Chapter 45: Unleashed
The controls of the Y-wing screamed under my hands, a shrill, mechanical protest that mirrored the groan of the airframe as I pushed it past every safety limit programmed into its head-computer. Most pilots treated a bomber like a heavy beast of burden, but I wasn't most pilots.
I was a man with a cheat sheet for the universe, and right now, that cheat sheet told me my mother was being held by an asthmatic cyborg on a ship that was effectively a giant ion cannon with thrusters.
“Ben, the inertial dampeners are at eighty percent! We’re going to turn into Bantha mush!” Maris yelled from the rear seat, her voice cracking with that frantic, thrill-seeking edge she got when things went sideways.
“Just hold on to your horns, Maris,” I muttered, my teeth gritted so hard my jaw ached.
I didn't just fly the ship; I felt the vacuum of space pressing against the hull.
I reached out, my mind stitching itself into the flight computer, overriding the sublight governors. The Malevolence loomed ahead, a jagged shadow of obsidian and spite. I saw the secondary hangar—a narrow, glowing slit guarded by point-defense cannons that were already tracking our erratic zigzag.
Instead of slowing for the approach, I jammed the throttles forward. I kicked the rudder, putting the Y-wing into a sickening barrel roll that cheated the automated lead-track of the droid batteries. We weren’t landing. We were becoming a kinetic slug.
“Brace!”
The hangar shield flickered as we punched through, the friction of the atmospheric containment field shrieking against the cockpit glass. I didn't drop the landing gear. I cut the engines and slammed the nose down.
The impact was a spine-shaking roar of durasteel on durasteel. We skidded across the hangar deck at a hundred miles per hour, a screaming comet of yellow paint and sparks. A squad of B1 battle droids, probably wondering why the 'Jedi' were flying like drunken pirates, didn't even have time to raise their blasters before the wing of the Y-wing sheared through them like a scythe through wheat.
We slammed into a stack of fuel crates, the cockpit canopy shattering outward as the internal pressure equalized with a violent pop.
I was out of the seat before the ship had even finished groaning.
The smoke was thick, acrid with the smell of ozone and burnt lubricant, but I didn't need my eyes. The Force was a cold, sharp blade in my chest, a needle pointing me toward the heart of the ship. Toward Satine. I hit the deck running, my boots crunching over the shattered remains of a droid’s chassis.
“Ben! Wait up, you freak!” Maris scrambled out of the wreckage, her blue blade igniting as she deflected a stray bolt from a dazed survivor.
I didn't stop. I didn't even look back. The rage I’d been bottling up since Christophsis—the frustration of watching the timeline fight back against my every move—was bubbling over. I could feel the Dark Side humming in the marrow of my bones, fueled by the image of Grievous’s metal claws anywhere near my mother’s neck.
At the end of the hangar, the massive blast doors began to hiss shut, the ship's computer finally realizing they had intruders.
I didn't reach for the Darksaber. Not yet.
I skidded to a halt, planted my feet, and threw both hands forward. I wasn't just pushing; I was seizing the very molecular structure of the door’s gears. I felt the massive motors straining against me, whining in protest, and I simply broke them.
With a guttural snarl, I wrenched my hands inward. The heavy durasteel plates didn't just stop; they buckled, the metal shrieking as it was crumpled like discarded flimsiplast. I collapsed the entire frame into itself, sealing the hangar behind us in a mangled heap of unpassable wreckage.
A lone B1 droid, having crawled out from under our wing, hobbled toward me with its arm missing. “Roger, rog—”
I didn't even turn around. I flicked my wrist, catching the droid in a telekinetic grip so tight its chassis imploded. With a sharp jerk of my fingers, I ripped its head clean off the neck cabling and tossed the scrap aside like trash.
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the flickering lights of the hangar and Maris’s ragged breathing as she finally caught up. I stood there, cloaked in the shadows of the wreckage, the Darksaber’s hilt heavy in my hand, feeling less like a Jedi Padawan and more like the monster I’d spent months training to be.
Maris stared at the decapitated droid, then at the twisted wreck of the blast doors I’d just pulverized with raw willpower. She deactivated her lightsaber, a slow, wicked smirk spreading across her pale face as she looked me up and down.
“Wow,” she breathed, her voice dropping into that dangerous, teasing register she used when she was impressed. “You really weren't kidding about the whole 'monster' thing, huh?” She paused, her eyes tracing the line of my shoulders. “… hot.”
I finally looked at her, my eyes probably still reflecting the cold yellow tint of the abyss I’d just tapped into. “Save the flirting for later, Maris. We have a Duchess to find.”
And a General to murder.
…
The air inside the Malevolence detention block tasted of recycled oxygen and cold, predatory intent. How insufferable fitting it is to this monument of destruction.
Satine Kryze kept her spine perfectly straight, her hands folded hidden within the elegant sleeves of her gown to mask the slight tremor in her fingers. It wasn't just the height of the creature towering over her that unnerved her; it was the mechanical wheeze of his lungs, a rhythmic, wet sound that suggested a soul barely clinging to a chassis of spite.
General Grievous paced the length of the observation deck, his heavy metallic talons clicking against the floor with the precision of a ticking bomb. He turned his yellow, reptilian eyes toward Satine and Padmé, a low, rasping chuckle vibrating in his chest plates.
“The Duchess of Mandalore and the Senator of Naboo,” Grievous hissed, the sound like sandpaper on bone. “Dooku will be most pleased. You are far more valuable than a few wrecked cruisers.”
“You are making a strategic error, General,” Satine said, her voice a cool, practiced marble that hid her surging dread. “We are non-combatant diplomats. Under the Galactic Conventions, our execution or mistreatment would be a war crime that even your Separatist Alliance cannot afford to ignore. You’ll find the Republic’s patience ends where its citizens' safety begins.”
Grievous let out a hacking cough that sounded like a motor dying. “Conventions? Treaties? You speak of laws to a man who has paved his way in the hilts of your Jedi friends. You are not prisoners, Duchess. You are shields. As long as you breathe, your precious Republic fleet will hesitate to fire upon this ship. Your safety will serve me better than it will your own government.”
Beside her, Satine felt Padmé shift slightly. The Senator’s face was a mask of regal defiance, but Satine noticed the way her gaze darted toward the guard droids. Padmé was looking for a gap, a weapon, a chance to fight. It was the Naboo way—the hidden blaster in the dress, the handmaiden’s trickery. Satine gently reached out, placing a steadying hand on Padmé’s arm.
Don’t, Satine urged silently. He will crush you before you can even draw.
“And what of your honor, General?” Satine asked, leaning into the only weapon she had—rhetoric. “Or does that, too, require a droid’s programming to function? To hide behind women because you fear the Jedi’s retribution is the height of cowardice.”
Grievous snarled, his four-fingered hand twitching toward one of the lightsabers at his belt. “I fear nothing! Least of all the stagnant philosophy of a dead culture. Mandalore. Bah! Yours is a legacy of failure, Dutchess. Crusade after crusade against the galaxy, and the only ones you’ve managed to destroy are your own people."
A sudden chime echoed through the deck, and a yellow-painted OOM pilot droid approached the General, its movements jerky with programmed hesitation. “General, we have a breach in Hangar Two. A Republic bomber has... well, it didn’t land, sir. It’s more of a debris field now.”
Grievous turned away from the women, his cape billowing behind him. “Skywalker. No doubt he has come to die for his Senator. Send the MagnaGuards. I want his head.”
“Uh, sir,” the droid continued, its head tilting. “The sensors aren't picking up Skywalker or Kenobi. There’s only one Jedi signature... well, two. But we don’t recognize either of them. They’ve already bypassed the internal security bulkheads. The reports say the Jedi is using... a black blade, sir. He’s moving toward the detention block with extreme aggression.”
Satine felt the blood drain from her face so quickly the room seemed to tilt. A black blade. Pre Vizsla’s Darksaber. The weapon her son had taken on Mandalore.
“A black blade?” Grievous let out a barking laugh, oblivious to Satine’s sudden frailty. “What is this? Has the Council sent a child to do a Master’s work? Or perhaps a scavenger? No matter. He is alone. I shall add a unique trophy to my collection before this day is done.”
Satine gripped the edge of the console to keep from collapsing.
Ben.
Her mind raced back to the day she had stood on the landing pad, watching a much smaller version of that boy board a Jedi shuttle with Obi-Wan. She had told herself it was for the best. That the Temple would keep him safe from the blood-soaked history of the Kryze line. She had traded her son’s presence for his security, a bargain she had regretted every single night for over a decade.
And now, he was here. In this den of monsters.
She pictured him—her little boy with his father’s stubborn chin and her own steel—facing this mechanical nightmare. He was just a boy. A Jedi initiate, barely even a Padawan. He shouldn't be here. He should be in a library on Coruscant, or perhaps causing trouble with Korkie in the Sundari gardens.
“General, wait,” Satine said, her voice losing its marble finish, cracking with a raw, maternal desperation she couldn't hide. “He’s just... he isn't who you think. If you let the Senator go, I can—”
“Quiet, Duchess!” Grievous roared, the sound echoing off the cold walls. “I do not negotiate with shields. I break them.” He turned toward the door, his mechanical joints whirring as he prepared for the kill. “Let the boy come. I want to see the look in his eyes when he realizes his 'Jedi' tricks are useless against me.”
Satine looked at Padmé, seeing her own terror mirrored in the Senator’s eyes. But Satine’s fear was different. It was the crushing, suffocating weight of a mother’s guilt. She had let him go once, and if he died in this dark, metallic tomb, she would never forgive herself. She would never forgive Obi-Wan.
The sound of distant explosions began to rumble through the floorboards. Ben was coming. And Satine could only pray that whatever he had become was enough to survive the monster she had failed to talk down.
…
The hum of blue and green lightsabers provided the only steady rhythm in the chaotic sprint through the Malevolence’s airlock. Obi-Wan Kenobi moved with a fluid, defensive grace, his blade a blur as he deflected a flurry of blaster fire from a line of B1 droids. He was doing his best to maintain the poise of a Jedi Master, but the Force was screaming at him, a discordant symphony of panic and something much, much sharper.
“Right! Left! No, my other left!” Anakin shouted, his own blue blade shearing through a pair of droidekas with a reckless intensity that bordered on the frightening. He was a man possessed, his focus entirely on Padmé, his movements lacking their usual theatrical flair in favor of brutal efficiency.
“Maybe if you looked at the map once in a while, Skyguy, we wouldn't have to keep doubling back!” Ahsoka retorted, though she was panting. She somersaulted over a scrap pile, her green blade carving a neat arc through a super battle droid’s chest.
Obi-Wan didn't join the banter. He couldn't. He was reaching out, trying to find that specific resonance in the Force that belonged to Ben. It was there, but it felt... wrong. It was cold. It lacked the bright, flickering curiosity that usually defined his son’s presence. Instead, it was a heavy, crushing weight, like a storm front rolling in over the deserts of Mandalore.
They rounded a corner into a major junction, and for a moment, the trio came to a dead halt.
“Blast,” Ahsoka whispered, her lightsaber lowering slightly. “Did a bomb go off in here?”
The hallway didn't just look like a battlefield; it looked like a slaughterhouse for droids. There were no neat blaster marks or surgical saber cuts. Instead, the walls were scorched with blackened, jagged patterns that suggested a massive release of raw energy. A squad of droids had been quite literally flattened against the durasteel bulkhead, their chassis crushed as if by a hydraulic press.
In the center of the hall, a pile of B2s had been melted into a single, grotesque lump of slag.
Obi-Wan stepped forward, his boots crunching on glass and severed wiring. The air was thick with the smell of ozone and something else—a lingering, oily residue of the Dark Side. He felt a chill that had nothing to do with the ship’s failing life support.
“This wasn't us,” Anakin said, his voice unusually quiet. He knelt by a pile of scrap, picking up a small, charred piece of fabric. It was a fragment of a Jedi utility belt, the kind issued to padawans. “It’s Ben. He’s... he’s really not holding back, is he?”
“It’s… good, right?” Ahsoka noted, though she sounded uncertain. “I mean, he’s saving us a lot of trouble, Master.”
“Trouble is one thing, Ahsoka. This is... something else,” Obi-Wan said, his voice tight. He looked at the melted droids. To do this, a Jedi would have to tap into a level of aggression that the Council spent centuries trying to temper. He had suspected Ben was struggling with his lineage—the warrior blood of the Kryze family was a difficult thing to reconcile with the Jedi Code—but this felt more like a total surrender.
Anakin stood up, tossing the scrap aside. He looked down the hallway where the destruction continued in a straight, terrifying line toward the detention block. “I don't know, Obi-Wan. Look at this droid. Its head wasn't cut off; it was pulled off. He’s angry. Someone has his mother. Honestly? I can relate. If I were him, I’d be doing the exact same thing.”
Obi-Wan felt a flash of irritation that he quickly suppressed. “That is hardly reassuring to hear, Anakin. ‘Relating’ to this kind of carnage is a short walk to a very dark place. He is a boy, not a soldier, and certainly not an executioner.”
The thought of his son—his secret, brilliant, complicated son—drowning in that kind of darkness made Obi-Wan’s stomach churn. He wondered, briefly and painfully, if he had failed as a father figure. He was a member of the Council now; he was supposed to be a paragon of emotional distance.
But every time he saw Anakin’s impulsiveness, or Ben’s burgeoning shadow, he felt the weight of his own shortcomings.
Maybe the Jedi way was too sterile for them? He found himself imagining a future—assuming they survived this mechanical tomb—where he sat them all down. Not for a lecture, but for something... human. A family game night, perhaps?
Dejarik and some of that terrible Mandalorian ale Satine liked. He’d invite Maris, too, though the girl was a walking disaster of a personality. And Ahsoka... well, Ahsoka was the most well-adjusted of the lot, though she really did need to find a tunic that covered more than her midriff. It was hardly practical for a war zone.
“We have to reach him before he does something he can't come back from,” Obi-Wan said, his resolve hardening. He stepped over the slag-heap, his eyes fixed on the doors ahead.
“Or before he finishes the mission without us,” Anakin muttered, though he followed quickly. “You have to admit, Obi-Wan, the kid has results.”
“Results aren't everything, Anakin. The way we win matters as much as the victory itself,” Obi-Wan replied. But as he felt another pulse of cold, focused rage from further down the corridor, he wasn't sure if his son was still listening to those kinds of lessons. He had to reach Satine. He had to reach Ben.
And he had to do it before the Malevolence became a graveyard for more than just droids.
…
The air in the detention hub was thick with the scent of ionizing radiation and the low, heavy thrum of the Malevolence’s primary weapon charging somewhere deep within its bowels. My boots made no sound as I stepped through the threshold of the command tier, but the Force preceded me like a tidal wave of cold iron.
I could feel them all: Padmé’s flickering courage, the General’s oily arrogance, and my mother’s terror—a sharp, jagged spike that pierced right through my ribs.
“Hello there,” Maris drawled, her voice dripping with that bored, predatory sarcasm that usually meant someone was about to lose a limb. She didn't wait for a reply, her blue blade snapping to life with a hiss that cut through the mechanical wheeze of the room.
Grievous spun around, his metal talons gouging the floorboards. “Jedi scum! You are bold to come here alone.”
“Not alone, General. Just impatient,” I said. I didn't reach for my green saber. Grievous wanted a trophy? I had a better one to capture his attention. And if I’m lucky? His head.
My hand went to the heavy, rectangular hilt at my belt—the weight of Mandalore’s history. With a snap-hiss that sounded like a vacuum seal breaking, the Darksaber ignited. The blade was a void in the shape of a sword, a flat black crystal edged in shimmering white light that seemed to drink the purple ambient glow of the ship’s bridge.
It was haunting, wrong, and beautiful.
“Maris, get them out. Now.” I didn't look at my mother. I couldn't. If I saw the look in her eyes, the cold, Sith-tempered focus I’d worked so hard to maintain under the Wrath’s tutelage would shatter.
“On it, Ben. Try not to break the whole ship before I get back,” Maris said, already moving. She grabbed Padmé by the arm, gesturing for Satine to follow. Padmé didn't hesitate, her Senatorial training giving way to survival instinct, but my mother stayed rooted for a heartbeat, her eyes locked on the black blade in my hand.
“Ben?” she whispered, the name sounding like a prayer and a plea all at once.
“Go!” I barked, my voice echoing with a resonance that wasn't entirely my own.
Grievous didn't like being ignored. He let out a rattling cough and gestured with two of his primary arms. “MagnaGuards! Protect the prisoners! Destroy the boy!”
Four IG-100 series droids moved with terrifying, pre-programmed fluidity, their electrostaffs crackling with purple energy. They fanned out, trying to hem me in. It was a textbook encirclement. Too bad for them I’d already read the book, rewritten the ending, and burned the original copy.
I moved. To an outside observer, it might have looked like Ataru—the acrobatic, aggressive style of my father and Master Yoda—but there was a grounded, brutal economy to it that belonged strictly to the Sith Warrior. I didn't jump; I lunged.
I caught the first MagnaGuard’s staff on the flat of the Darksaber, the ancient blade humming as it resisted the electrical surge. With a twist of my wrist, I didn't just parry; I sheared through the staff and the droid’s wrists in one continuous motion.
The second guard lunged from behind. I didn't turn, couldn’t afford to flip my stance. Instead, I reached back with the Force, seizing the droid’s internal servos and locking them. It froze mid-air, a metallic statue of intent, before I flicked my fingers and sent it hurtling into a computer terminal, where it exploded in a shower of sparks.
Behind me, I heard a sharp crack-pop. I glanced back just in time to see my mother standing over a downed B1, holding Padmé’s backup blaster with a white-knuckled grip. She’d stayed behind while Maris and Padmé disappeared into the access tunnel.
“I told you to leave!” I shouted, ducking under a horizontal swing from the third guard. I swept my leg out, taking the droid’s feet, and brought the Darksaber down through its torso, splitting the chassis like a melon.
“I am not leaving you with this... this mechanical monstrosity!” Satine cried out, before firing a bolt that took a fourth droid in the sensor array. Her aim was shaky, but her resolve was pure Mandalorian steel.
“Noble. And foolish,” Grievous hissed.
He discarded his cloak, the heavy fabric hitting the floor with a thud, and uncurled his extra arms. Four lightsabers—trophies from dead Jedi—ignited in a dizzying windmill of color. Green and blue light bathed his skeletal face as he began to crawl toward me like a monstrous insect.
“You have spirit, boy.” Grevious taunted. “But I have been trained in your Jedi arts by Count Dooku himself!”
“Dooku is a fencer, General. I’m a butcher,” I said, and I meant it.
I knew this fight. I’d seen it in a dozen holos and memories of a life that wasn't mine. I knew his reach, his speed, and his one glaring weakness: he was a collection of organic parts inside a tin can.
He lunged, a flurry of strikes designed to overwhelm any Padawan, but I met him with the crushing weight of Form V. Every time our blades clashed, I poured the Force into my arms, meeting his mechanical strength with the raw power of the Dark Side. The Darksaber shrieked against his stolen blades.
I saw the opening. He overextended his lower left arm, a common flaw in his multi-arm subroutines when facing a single-blade opponent. I didn't just strike; I used the Force to tug his elbow joint toward me. The Darksaber flashed, and a metal hand holding a green saber spun away, severed at the wrist.
Grievous let out a howl of mechanical rage, but I wasn't done. I reached out, my hand curling into a claw. I didn't aim for his limbs. I aimed for the center—the translucent gut-sack that housed his last remains. I felt the pressure of his lungs, the wet, labored thumping of his heart. I squeezed.
The General’s Four-blade assault died instantly. He slumped, his lightsabers flickering as his focus shattered under the agony of his chest cavity collapsing. He began to cough—a deep, wet, rattling sound that shook his entire frame.
“This is for all the Jedi you’ve ever killed,” I muttered, stepping into his guard. I raised the Darksaber for the killing blow, the black light reflecting in his terrified yellow eyes.
“Ben, no!” Satine’s voice cut through the red haze in my mind.
In that split second of hesitation, the coward did what he did best. Grievous lunged forward, not with a blade, but with a desperate, lunging grab. He hooked an arm around Satine’s waist, hauling her in front of him. In a flash, he had his remaining blue lightsaber ignited and held inches from her throat.
The Darksaber stopped mid-swing. The tip was so close to my mother’s skin I could see the fine hairs on her neck standing up from the static charge. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
“Drop it!” Grievous wheezed, his voice thin and desperate, blood flecking his vocabulator. “Drop the blade, or the Duchess dies!”
He began to back away toward a row of escape pods, using Satine as a literal shield. My mother’s eyes were wide, but she didn't scream. She looked at me, and for the first time, I saw that she wasn't just afraid of the General. She was afraid of the look on my face.
“You won't leave this ship, Grievous,” I said, my voice a low, dangerous growl.
“I have the hostage! You will let me pass!” He reached the pod door, his mechanical fingers fumbling with the manual override while keeping the saber pressed to Satine’s jugular.
I felt the Dark Side whispering, telling me to take the shot, telling me I was fast enough to sever the arm before he could twitch. But I wasn't just Darth Sol. I was Ben. And I couldn't lose her. Not again.
As the escape pod hissed open, Grievous prepared to pull her inside. This was it. The moment the timeline would either hold or shatter. I didn't drop my blade. Instead, I concentrated every ounce of my will on the pressure I was already exerting on his lungs. I didn't just squeeze; I twisted.
Grievous erupted into a violent, body-wracking coughing fit. His grip on the lightsaber wavered for a fraction of a second—the blade tilting a mere inch away from Satine’s skin.
It was all I needed.
I moved faster than humanly possible, a blur of black and white. The Darksaber flashed upward, severing the metal arm at the shoulder. At the same instant, I threw my left hand forward in a massive Force push.
“Get off her!” I roared.
The blast caught Grievous square in the chest, hurling him backward into the escape pod. Before he could scramble out, I reached out and yanked the manual release on the exterior hatch from across the room. The pod’s internal atmosphere hissed as it prepared for launch.
With a final, concentrated shove, I sent the pod—and the General—spiraling out into the cold, unforgiving vacuum of the debris field. I watched through the viewport as the small craft tumbled away, lost among the floating husks of the cruisers he’d destroyed. Consider it karma for Master Plo.
The room went silent, save for the dying hum of the Darksaber as I deactivated it.
I turned to my mother. She was shaking, the blaster she’d taken lying forgotten on the floor. I took a step toward her, my hand reaching out, but I stopped. I looked at my palm—the hand that had just crushed a living being’s lungs—and I felt the cold residue of the Dark Side clinging to me like oil.
“Are you hurt?” I asked, my voice finally cracking, the boy returning to fill the void the Sith had left behind.
Satine didn't answer at first. She just stared at me, her eyes searching mine for the son she remembered. “Ben... what have they done to you?”
I didn't have an answer for her. Not one that wouldn't break her heart further. I just looked away, toward the stars, wondering if curbstomping a war criminal was worth the price I’d just paid.
Oddly enough… I’m not sure it was.
…
The hallway was a blurring tunnel of smoke and emergency lighting. Ahsoka kept her lightsaber ignited, the green hum a comforting constant as she sprinted between Master Kenobi and Master Skywalker. Every few corridors, they found the messy calling card of their missing friends—droids sliced into scrap or crushed like tin cans.
It was impressive, sure, but the jagged darkness she felt lingering in the air made her montrals itch. Ben was usually the one telling her to stay calm, but right now, he was the one vibrating through the Force like a live wire.
They skidded to a halt at a major intersection just as two figures emerged from the haze.
“Padmé!” Anakin shouted, his entire demeanor shifting from a grim war machine to a relieved husband in a heartbeat. He didn't even wait for the droids to stop firing before he was at her side, checking her over for injuries.
“I’m fine, Anakin,” Padmé insisted, though her hair was a mess and she was gripping a stolen blaster. Maris stood behind her, leaning against the wall with a blue blade held lazily at her side. She looked like she’d just finished a light jog rather than a prison break on a superweapon.
“We’ve got the Senator. Now we just need the Duchess and the pint-sized Padawan,” Maris said, her voice dripping with that classic bite. She flicked her eyes toward the bridge. “They’re further up. Ben’s... well, he’s handling it. In his own very loud, very violent way.”
Obi-Wan’s face tightened. “Anakin, take Padmé and Maris back to the yacht. Ahsoka and I will get the others.”
“On it!” Anakin didn't argue, which was a miracle in itself. He ushered Padmé back the way they came, Maris following with a sarcastic salute to Ahsoka that felt like a challenge.
Ahsoka and Obi-Wan didn't waste another second. They pushed toward the detention hub, but they didn't even make it to the door before they saw them. Ben was walking toward them, his movements stiff, while the Duchess Satine walked beside him with a look on her face that Ahsoka couldn't quite read.
It was a mix of pride, horror, and profound sadness.
“Where’s Grievous?” Obi-Wan asked, his hand resting on his belt as he scanned the area for the General’s four-armed silhouette.
“He’s... taking an unscheduled spacewalk,” Ben said. His voice was flat, devoid of its usual warmth. He didn't look at his father. He didn't even look at Ahsoka. He just kept walking, the black hilt of the Darksaber gripped tight in his hand.
The ship groaned, a deep, metal-on-metal scream that vibrated through Ahsoka’s boots. The Resolute was outside, and Admiral Yularen wasn't known for his patience. They were tearing the Malevolence apart from the outside in.
“We have to go, now!” Obi-Wan urged, gesturing for the Duchess to lead the way.
As they passed a navigation console, Ahsoka felt a sudden, sharp nudge in the Force. She looked at the terminal, then at the sprawling debris field outside the viewport. If the Separatist crew tried to jump this crippled beast, they shouldn't get the chance to regroup. She darted over to the keys, her fingers flying across the controls.
“Ahsoka, what are you doing?” Obi-Wan called out, looking back with a frown.
“Just a little insurance policy, Master!” Ahsoka replied. She bypassed the safety locks and plugged in a new set of coordinates. The Moon of Antiv. It was a giant, lifeless rock nearby—perfect for a terminal docking procedure. “If they try to jump, they’re going for a very short, very final ride.”
“Ingenious, but hurry!” Obi-Wan said.
They sprinted back through the collapsing ship, dodging falling bulkheads and the occasional stray B1 that hadn't gotten the memo about the evacuation. They reached the Naboo yacht just as the docking tube began to vent atmosphere.
Anakin already had the engines hot. As soon as the airlock hissed shut, the yacht peeled away from the Malevolence, spiraling through the chaotic crossfire of the Republic fleet.
Ahsoka watched through the rear viewport.
The massive Separatist ship looked like a dying leviathan. Suddenly, its engines flared with a sickly purple light as the automated systems tried to engage the hyperdrive. The ship lurched, the space around it warping for a split second, and then—instead of disappearing into the void—it slammed directly into the surface of the Dead Moon.
The explosion was silent and blinding, a blossoming flower of white heat that consumed the superweapon in an instant. It was over.
…
Ahsoka found Ben not long after, standing by the reinforced glass, his silhouette framed by the glowing nebula outside. He hadn't changed out of his scorched tunics yet. He looked older than he had that morning—much older than a Padawan should look.
Ahsoka walked up beside him, leaning her elbows on the railing. She didn't say anything at first, just letting the hum of the ship fill the space between them. She could feel his exhaustion, a cold weight that made her want to reach out and steady him.
“You okay?” Ahsoka finally asked, glancing up at him. She expected a deflective joke or a lecture on Jedi philosophy, but he just kept staring at the drifting dust that used to be a fleet-killer.
“Actually... yeah,” Ben said, and to her surprise, he sounded sincere. He turned his head slightly, a small, tired smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Honestly, Ahsoka? Today was pretty therapeutic. Cathartic, even. I got to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”
Ahsoka nudged his shoulder with hers. “Saving your mom is a pretty good day’s work. Even if you did scare the life out of Master Kenobi in the process.”
Ben chuckled, a low sound that lacked its usual bite. “Yeah, well, he’s a Jedi Master. He’s supposed to be above things like heart attacks. But really, Ahsoka... thank you. For being there. For helping me get her back. I can’t imagine a better person to storm a hostile ship with.”
Ahsoka felt a warmth spread through her chest, a stark contrast to the cold void she’d felt on the Malevolence. She grinned, her white teeth bright against her orange skin. “Careful, Ben. If Maris hears you saying stuff like that, she’ll probably try to toss me out an airlock.”
“Oh, she absolutely will,” Ben agreed, his smile widening. “So, let’s keep that between us. I’m not in the mood for another duel today.”
Ahsoka laughed, the tension finally breaking. She looked back out at the stars, feeling the steady, bright pulse of the Force. They were still just kids in a galaxy that was rapidly catching fire, and Ben was carrying secrets that made her head spin, but for right now, they were safe.
And in the middle of a war, that was more than she could ever ask for.