with victory before asking, "Why have you started this galactic war?"
"To create an Empire from the ruin of the Republic that will last for an eternity, turn the CIS into a memory, slaughtering their leaders and make Anakin Skywalker my apprentice."
Grievous laughed darkly as both Jedi looked horrified, Dooku felt his heart sink as betrayal is the way of the Sith.
"And now so does the rest of the Galaxy," Grievous chuckled before taking the still active lightsaber and stabbing it through the back of the chair and through Palpatine's throat, "so ends the Master of the Sith."
With a flick of his metal hand, the top of both the chair and Palpatine's head were severed from the chair. Before the head could connect to the ground, Anakin roared as the metal shattered. Leaping at Grievous with a shout in the force, blue blade swinging to decapitate Grievous. The cyborg General moved faster then Dooku could see as his own blade activated, parrying the blue with a crimson line. The two danced before Anakin was kicked across the room.
"Please do try to control your temper, Skywalker," Grievous growled as he walked down to the same level that the pair of Jedi were on, "or I'll simply break your body like I did with Padawan Sha'a Gi. Get up and defend yourself, Jedi, I want a proper fight without any interference from any mind altering chips."