Star Wars: The Good Ending

Anakin

    Anakin snapped to attention, all the weariness seeming to drain from him in an instant. Before he could even think, his blue lightsaber was in his hand and ignited, bathed in red light from the sirens. Ahsoka quickly followed suit, igniting her own lightsabers and opening the door.
    The hallway was empty, and Anakin immediately made for the detention level where Maul was supposedly held. His former apprentice followed him closely, along with Rex, Kix, and Jesse, blasters raised.
    They sharply turned a corner, and Rex input the access code to the level, where they were greeted by half a dozen troopers in various stages of brutalization. Anakin noticed Ahsoka flinched when she saw them, and Kix didn't miss a beat trying to help the ones that were still alive. He immediately recognized Booster and Kaden, who were in bad shape.
    "Jesse, I'll stay with Kix, go with the generals and locate Maul, trap him until we can lock him back up, and figure out how he got out in the first place."
"Yes sir!" The ARC Trooper responded before following the two Jedi along the path of destruction left by Maul. "Ahsoka, he's going for the Hanger, meet me there and we'll try and cut them off!" Ahsoka nodded and sprinted in the opposite direction, and Anakin indicated for Jesse to follow her.
    As he sprinted down the hallways, he found himself easily winded, and eventually had to stop, slumping against a doorframe and wheezing heavily. Ever since his fight with Darth Sidious, his breathing just wasn't what it used to be. Doctor Nema had said it's because his windpipe and trachea were nearly crushed beyond repair, so he was lucky he didn't need a breathing apparatus. Despite having a metal arm, the idea of walking around with a machine on his chest so he could breathe sounded miserable.
    After heaving a few more deep breaths, he sat off again, hoping he wouldn't be too late. He told himself Ahsoka had handled Maul just fine before, but it didn't stop him from worrying. He stumbled to a stop when he came across another group of 501st troopers who all laid dead on the ground in front of him.
    He noticed one of them still seemed to be alive, and rushed to his side, pulling off his helmet and immediately recognizing Hatch. He had a large burn scar on the right side of his face and a single bionic eye to replace the ruined one, with a close cropped black buzz cut.
    "Hatch! Hatch, can you hear me?" he asked, trying in vain to wake up the trooper. Hatch barely stirred, groaning almost inaudibly. "Maul. . ." he muttered, still not opening his eyes. He coughed weakly and a bit of blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth. "Kix," he choked
    "Yeah buddy, Kix is gonna patch you up," Anakin assured him.
"Wants- Kix-" Hatch sputtered. His eyes rolled back and and and he went limp, breathing his last.
    Anakin sighed, trying to push the sadness to the back of his head where he wouldn't have to acknowledge it. He laid his fallen soldier on the floor and quickly shut his eyes, sparing a couple second farewell before tearing off to the rendezvous, biting back his anger and insatiable desire to beat Maul to death with his bare hands.
    He encountered a few more fallen troopers along the way, but they were all already gone. Even without a lightsaber, Maul was a force to be reckoned with, leaving a clear path of destruction and death in his wake. He pressed the communication device on his wrist, winding through the corridors. He wasn't sure where exactly he was going, but something about the darkness that surrounded Maul pulled him in, similar to Palpatine, if less potent. It made tracking him down remarkably easy.
    "Rex! Captain Appo! Can either of you hear me?"
The only response he got was static. Cursing under his breath, he ran around another corner, nearly falling over the top of his trusty Astromech Droid. "Artoo! I thought I told you to stay in the infirmary!"
    R2D2 beeped indignantly, a language only Anakin seemed to even partially understand. "Tap into the system and shut everything down, no transmissions, no messages, no distress signals. We can't risk letting Maul escape, okay?"
    More irritable beeping ensued from the droid. "No, I'm not calling for reinforcements. It just gives him cover to escape, and I'm done ordering men to their deaths," his eyes trailed behind Artoo, to another fallen trooper, Torrent Company, based on the orange painting on his helmet. His neck was bent at an unnatural angle, and judging by his unique greave designs, it was Razer, a clone absorbed into the 501st following his company's massacre on Dantooine.
    He shifted his focus back to the astromech. "Hop to it R2, we're running out of time!" He broke back into a run, but the tether that seemed to pull him closer and closer to Maul was getting weaker, more strained. Finally, Anakin emerged on the hanger deck, which was empty except for the ship he and Ahsoka arrived on. She was knelt down next to Clawe, who was very injured, having an urgent conversation. She was clearly worried about something more severe than just a jailbreak. A few dozen clones stood at rigid attention on the dock, blasters raised and waiting.
    Ahsoka noticed him right away and came running over, leaving Clawe with Jesse. "We've got a problem," She started before she even stopped running. Anakin held his sides, which heaved as he tried to catch his breath. "Yeah? Tell me something I don't know," fresh images of Hatch, Razer, and too many more flashed before his eyes, only adding to his anger and frustration.
    Her azure eyes were alight with worry, and the air around them seemed to glow red, fumes emanating off the lava. "It's Kix. Maul was targeting him, Clawe says he took him alive, but he doesn't know what happened to Rex."
    The realization hit him like a ton of bricks. Hatch wasn't asking for help, he was warning him. He had no idea what Maul wanted with Kix, but knew it couldn't be good. "C'mon, we have to-"
    Anakin never got to finish his sentence. Everything around him seemed to suddenly go quiet, and a cold shiver of dread ran down his spine. A burst of static broke through comms, and judging by the shift on her face, Ahsoka felt it too. She froze in her tracks, her hands suddenly resting firmly on her lightsaber hilts.
    Finally, came a voice. Echoing through the comms of every 501st Republic soldier stationed on the volatile lava planet, came one man. His voice was like a dull knife scraping over hard stone, and for a moment, time lulled to a near complete stop. Then came the words, that after Palpatine's death, were never meant to be spoken.
    "Execute Order 66."
It all happened so fast Anakin was surprised he was able to react in time. Every clone on the platform immediately turned and pointed their guns at them. No- not them specifically, but Ahsoka, who had her back turned to them. Anakin looked to Jesse, who was standing a few meters away, blasters raised, his face hidden under his helmet. "Jesse-" he started, speaking to him as if he were an animal ready to attack. "Jesse, stand down," he ordered.
    Ahsoka's grip tightened on her lightsabers, but she dared not move.
Jesse didn't flinch, instead keeping his DC-17's raised and ready to fire. "Stand aside sir. General Tano has been marked for termination, and must be executed immediately."
Anakin swallowed hard, still in shock by what he was hearing, but his mind was reeling a billion miles an hour. This is why Maul wanted Kix. He recalled the report where Jesse was reported MIA for thirteen hours, where his mind was nearly broken by Maul's use of the Force to get information out of him.
    He had to have done the same to Kix. Kix, who knew about the order, the chips, the plan, everything. Maul was crazy, but he wasn't stupid. What he couldn't understand was why Jesse was only targeting Ahsoka. He was a Jedi as well, so why was the ARC Trooper hesitating?
    "Jesse, stand down, that's an order."
The clone seemed to pause for just a second, before resolving his actions. "General Skywalker, I find you to be in direct violation of Order 66. Under Republic law, you will be executed alongside the traitor Ahsoka Tano!"
    His right hand tightened around his lightsaber hilt, and he managed to get a single word out before all hell broke loose.
    "Run."
In all of a second he shoved Ahsoka as hard as he could out of the way, igniting his lightsaber and deflecting six lethal shots that would've gone right through her.
    The entire company opened fire, a volley of blue blaster bolts tearing apart the deck. Ahsoka was back on her feet immediately, side by side with Anakin, she used her lightsabers to deflect as many blasts as she could, but the barrage was too much.
    Anakin dove behind the turret and Ahsoka quickly followed, "We have to fin-"
Suddenly the space exploded in a massive inferno, and Anakin glanced around the corner to see their ship, the only way offworld, go up in flames. "Get inside, NOW!" he yelled over the commotion. Of course she technically outranked him now, but she apparently knew now was not the time to bring that up.
    Three troopers appeared around the corner, and without thinking Anakin grabbed them with the force, flinging them into the six right behind them. He ran for the door, covering Ahsoka while she got it open. He shooed her inside, but took a direct hit to the shoulder when he turned. He crumpled to the ground, and the door let in a few more stray shots when it snapped closed.
    He groaned as Ahsoka quickly pulled him to his feet, tentatively looking at the fresh wound on his shoulder. It was smoldering and reeked of scorched flesh, but it didn't look very deep. "Are you ok?"
    Anakin flinched and worked his shoulder, trying his best to ignore the pain. "Yeah Snips I'm fine," he slashed through the door panel with his lightsaber, disabling it. "We need a plan."
    Ahsoka tapped her foot anxiously and fingered the hilt of her lightsaber, "Rex. Or Kix. There has to be a way to disable the chips."
"Ok, yeah. Fives had his removed, if we can get them to the infirmary, we can get them out. I think."
    "We'll split up, you go after Kix, I'll find Maul," she suggested.
    "Splitting up sounds like a terrible idea."
"It'll make us harder to track, and harder to capture. Besides, we don't have a lot of time. If we can't get this place back under control, Maul's gone and we're dead."
    Anakin frowned. He hated the idea of splitting up, but he couldn't think of a better idea. "Ok. I'll find Maul, but we call for backup if we get into trouble, got it?"
    Ahsoka nodded. "I'll get a message back to the temple and send all the Jedi into hiding. If Maul gets out and spreads the word, it'll compromise the entire Order."
    "All we have working to our advantage at the moment is that hopefully they're just as against him as they are us. If we can keep everything contained. . ." he trailed off.
He gave a quick two finger salute to Ahsoka before taking off. "Good luck, and be careful," he cautioned.
    As he ran down the corridors of the prison, he followed the feeling, the dark blot in the corner of his vision. Until recently he never really understood what that blot was, but now he knew it to be the Dark Side of the Force, sending out a signal more obvious than a flare gun. Palpatine had hidden his expertly, but Maul made no effort to. The presence was familiar to him, and he could've found it even if he were completely blind.
    He turned the corner and nearly smacked right into a squad of clone troopers. They raised their blasters, but he quickly used the force to fling them into the wall, rendering them unconscious, but otherwise fine. "Sorry," he muttered before continuing on his way.
    He could identify another presence in the prison, but his senses were so clouded he couldn't tell who, but it was familiar. Anakin elected not to dwell on it, instead focusing on finding Maul. He could tell he was getting closer, dodging troopers who seemed to be after them both.
    Finally, Anakin caught sight of him, right about to exit a familiar hallway he'd been in before. Reaching out with the Force, he disabled the door, cutting off Maul's escape. Biting back his anger, he pulled his lightsaber from his belt and ignited it, glaring at the Dathomirian with unmasked contempt.
    "Anakin Skywalker," Maul said quietly as he slowly turned around to face him. His bloodshot Sith eyes bored into him, and the intricate patchwork of red and black markings on his face made him look like he himself had crawled from the lava just outside. Even without a weapon, Maul was powerful and ruthless, but Anakin remembered his training, that the best way to defeat him was enraging him to the point he became sloppy. Fortunately, he seemed to have that effect on people.
    "I've faced Sith much more powerful than you. This will be easier than defeating a youngling."
Maul gave a thin, cruel smile. "Yes, I'd imagine you think so. I was beginning to think you'd never show up. I'd hoped you'd bring Kenobi with you, but he'll be easy enough to kill once I escape this rock."
    Anakin moved into an offensive stance. "You're not going anywhere."
"You think you can get me back into that cell?"
    "I know I could. But I'd really rather just kill you to save myself the trouble."
Maul smiled as if this amused him. "You can try, Skywalker. I have died before."
    Anakin's response was to leap at him, saber drawn. Maul ripped a chunk of steel off the wall and flung it at him. Anakin slashed through it, only slowing down slightly. Now only a few feet away, he swung again, narrowly missing as the former sith apprentice dodged the blow, instead landing a hit right into the side of Anakin's head.
    For a moment he saw stars, and his vision nearly blacked, but he quickly recovered, just in time to outmaneuver a leg sweep, using the Force to knock Maul off balance. Anakin swung again, a slice that should've divorced Maul's neck from whatever was left of his body, but got flung into the nearest wall instead.
    The blaster wound in his shoulder sent fiery pain tracing from his fingertips to his now pounding head. Disoriented, but reasonably furious, he was back on his feet again, winded, but ready. He dodged another chunk of the wall, one that came flying at him sideways like a massive razer blade. It embedded itself into the opposite wall, and Skywalker finally managed to land a hit on Maul's face.
    The Zabrak stumbled back, and Anakin seized the opportunity to swing again, aiming for his neck. Maul ducked, holding the side of his face, knocking Anakin off balance when his lightsaber had nothing to connect with.
    He kicked the Jedi in the back, knocking him to the floor and calling his lightsaber to his hand. Anakin scrambled to his feet, panting heavily, now unarmed, he faced Maul without a trace of fear.
    The Zabrak ran a red and black finger over the slash on his face, rubbing at the trace of blood on his fingertips. He then looked over the lightsaber in his hand, seemingly intrigued by it. "For the Jedi who killed both Dooku and Sidious, I honestly expected more," he taunted.
    Anakin sneered. "While all I can credit you with is old masters and defenseless padawans."
    Maul didn't acknowledge his words. "I should thank you for killing Sidious. Unfortunately, his life was mine to take, not yours." Maul ignited Anakin's blue saber and thrust it forward, the Jedi Master rolling out of the way and grabbing Maul by the wrists, flinging him into the nearest wall. Retrieving his lightsaber, he went to deal the death blow, but Maul waved a hand and sent him flying down the opposite end of the hallway.
    He hit the wall with a hard thud, and pain exploded up the left side of his body. Groaning, Anakin hauled himself to his knees, swiping a hand over his jaw. "You are unbalanced," Maul pointed out, struggling to his feet. "Such rage and anger from a self-proclaimed Jedi is what makes you dangerous."
    Anakin spat the blood out of his mouth and got to his feet, refusing to back down. "I don't care. All I know is that you killed my friends. And I'm going to make you pay for it."
    "Point proven." Maul said. He waved an arm and the walls on opposite sides of Anakin were ripped free and came crashing together, narrowly crushing him. He dodged the attack, lunging at Maul and going back on the offensive.