Anabeth: New Beginnings

Chapter 8 - The Great Escape

"Aayla, pick up" Ana urgently spoke into her comm. "I'm here" Aayla confirmed. "Not to alarm you, but power just went out on our side of the building. Incase the blackout reaches you, I want you to get Talin in with you, use your lightsabers as light and sticks, stay with the Senators".

"Will do. Do you need any assistance?" Aayla offered her help. "A working system would be great right about now, but I'm pretty sure the server is on our side of the palace, meaning it's dead until we get the power back. Just call me if you can sense the guy, I'll be sweeping the halls with the Mandalorians in the mean time" Ana replied, ending the call and turning to Ursa.

"Everyone is either guarding the exits or sweeping the palace right now. The chances of him escaping are quiet slim" Ursa informed her. "Great, I'll be going to safety room two for now and see if I can fix the power. If not I'll start..." Ana stopped in the middle of her sentence, her head whipping around to look to her left.

"I found him" she quickly stated before running out of the room. She was letting her senses lead her as she ran down the halls of the palace in almost total darkness. She could feel the inturder running too, meaning he probably had nightvision glasses to help him find his way. What concerned her however, was that the guy didn't seem to be making a run for the exit or the Senators, but rather the core of the palace.

As he tried to keep up with him, Ana could help but notice that the guy was fast, however, not as fast as her as she slowly came ever closer. She kept on following him through the halls, eventually passing through a door that was supposed to be locked as it was labeled as a do not cross zone. Right behind the door were a flight of stairs leading downwards. The fact that he had taken this route made Ana quiet uneasy as she knew where it was leading.

Coming to a halt, she decided to make her way down the stairs slowly and quietly, so he wouldn't alert the intruder. She knew he was locked in a dead end in the room, however, she knew that if he knew anything about the items down there, she proably stood little chance. The vault she was walking into was the one where Bo kept the last remains of weapons designed specifically to work against the Jedi during the Mandalorian wars.

She eventually reached the lower end of the stairs, using the force to scan the room for possible traps and to locate the fugitive before entering. She could sense him sneaking between some crates in the corner the furthest away from her, unaware that she was standing at the foot of the stairs. As she quietly steped closer he could her him rummaging through one of the crates.

The noise was a dead giveaway of his position and confirmed hat he was still distracted, giving Ana the confidence to sneak up to right behind him. The man still had his hood pulled over his head an was dressed in all black. She quickly scanned the items laying on the floor around him, determining that even if used, few would pose a problem. However, she was not so sure about the contents of the other crates around them.

Deciding to use this moment of vulnerability agaist the intruder, Ana activated her lightsaber, pointing it to the back of the man's head. "For a number of reasons I will not even begin to list right now, you are under arrest. Raise your hands up in the air and stand up slowly". For a moment, the man seemed surprised at her presence as he flinched at her words before slowly putting his hands in the air.

"Great, now stand up so that we can get this over with quickly and like civilized people" Ana said impatiently, however, the man didn't move. She was about to grab him and pull him up herself when she suddenly spotted a red, blinking light on the floor behind the man, coming from a small ball that looked like a fflash grenade.

Ana barely had time to react when it exploded, filling the room with light so bright that she was forced to immediately close her eyes. As she did so, she realized that, as the intruder was still wearing nightvision glasses, they would simply filter out the flash for him and he was able to see properly unlike her.