Meet You at the Dark Side

Chapter 24 - Road to Freedom

Anakin can hear and see the sound of heavy fire as they run towards the waiting ship. Of course, Obi-Wan had to get himself in some grand mess. Typical. Dodging the artillery fire, they dash for cover behind one of the walls. A door to the building opens and a large group of crab and battle droids march out and start shooting at Obi-Wan's group.

With Ahsoka and Anakin in the lead, they run to the next wall for cover, trying to get closer to the ship. "Sorry I'm late," he states.

"How nice of you to join us," quips Obi-Wan, smirking despite the chaos surrounding them.

"The ship is surrounded," warns Ahsoka, peeking around the wall for a second before quickly ducking back, a blaster bolt nearly taking off her head.

"We need to launch a full-forward assault and take that vessel," insists Tarkin emphatically, waving his hand.

"We may have a bigger problem," retorts Obi-Wan. "Those turrets. If we don't take them out, they will use them to destroy the shuttle and prevent our escape."

"Which is precisely why we should get aboard that shuttle and use the weapon systems to decimate those droids," Tarkin growls.

Anakin totally disagrees with Tarkin, but they have to get to the shuttle. First, though, they need to take out those tanks. "Whatever we're going to do, we better do it fast," Anakin declares, standing up. Danger is humming in the Force, and it only takes him a fraction of a second to figure out why.

A group of assassin droids on speeders swoop in from the sky, opening fire on them. A huge explosion shakes the ground, throwing everyone down. Anakin scrambles up again, igniting his lightsaber simultaneously with Ahsoka. The droids circle around, swooping down again firing non-stop as the Jedi Masters immediately join them, deflecting back the blaster bolts.

Piell runs forwards, leaping through the air cutting off the head of one of the droids. He and its bike go flying across the platform. Anakin jumps into the air as the next droid zips by, throwing it from the speeder and taking over the controls. He fires down at the crab droids attacking clones, zooming out of the way as several of the other battle droids on other speeders start shooting at him.

As he circles around again, Piell jumps on behind him, deflecting blaster bolts shot his way. Anakin dives around the tower, blasting apart a bunch of the droids circling. Ahsoka dashes across the platform, jumping onto another speeder joins him in the air. She shoots down one of the other droid speeders, then blasts down at one of the tanks.

A group of assassin droids with shields march out, joining the battle.

"General Skywalker, a droid is manning one of those turrets," Anakin hears Rex say through his comm. "They're going to blow up the shuttle, sir."

"We've got to stop him," he yells, diving in shooting at the tank. A stray blaster bolt suddenly strikes his speeder, and it explodes, throwing him and Piell to the ground many feet below. He hastily leaps to his feet again as cannon shots begin raining down around them. Anakin ducks aside to safety. Ahsoka's speeder is suddenly hit as well, and she lands on the ground a short distance from him. "You alright?" he asks her worriedly as she stands up, ducking around a corner next to me.

"I am," she replies, glancing back out at the ship.

A sudden, surging sensation of dread swells inside him – not that uncommon in battles – and he turns to the ship. Echo is running towards it, picking up one of the shields the assassin droids were using to protect himself. One of the tanks is aiming for the ship, and Anakin knows there's nothing he can do about that. His focus is instead on the clone, one of his best friends, and he flings him to the ground with the Force as the tank fires.