Trial of the Times

Chapter 39 - The End in Sight - Rewritten

Anakin smirks. "Leave that to me. I have a plan. Tell the others not to be concerned."

"Of course you do." He can almost see her rolling her eyes and snorts quietly as he pulls back from their bond, letting it go silent once more. He waits another minute before using the Force to rip the cuffs off his wrists. If Maul thought they would hold him, he was sorely mistaken. Perhaps he hadn't counted on Anakin smuggling his lightsaber aboard. Honestly, he was surprised the droids who checked him for weapons hadn't noticed it; probably Grievous' work.

Turning his back on the hall, he crouches down, pulling off his boot and tugging his lightsaber out of its hiding spot before whirling and yanking the guard droids into the ray shield to electrocute them. He knows it will only be a matter of minutes before they find out he's escaping. That will have to do. Igniting the lightsaber, Anakin stabs the blade into the back wall of his cell, cutting a circular hole. If he's right, this should go right to space.

Bracing himself, he finishes the circle which is almost immediately sucked away into space. He instantly activates the magnetizing feature in his boots to hold himself to the floor of the cell. When Dooku told him about them, he thought it was unnecessarily complex. Now, however, he's grateful. If not for the various features in his armor, he wouldn't be able to make such a daring escape.

Keeping his fingers clenched around his lightsaber, Anakin moves to the hole, carefully edging himself out and into the vacuum of space. The respirator in his armor is on, but he knows it won't last him long. He'll have to move extremely fast if he doesn't want to die. He hastily withdraws a tracking beacon and secures it to the hull of the ship using the Force before moving in the general direction of the escape pods. He's been on enough Separatist ships to locate them.

It only takes him a few minutes; walking on the outside of a ship is really a fantastic idea. He cuts his way through an airlock before dropping into the hall and using the Force to close the doors over it. No use getting sucked back into space after all. He doesn't hear any alarms, but he knows it will only be a matter of seconds. He races towards the escape pods, pausing to secure another tracking beacon out of the camera's range of vision in case the first is discovered.

"Halt!" yells a patrolling battle droid as he approaches. Without breaking his stride, Anakin slices through the pair, darting around the final corner just as the alarms go off.

"I'm doing better than I thought I would," he mutters under his breath, leaping into an escape pod and closing it. He pushes the button, ejecting himself from the ship. All he can do now is hope that they don't find him or think to bring him back using a tractor beam. This is his only chance of escape, and he has little desire to be caught.

His heart is racing as the escape pod plummets downwards, pulled in by the gravity of Serenno and guided by the controls. He can barely breathe, offering up a silent prayer that he is not recaptured. He has little desire to face Sidious without the others. He has no delusions that he can defeat the Sith Lord alone, and he knows he'll fail with Maul and Savage being there, even if Grievous tries to help him.

It feels like hours, when, in reality, it's probably only about ten minutes, before the pod lands on the planet's surface. Anakin hastily climbs out and scans his surroundings. Luckily, he only landed a few miles from Dooku's mansion, which was partially purposeful since he didn't want to land in the middle of a battle. He can walk back on foot without any difficulty. Unwilling to stick around lest the Separatists send forces to retrieve him, he sets off at a brisk pace, following the Force and his bond with Obi-Wan.

It takes him no more than an hour before he's walking through the remains of the droid army near the entrance. He smirks seeing the droids laying strewn all over the ground with no visible damage. Probably Sith lightning then. Definitely Dooku's handiwork. He'll have to commend Dooku on the strategy when he sees him again.