Accismus⋆౨ৎ˚⟡.• Anakin Skywalker⋆౨ৎ˚⟡.•

63.

Sol made sure that her seatbelt was secured over her chest and across her waist. The cruiser was nose-diving towards Coruscant and judging by the engine levels that beamed on the screen in front of Anakin, they were coming in hot. R2 was able to lock himself down to the floor with his wheel clamps, but his frantic beeps could be heard over the warning alarms that continued to sound throughout the cockpit.

'Pressure rising. We've got to slow this wreck down. Open all hatches, extend all flaps, and drag fins,' Anakin ordered Obi-wan, who was in front of the second set of controls. The Jedi Master was the learner for the first time and listened to his ex-Padawan.

'Temp steady. Hatches open, flaps extended, drag fins-'

A rumble cut Obi-wan off. The Trade Federation cruiser shook, and the Chancellor let out a whimper. Sol glanced over her shoulder to see that Palpatine was looking towards the corridor. The cruiser was breaking up from its huge size failing against the the speed at which it plummeted.

'We lost something,' Anakin attempted to appear confident as he side-eyed his Master and fellow Jedi but kept his attention on the rising levels.

'Not to worry,' Obi-wan kept up the slight sarcasm. 'We're still flying half the ship.'

'Oh, Maker,' Sol mumbled. She threw her face into her palms at the sight of the windshield showing the light orange skies of Coruscant. There was no longer the aimless void of space with its dots of stars that were too far to reach without the wonders of lightspeed. There were loads of obsticles to hit on Coruscant, and its gravity was the culprit of the cruiser's downfall. Its plummet could be catastrophic if Anakin's piloting skills lucked out on him in this situation.

'Now we're really picking up speed,' Anakin stated. 'I'm going to shift a few degrees and see if I can slow us down.'

'Careful, we're heating up-twelve thousand, thirteen thousand...'

'What's our speed?'

'Eight plus sixty-forty. Eight plus sixty-twenty. Eight plus sixty. Temp ten thousand, nine thousand, we're in the atmosphere.'

The clouds of Coruscant were growing thin. Through their gaps, Sol could see the tallest buildings of the city. She gripped the edges of her seat with sweating palms and R2's beeps as he helped power the ship was the only thing that Sol could understand. The technical talk about the cruiser's levels were not only complicated, but they created a deep hole of fear and dread in Sol's stomach. The cockpit was growing hot and Sol's bangs were sticking to the sides of her face. Puffing air out of her cheeks, she leaned her head back and tried not to think about how suffocating it was now to breathe.

'Five thousand, three thousand... two thousand. Fireships on the left and the right,' Obi-wan read off the screens.

'We'll take you in,' a voice sounded from the controls.

To put out the small fires that burned on the sides of the cruiser, were emergency fire speeders that exhausted water from their hulls. They attempted to guide the monstrous cruiser through the large buildings that skimmed past the grey sides of the ship, but the landing was still up to Anakin. The fires could be extinguished, but the impact of such a large vessel coming in at such speed could leave immense damage.

'Copy that,' Obi-wan replied before pointing out through the windshield. 'Landing strip's straight ahead.'

'We're coming in too hot,' Anakin gripped the controls to pull the cruiser up to try and slide it along the landing strip. As it dropped down, a horrible scrapping noise was heard as the cruiser disrupted the tar of the strip with its belly.

The port side of the cruiser collided with the landing strip's control tower. It crumbled to the ground without hindering the cruiser's landing and the fireships desperately followed with water continuously spraying. Smoke bellowed into the skyline and city-goers watched from their high-rise buildings with their hands cupped over their mouths. They heard about Chancellor Palpatine's abduction from the city, and they prayed that the falling cruiser was his rescue, and not an invasion.