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Chapter 102 - Darth Zoon
"Clear. Clear. All clear." The men called out as they went through the facility. Ahsoka tried to listen to the troopers as Anakin and Obi-Wan filled time with their usual chatter on their way to the battle. She remembered how when she was younger she used to follow them adding to their debates without another care in the world. My, she really had grown since the clone wars.
"Alright, here it is." Anakin announced when he came up to a square vent on the wall. "Pass me a Torque Wrench." He held out his hand expectantly.
One of the clones went to pull the tool out of a satchel they'd brought with them.
"Wait a minute." Cody tilted his head, looking at the vent another way. "Sir, how exactly do you plan for us to go through there?"
"You'd crawl through. There's plenty of room. Here watch." Anakin was about to bend over to demonstrate.
"No, I see it." Obi-Wan nodded to Cody. "If we crawl through, and there's someone on the other side, it will be hard to defend when on your hands and knees."
Anakin shook his head. By his expression Ahsoka could tell that he was running out of patience. "How else do you suggest we get through the eight heavily occupied levels between us? He's my Son, Haar'chak! Take your time, or come through if you're brave enough. I'm going in."
And Obi-Wan did try to grab him before he went through, but he slid into the vent shaft before he could get a grip on his arm. Obi-Wan turned to say something, his words falling flat on his tongue.
"I understand. Go after him. We'll try to push through the long way."
Obi-Wan nodded and with a parting, "Force be with you." He crawled down after Anakin.
"And with you master." Ahsoka muttered her prayer quietly before looking up at Cody.
Anakin crawled through and didn't listen for the others who were no doubt calling out his name. They would see. He regretted that he did not have the patience to walk them through it and hold their hands as they came to it. But he was right and they would realize it soon. Then, if they were brave enough and loyal enough, they would come down after him. Anakin scolded himself. These men's loyalty and bravery he never would have questioned before. Why was he doing so now? 'No, they'll be here.' He told himself.
He didn't have Cody's map, so he used the Force to navigate through the ventilation system. When he got nearer to his destination, he reached out to confirm the area was unoccupied. It was. 'Hmm. All of them are worrying for nothing.' He reached back to share the news through one of his Force Bonds, but a thick blanket of darkness was blocking him. He could barely feel Obi-Wan, It made sense for His Master to be the first to follow him through. Ahsoka, though he didn't doubt her willingness to follow him anywhere, the other men were so protective of her. Doubtless they're making her go last.
He'll just have to wait.
A few minutes later, he could feel Obi-Wan was through the haze, and he would have communicated his message, though by this point he could see his Master in the vent shaft. So he whispered instead, "Master. All is clear down here."
"Yes, Anakin. I can sense that." If he didn't know better, Anakin would say his Master sounded Annoyed.
'Probably more like worried for Luke,' Anakin assumed. 'Plus he's never liked having to crawl any distance. He complains it hurts his knees too much.'
Anakin sympathetically rubbed his own knees.
"You gonna give me a hand?" Obi-Wan asked from the edge of the vent.
"Oh yeah. Of course." Anakin reached out to give Obi-Wan a hand as he climbed out of the vent shaft.
As soon as he was on his feet, Obi-Wan reached down to lift up the door Anakin pushed through when he came down. He lined it up, and looked to be about to reattach it to the wall!
"No wait!" Anakin almost shouts, before he remembered why that was not such a good idea. "If you close it off, how will the others get through?"
Before Obi-Wan responds, he gets this look that has all of Anakin's hopes dashed to pieces.
"They are going to push through the long way. This way, once they get here, we'll have them surrounded."
He sounded hopeful, which was all pointless. Anakin had seen those plans. "If… You mean if they get down here. You know how many troopers lie between them and us. The Empire, it seemed, inherited both armies after the war, and now he's fitted battlements of droid guns between his troopers."
"There are always uncertainties with battles. Ahsoka made the best decision she knew to make. We'll just have to trust her." Obi-Wan moved his hands, hoping to get Anakin to give him eye contact, but he just couldn't look up.
Obi-Wan reattached the cover over the vent, then he motioned Anakin to follow him. They were in a short hall that opened to a much larger chamber. Both men crouched down as they came to it. Inside they saw numerous stormtroopers, but couldn't tell what they were surrounding yet.
Anakin motioned to Obi-Wan in a custom sign language they'd worked out for the battlefield. "You go down to the right. Distract them."
Obi-Wan tried to shake his head no.
"Yes! You go right. Distract them. I will separate and go left. See what they are protecting." Anakin signed. When that didn't work, he tried one last tactic. "You or me?"
Knowing Anakin can think of a variety of dangerous stunts to be a distraction, Obi-Wan nodded in agreement. They shared their last gesture for "May the Force be with you." Then Obi-Wan turned to move right. Anakin turned left and crept closer.
As he watched, there were a few times where he almost got a glimpse at what the troopers were surrounding, but they would always shift and someone would move in his way again. Then he heard a loud bang down another hallway. Anakin rolled his eyes. 'Come on. That's the best idea for a distraction you can come up with.' He almost let the complaint slide down their bond, but felt he'd be lectured again on patience.
A couple moments after that, a message came through the radios asking for backup. The four remaining men were sent after them. And it was then that Anakin saw him.
In the years since that night, Anakin had imagined meeting his former mentor again. Usually he'd picture himself shoving the man's head down the loo or kicking him in some painful zones. Jedi don't usually support acts of revenge, but as Yoda once explained, "Lost a lot to one Sith's greed, we all have. Unnatural it is for forgiveness to be easy."
Yet, when Anakin looked at Palpatine, Darth Sidious, Pure rage was not what he felt. The seemingly grandfatherly face was marred behind scarring. Anakin had heard rumors he was blaming the Jedi for causing the schism that led to their executions. Claimed they had attacked him when in reality they were going to arrest him for treason. He'd heard there were scars, but he had assumed such things were a mark for the cameras. All the operas Anakin had seen with the man, he definitely knew how to put on a show.
The shock soon wore off, and Anakin remembered this was the man who destroyed his family with a few words. The man who now held his Son in his grips. It would be so simple for him to pull out his lightsaber and cut the monster's head off.
"Wait." a short blue figure appeared in front of him. "A good plan, haste does not make."
Anakin rolled his eyes and wiped his hand through the Force Ghost. It gave him an annoyed look, then vanished.
Anakin armed himself with the saber he borrowed from Ahsoka, then crept closer to the emperor. He didn't know where Obi-Wan had gone, but he suspected the man was trying to do the same.
Palpatine started laughing. "Hmm hmm hmm. You come to me at last, my boy."
Anakin froze. His shields were up. The Sith shouldn't be able to sense him.
"Don't forget, I've known you since you were a small boy, tottering across my office in those hideous robes. I know you're there. Come on out."
With a deep breath, Anakin stepped out of the shadows. The Sith's roving eyes became still as they zeroed in on a target.
"Anakin, you are ready now to join me." Palpatine predicted.
Anakin spat. Then he turned to reveal a lit lightsaber.
"Oh, you are here to see my newest pupil." Palpatine pressed a button and a man-sized pod was lowered to the ground. With a hiss it cracked open. "Up," Sidious ordered like it was a puppy inside. But it wasn't a puppy. It was Luke.
Luke opened his eyes, and Anakin gasped. Those yellow eyes were so hate-filled. It was not his son who was looking down at him.
"Meet Darth Zoon, my newest pupil. He will fight you now, and the winner will become my apprentice." Palpatine sounded bored, like he was giving the weather.
Zoon picked up a lightsaber hanging from the pod. As he turned it on, Red light bounced unnaturally from his eyes. He held his saber in an attack pose, leading Anakin to put up his defenses.
"LUKE, Luke, it's me. Your father." Anakin tried. Zoon didn't blink.
Anakin kept up his defensive moves, stepping backwards a few steps. He knew he couldn't do that for long. Eventually he would have to fight back or risk losing the match. Neither were possibilities he really wanted to consider.
"Luke, What would your mother say? Leia, I should've brought Leia." Anakin realized something unnatural had been done to his boy. Something only his twin might be able to break him out of.
'Leia's not here,' he remembered. 'She's staying back at the base with the medical teams. It was your idea genius. What else can I do?' he asked himself.
Luke turned and swung his saber, causing Anakin to side step quickly to get out of its way. He had to think quickly. He'd been through duels like this before. He could almost picture how it would go. If he struck him there, and there, Luke would have to go into the defensive. Then he'd just need to throw a feint to get his defenses down, and he could cut his saber arm clean off.
Anakin imagined doing that for a minute. The squeals of his child in pain, combined with the thought of his baby wearing a prosthetic similar to the one on his own arm, almost made him cry. But if he didn't have any other options…
Hello, I'm sorry this took a lot longer than it usually does to write. I had a few personal things interfere with my time, and well…
In the next chapter we'll see what happens with Anakin and Luke's duel, and with Palpatine. I hope it'll be the last pre epilogue chapter, but then I've thought that before.