Consequences

Chapter 34 - Crashing

I glance between the two pairs of fighting opponents. Grievous and Obi-Wan are currently fighting furiously, and with a sudden move, Obi-Wan cuts off one of Grievous' hands. He roars in a rage and attacks him with renewed fury, wildly spinning one of his lightsabers over Obi-Wan's head as he fights him with the other two. Typical Grievous.

Dooku and Anakin are still engaged in a furious battle. The blades clash again, stopping in a saberlock. "I sense great fear in you, Skywalker. You have hate, you have anger, but you don't use them," the Sith Lord remarks.

I whirl at the sound of that, preparing to lunge at Dooku again, but then Grievous raises his claw-like foot, grabbing ahold of Obi-Wan and throwing him across the room into the wall. The cyborg laughs maniacally as he begins walking towards him – but I leap into the way, taking a swing for his head with one lightsaber while blocking two of his others with my other.

"Sorry to interrupt your play time, but I thought you'd prefer a challenge," I quip.

"You are no challenge for me, Jedi scum," snarls Grievous.

"We'll see," I smirk, and the fight is on. Sidious escaped and who knows what havoc he's going to wreak once he gets back to Coruscant long before we do, assuming that's where he's headed anyway. If it is, he could even issue Order 66, knowing his cover is blown. But – right. He wants Anakin as his apprentice so he's not going to do something that would so obviously kill him. Probably not, anyway. I can only hope that we still have some time. Regardless, this foolishly failed assassination attempt has created a big problem for all of us. He's probably going to twist up the entire story now that he knows we figured out who he is.

I block another one of Grievous' swings, forcing my mind back onto the fight at hand. Right now, I need to focus and worry about the damage that we've caused later.

I send a Force-shove at him, throwing him many feet backwards as he stabs all three remaining lightsabers into the floor. A glance over my shoulder tells me that Obi-Wan has joined Anakin against Dooku again.

Suddenly, I feel a warning in the Force right before the entire cruiser jolts and the floor begins to slant upwards. Everyone begins to slide towards the turbolift. Grievous growls, leaping across the room to the turbolift door and disappearing through it. Dooku jumps after him. I stab my lightsabers into the floor as I fall, struggling to slow down the fall towards what was a wall seconds ago.

Anakin slides over to the turbolift we came out of and where Grievous just disappeared through, grabbing onto the door frame. Through that thing again? Seriously, Master? "Come on! There's no time!" he shouts and disappears through.

I exchange an exasperated look with Obi-Wan before we both jump through after. The ship suddenly tips even further sending me crashing backwards into Obi-Wan. Before I know it, what was once the turbolift shaft is now a very long dark hall that seems to have no end. At least this will go faster. For now. I can see Grievous running along way farther down on all sixes – or fives now since he's missing a hand. I have no idea where Dooku is. Ahead of him already, perhaps.

"We can't wait for the turbolift," Anakin declares, "Come on, we have to be fast."

"Like we waited for the turbolift to begin with," I retort as we take off running. The shaft begins to tilt at a dangerous slope downwards as we continue to run. At this rate, everyone's going to be gone by the time we catch up with them. Never mind the new problem of falling down a shaft. Suddenly, the ship tilts fully upright again, throwing us into free-fall down the shaft as it becomes vertical once more. I throw out my hands, trying to use the Force to slow the fall towards the endless drop below.

Obi-Wan and I finally manage to grab onto Anakin, who catches some wires on a control box with his mechanical arm, successfully stopping our journey down to the bottom of the shaft and a nearly certain death.