Chapter 6

Anakin and I emerged onto the main bridge of the Justicar. The ship was an orderly bustle with the sights and sounds of a battle in progress; the red lights of general quarters, clone technicians rushing to and fro in damage control groups. Obi-wan, Master Plo and Admiral Yularen were standing at the front viewport eyeing the distant form of the Malevolence as it presented its massive blisters of rear engines towards us. The blue bolts of anti-capital turbolasers from the three Republic Star Destroyers streaked towards the enemy ship in a constant rain.

"Commander, what is the damage level of the enemy ship?" Obi-wan questioned to the senior officer of the sensor control pit.

"She's lost her primary shields, hyperdrive and main reactor is still in scram mode, but the Seppies didn't skimp on armor. She's taking all our fire with no further appreciable damage being done, except to secondary or tertiary systems. At this extreme range, our turbolasers are losing a great deal of effectiveness."

Obi-wan turned to the navigation pit, "Lieutenant, is there nothing you can do?"

"Sorry General," another clone officer shook his head, "we've near redlined our engines and the reactors are at one hundred and five percent. The only reason they aren't accelerating away from us is their level of battle damage. If they got their main reactor back online they could simply leave us in the proverbial dust, sir."

That was the glaring problem with the Republic Navy and the Venator Destroyer. It was primarily a carrier for fighters, that was also a big gun ship and ground troop transport. That flexibility was a strength, but it also had the glaring weakness of the old saying 'Jack of all trades, master of none.' The Malevolence was essentially a dreadnaught, gunned up to the gills, shielded and seemingly over-armored, and designed to chase down ships by also being over-engined for its mass. A glance at the Justicar's main ship status holo projected for the whole bridge to see, also indicated another rapidly approaching problem.

Our relative speed to the rest of the universe was also ticking up. We would soon reach our theoretical sublight speed limit dictated by the strength of our particle shielding; space was empty yes, but not completely, atoms of various elements, dust and so on became deadly at fractional velocities of light. I had the distinct feeling that the Malevolence's particle shields also outclassed ours, simply because of the sheer power and mass they had available to play with on that monster ship.

"We must summon reinforcements at once that can hyper to an intercept at a much closer range," Master Plo declared.

And there was yet another demonstration of the time period I had found myself reincarnated to. The technique and the technology to 'micro-jump' had not been pioneered yet. The computing power for the on-the-fly calculations required and precision hyperdrive motivators wasn't even an idea in any R&D division in the galaxy yet.

"Anakin, were you able to contact Master Luminara?" Obi-wan queried.

"Yes Master, she's busy with Seperatist reinforcements nearby, probably units intended to help their flagship out of this mess, so she won't be able to give us support until she's turned them away."

"Well, until then we'll have to make do. Commander, refine your targeting solutions, have your gunners concentrate fire on the enemy bridge. Leave our two sister ships firing into the bulk of the enemy."

"Yes, sir."

"That's a very small target at this range," Anakin pointed out.

Obi-wan shrugged, reflexively combing his short beard with his hand, "Force willing, we might kill Grievous, if he's still even on that bridge."

Anakin shook his head, "Master, we have Grievous and the flagship, right there, they will be effecting repairs as we speak. I don't think we can afford to wait for Master Luminara's fleet, nor can we afford to let this ship escape."

"What are you suggesting then, General Skywalker?" Master Plo asked.

"Our fighters can't survive launching at our current speed, but the Twilight has strong enough particle shielding and the acceleration to overhaul the Malevolence, combined with their battle damage that is playing havoc with their external sensor coverage, we can lead a sabotage team over there."

"Been tinkering in our spare time have we?" Obi-wan teased. Anakin merely glared in a good-natured manner in response. "Very well, since we're dealing with Grievous himself, it'd be best to keep the team small. You and I will go, along with R2 for droid support."

I really wanted to speak up and volunteer as well, but I wasn't ready to fight Grievous. I was still tinkering with some improvements to my armor in preparation for that inevitable day, and dealing with the spinny four-arm lightsaber saw trick was also something I was working on. Though I had the distinct feeling that if Obi-wan really wanted me along, he'd have asked and even if I demonstrated I could contend with that cyborg, he wouldn't go for it; as it was common sense to not put so many Jedi, and a large portion of the senior command structure, into one small ship that could be blasted out of the sky.

"Be careful, Masters. Remember there's no telling what lethal technological tricks Grievous can engineer into himself," I warned them seriously. The level of modularity that the cyborg had was frankly ridiculous, about the only irreplaceable parts that I remember was his head and upper body, which contained the life support systems.

Anakin nodded, "We'll be careful, snips." He and Obi-wan hurried off the bridge in a jog.

Master Plo placed a comforting hand on my shoulder, "Don't worry Ahsoka."

I nodded but it was a hard thing to achieve; the list of lethal and deadly tech I could imagine, even to a Jedi - then with a bit of fabricator droid help - actually make, to put on my armor was long, and Grievous had much more room to play with on his own body. That versatility, combined with a ruthless tactical cunning, a honed warrior's instinct, utterly no morals whatsoever, and being trained in the lightsaber arts by Dooku, would see him kill a lot of Jedi before the war's end.

In a rather amazing display of preflight prep speed, the Twilight launched after eleven minutes and sped towards the Malevolence. Anakin, using his typical prescient flying style, danced the small ship between the turbolaser blasts from the task group easily.

"Gunners, shift your fire to away from the bridge superstructure," ordered Admiral Yularen.

This allowed the Twilight to safely dock with an airlock set halfway up that idiotic bridge tower.

"All right, R2 has overridden and isolated the airlock controls, we're going in, we'll be in radio silence from now on." Obi-wan reported.

"Understood, Twilight, good luck," Yularen declared. "Gunners hold your fire."


I took the opportunity to keep busy and practice my skills with sensors by commandeering one of the upper bridge workstations and throwing every active sensor the Justicar had onto the Malevolence. Of course, the difficulty came in interpretation. We didn't have the Seperatist technical manual and blueprints for the ship, so an energy spike in a certain area or system couldn't tell you much. You could map the energy transfer conduits and quite a few other systems just by the unique elements or particles they used. Also trying to isolate the lifesigns of Obi-wan and Anakin among that mess of signatures and emissions was just flat impossible.

The trick I eventually developed was to filter the emissions until all I was seeing was the general locations for all the B1 battledroids on the ship. It was like looking at an ants nest, but I knew that the Separatists used them for other roles than just holding a gun to shoot; they were also used in damage control, maintenance and repair, so most of the droids you'd encounter on the Malevolence wouldn't be able to immediately shoot you. Then it was just a matter of looking for droid signatures that would abruptly wink out in a distinct line. That would give a rough approximation of where either Anakin or Obi-wan was. The problem was that if they were being sneaky they'd avoid combat wherever possible to achieve their objectives, and that there were other reasons for droids to disappear from sensors; internal damage from the battle, or simply switching themselves off for recharge into docking stations.

The hyperdrive and the bridge were the two major targets to sabotage, so I refined the scans to only focus in those general areas.

This let me see that Grievous wasn't about to just let this happen. A large number of droids were gathering to the Hyperdrive, and I could see droid signatures sequentially wink out on the bridge itself.

I turned around about to announce what was happening to find Master Plo standing practically over my shoulder radiating amusement. "I see it, little Soka." Damn, got a bad case of tunnel vision there, and rather desperately avoided flushing in embarrassment at the nickname. "And it's not necessary to share that. The bridge crew can do nothing to influence events, they have their jobs, let them concentrate on it."

I faced the screen, "Yes, Master."

"Reach out with your feelings and the Force, you do not need machines and sensors to tell you what is happening on the Malevolence."

Of course, I could do that, but sometimes I found myself in two mindsets regarding the Force and its use. Yes, you could divine things that mere sensors could not, achieve feats and attain knowledge that would baffle any mundane scientist. 'Trust the Force', so to speak. Then you just had to look at what Darth Sidious did with the Shroud that occluded him and any Jedi precognition regarding him and that 'trust' quickly fell by the wayside. Using the Force as a crutch for everything was also bad in my opinion, you also had reason, a brain, talents and skills you could develop.

But Master Plo had asked so I would do.

I centered myself and allowed the river and currents of the Force to embrace my consciousness. It was a bit of a trick to at first just figure a 'direction' to go in, but that was stupid, distance and direction mattered nothing in this, so I concentrated on the distinct feeling of Obi-wan's presence in the Force, and 'stepped' forward with no doubt or hesitation.

Obi-wan stood on a platform within a large cavernous chamber, the machinery in the giant place made it clear that this was the stupendous Hyperdrive that could push the mass of the Malevolence into hyperspace. The platform had a number of control workstations at which B1 droids were working. He was barely within arms reach of the droids when the two large blast doors leading to the Hyperdrive chamber shot open and the machine precision sound of droids marching in unison echoed throughout.

Now on all the three walkways leading out, a squad of battledroids marched, supported by pairs of B2 Super battledroids, and three Droideka rolled out into view from behind the console to deploy into walker mode and energized their shields.

Obi-wan was trapped. Emerging from behind one squad of droids walked the large droid-like cyborg, General Grievous himself. He walked with a lope that was both mechanically awkward and elegant, thick khaki-painted armor covering his body, except the parts which need flexibility, which had dark grey joints. The only hint that there was an organic being at all in the shell, was the mask-like face where yellowed eyes with long thin pupils was gazing in malicious delight at the Jedi.

Grievous laughed coldly, a sound that echoed out of his sinister mask hollowly. "General Kenobi." Obi-wan turned around with a nonchalant air and equally bemused smile at the approach of the cyborg, showing no intimidation whatsoever. "Did you really think I would leave the Hyperdrive unguarded?" The cyborg idly held standard issue Separatist blaster in hand.

"Anything is possible," Obi-wan shrugged, "you haven't exactly impressed me today."

Grievous merely laughed in response. "Kill him."

The droids in the room took aim, but Obi-wan was already a blur of movement with ignited lightsaber. Red bolts streamed through the room and failed to find their mark. He stopped right behind one of the Droideka's that had flanked him, using it as cover - quite a few B1s met their end by reflected shots from the shield.

Obi-wan pushed out with both hands, turning two droideka's in his telekinetic grip into projectiles that became battering rams that slammed into B1s and knocked them off the gangways, clearing a path. Finally he used the last one, to send it straight down Grievous throat, before jumping into a Force assisted leap that had him almost out of the chamber already. The cyborg simply caught the droideka projectile with monstrous mechanical strength. The six remaining droids and Grievious continued to pour fire after him, but any bolt that was remotely threatening was deflected and as a parting gift, Obi-wan deflected a bolt that blasted a droid to slag right next to the General.

"That was impressive," a B1 commented idly, only for Grievous to smash its head off in an agitated growl…

Anakin mowed through the droids on the Malevolence's bridge like a buzzsaw. Any shots that a droid managed to get off were either dodged, deflected or he simply timed his movement so that he would be behind the cover of a console or similar obstruction. That usually allowed him the time to use the Force to pull a droid into range for a quick slice of the lightsaber. And just like that the entire bridge was his. He took a moment to gather himself and stared at the various consoles, clearly thinking of what way he could sabotage the ship that wouldn't be immediately obvious and corrected. He headed to the Navigation console…

a ship the size of the Malevolence required that its crew, humanoid or droid had to get from point A to B within it in an efficient fashion. So the designers solved this by building a tramway maglev network of multiple levels in height to run through the ship's main sections. The cargo trams running along it moved at high velocities since the droids weren't likely to complain about excessive G-forces. This was the very dangerous stage of running lightsaber battle. Obi-wan with his single blue blade deflected and evaded the powerful crushing blows from Grievous' own blue and green lightsabers.

Obi-wan showed his utter mastery of Soresu - the third form, keeping his lightsaber close, expending as little energy as possible. Every overwhelming blow usually only briefly met the lightsaber before it was redirected, also using the Force to send brief pulses of telekinetic waves to further aid in counteracting that mechanical strength of Grievous.

Like other true Masters of Soresu he was using the time to study his opponent, giving ground to Grievous. Then when the end of the speeding tram neared he simply went into a Force assisted acrobatic leap to another train, forcing Grievous to follow by also doing the same. It was a risk for the robotic general, for while he had the raw mechanical strength to imitate a lot of the physical feats of a Jedi, he didn't have the precognition of the Force. Nevertheless, the droid general made the jump successfully, only sticking the landing because of the high tensile strength claws that he used for 'feet' and the battle continued.

Finally it seemed that Obi-wan faltered, losing his footing when the tram switched tracks abruptly. Grievous capitalized on the moment, slamming down with both of his blades, which Obi-wan barely fended off… but now he was on his back…

Grievous stepped forward laughing mockingly and raised his blades for the finishing blow…

Obi-wan glanced off to the side and simply flung himself off the tram, using the spin of his momentum to bring his lightsaber slashing through the front locomotive as he fell. He tucked into a roll and landed on another tram going in the opposite direction on the lower level, using the Force to stick his landing and bleed away the sudden acceleration. He stood and gave an ironic two fingered salute at the rapidly receding form of Grievous who could only growl in frustration…

Master Plo squeezed his hand on my shoulder and it brought me away from my Farsight. I still had work to do on keeping the awareness of what was happening around my body when I did this.

"Focus on the moment you are in first as an anchor, before you leap into the river, Ahsoka."

"Ah, I see, thank you, Master."

The sensors gave a beep of warning in front of me. The Twilight detached from the Malevolence and raced home and not a moment too soon.

"Sir, sensors indicate the Hyperdrive of the enemy ship is active, as are its main reactor!" the Clone Commander reported.

"All batteries open fire!"

A storm of blue turbolasers was sent streaking through space towards the enemy. Anakin had the foresight to fly a looping course back to the task group, to allow the gunners clean space to fire into. The Malevolence could at this point turn and engage us in a traditional gun duel with pretty good odds of at least destroying some of the task group, but it would take more time, and Grievous had to know we would have reinforcements coming, which would be enough to finish him and his flagship off for good.

The giant ship began to turn, still eating up all the firepower from the task group.

"Sensors show the hyperdrive is powering up, they're going to jump."

I turned on the radio, "Master, please tell me you did something clever?"

"Of course, snips," Anakin's voice declared. "This is me we're talking about. Notice how they're not firing their guns and do a plot on their trajectory."

I brought up a navigation plot on the console and had the computer project it on a diagram of local space. The arrow that represented the main course the Malevolence would head in smoothly turned until it neatly bisected with a star nearly five light years away.

The engines on the giant ship flared and it shot off into hyperspace.

"Pursuit course, the instant the Twilight has docked," Admiral Yularen ordered. "I want us in orbit of that star for confirmation."

"There won't be anything left," Master Plo pointed out.

"Nothing to visual eye, yes," Yularen confirmed, "but a little known fact is that hypermatter interactions with stars causes a distinct effect and a release of exotic particles, which can be detected."

"Interesting," Master Plo commented. Yularen might as well have smashed me over the head with a proverbial bat… so the hypermatter and conditions inside the extreme gravity well, with all the high pressure, temperatures and so on… was that knowledge the genesis of a Sun Crusher resonance torpedo?!

"Its understandably not something that's common knowledge because no one is insane enough to experiment and study such phenomena. The knowledge comes from ancient Republic naval archives from even before the Rusaan Reformation," Yularen explained, and neatly explained why the man deserved to hold the title of Admiral, even in this nominally demilitarized age.

But even more critically to my mind… was Grievous dead?


Half an hour later saw the task group hovering as close as possible to the utterly unremarkable star in question, on a bearing which traced the path the Malevolence would've taken had it been able to go through it. Republic Star Destroyers didn't have any sort of scientific facilities on board, or scientists for that matter, but they did have the best military grade sensors that Republic technology could build.

Yularen was standing over the shoulders of the sensor crew and advising them on adjustments and they were even writing a slap dash patch to the scanning software on the computers, with R2 plugged into the system as well.

Finally, after nearly two hours, when reports reached us that Master Luminara's fleet had been victorious and was now guarding the medical station, for the full evacuation to proceed, the computer produced its analysis of the star.

On the bridge holo, an image the orange dwarf star in question appeared. Despite the fact that on a comparative scale, a ship even the size of Malevolence was utterly a pin prick to the size of a star - it was still something that had hit it at greater than light velocity. The holo showed a computer enhanced simulation and analysis of the visible surface features…including a distinct aura of exotic particles that was shooting out of sun that was only visible in the gamma ray end of the EM spectrum.

"It's like a throwing a stone into a pond," I murmured. "Master, what made you think this was a good idea?"

Anakin shrugged but looked troubled as he stared at the sensor readouts, "It was the closest stellar object I could find to hardcode into their navicomputer. Didn't exactly have a lot of time to think it over, and I wanted to give Grievous as little time to realize what was happening as possible."

"So hopefully, he's now barely even a couple of atoms scattered across a few light years from here," I dared say, but had probably jinxed myself anyway. If the Force wanted Grievous around, he'd stay, and it really bummed me. What did anything I do or want to change matter then? My only consolation being that I was still alive, myself and I wouldn't be here in the first place if the Force hadn't wanted me around. Damn, I was too young still for these existential questions of existence to be hitting me. I really didn't want to go Kreia on the Galaxy. "How long would he have had, worst case scenario? Let's say he realized what was happening the instant before the ship jumped…"

Anakin nodded thoughtfully, "Ship the size of the Malevolence, Class 2 Hyperdrive, hmmm, four point nine light years, that would be two minutes sixteen seconds until impact with the star… roughly."

"And Obi-wan last saw him riding the ship's tram network heading to the fore end, and given how fast he can move…"

"It depends whether there was any escape pods or a hanger bay near the front end of the ship."

"And can an escape pod survive simply leaving the hyperspace field envelope?"

"If it had good inertial dampeners, then I'd give Grievous good odds of surviving the transition to realspace," Anakin declared.

"So assuming all that, he'd be stuck floating somewhere along a nearly impossible to calculate four light year volume, between here and the medical station, sending out an encrypted Seppie distress signal."

"All this is a lot of speculation, maybe our luck will hold and he's dead," he said with a bright hopeful expression. I gave him a flat unimpressed look.

"Until he's in pieces at my feet, his organic parts DNA verified, then fed into a furnace, I'll assume the General is still alive and a factor in this war."

"That's a rather paranoid attitude, snips."

"Prudent rather," I countered. "Hope for best, plan for the worst."

"Yeah, with the way things are going in this war..." he conceded with a nod. "Alright, lets get started on those after action reports - then its back to training."

"Yes, Master."

A/N: Do remember the limited POV of the SI, its hard to see the ripples of choice/change spreading out, until something is reflected back. Is Grievous actually dead? That is the question. What will that mean for the future? We'll just have to see.