The Fault of Time

Chapter 29

Ezra's POV

I did a somersault in midair as Ahsoka and I fell. The ground was coming up to us quickly. It seemed to be getting more threatening by the second.

But thanks to Kanan's Jedi training, I had practiced falling from tall heights. I landed on the hard ground crouching, Ahsoka landing beside me a second later.

Shards of glass rained around us. "Come on!" Ahsoka exclaimed.

We sprinted through halls and up many staircases. As we rounded a corner, we heard the quiet buzz of lightsabers. I slowed, with Ahsoka doing the same.

Ahead of us was Anakin. With him were Zeb and Sabine. They were being attacks by a small group of droids. Anakin deflected shots while Zeb and Sabine fired.

There were no guards or clones in sight. I looked over to Ahsoka and we nodded to each other. We both pulled out our lightsabers, that we somehow managed to hold on to, and ignited them.

Zeb heard us and looked back to us. "About time!" He exclaimed.

"Anakin! Dooku is after Padme!" Ahsoka said. She ran up beside her master. I started to deflect shots in front of them as Ahsoka informed Anakin what had happened.

As I deflected, I took a head count of the droids. 12 left. Dooku apparently thought this would be an easy victory.

After a series of fresh shots from Zeb and Sabine, and deflected shots from me, we managed to disable the last of the droids. "Let's go!" Ahsoka exclaimed after the last droid fell.

All five of us sprinted the last few halls to Padme's office.

Ahsoka led the way into the office. She immediately gasped and stopped where she stood.

The rest of us ran in and saw what she saw.

Count Dooku was in the middle of the office. At his feet was an injured Padme. "Stop!" Anakin said firmly.

"Ah, Skywalker, I see you brought new companions with you this time. No matter, you will all die," Dooku said.

"That's what you think. I say Shadow 8," Zeb said.

Shadow 8 was a maneuver that Kanan invented to use against inquisitors. He had a series of them for all kinds of situations.

I looked around the room. It was the perfect setting for a Shadow 8.

"What-" Anakin never finished.

I put my lightsaber back on my belt. I lifted all of the broken glass in the room. Dooku pulled out his lightsaber. "I wouldn't, boy," he said.

I gravitated the glass by Dooku. Dooku focused on the glass, expecting it to do something. "Now!" I yelled while he was distracted.

Sabine and Zeb let out a flurry of shots. Dooku was surprised by the sudden attack and stepped back from the senator. Anakin pushed Dooku back even farther, almost out the window.

Dooku landed on his back. His lightsaber was knocked out of his hand. It flew outside, fallung to the faraway ground.

Anakin quickly drew his lightsaber, ran to the count, and pointed his lightsaber at his throat. "Surrender, Dooku."

"You may have claimed victory today, Skywalker, but the power of the dark side is stronger than you can imagine." With that, Dooku used the Force to push Anakin back.

Dooku rolled backwards and out the gaping window. I ran to the edge to see that Dooku had disappeared. He was no where to be seen. "Gone," I informed everyone.

"Padme!" Ahsoka exclaimed.

Padme was barely conscious. Anakin was knelt at her side. "Padme, are you okay?" He asked frantically.

Her only reply was a few mumbles I could not make out.

"Get her to the med bay!" Anakin ordered.

Ahsoka quickly said a few words into her com. A few minutes later, troopers came in with a gurney that Padme was lifted up onto. Sabine, Zeb, and I stayed in the senator's office as everyone left to make sure Padme was okay.

"What now?" Zeb asked.

"What is there to do?" Sabine questioned.

"Nothing. Not until we find a lead on that crazy machine," I said as an answer to both their questions.

"We kept up our end of the deal with the Jedi. They looked, but they could not even find records of the machine. How are we going to find a lead?" Zeb asked.

"We have got to try! Kanan, Hera, and Chopper are our family!" I exclaimed.

"Yeah, but how are we going to find our way back? We do not even know how the machine works, much less how to go where we want," Sabine pointed out.

"Well, we have to try something! We have a new ship and a lot of credits. We could go searching ourselves!" I tried.

"Where would we even start?" Zeb asked.

"Anywhere, as long as we get away from the Jedi and Seperatists," Sabine puffed.

"We could try black markets or something. Maybe the machine has just been passed off as a worthless piece of junk or something," I guessed.

"Maybe. Well, I guess it starts us somewhere. I just want to leave as soon as possible. I definitely do not want to run into anymore Seperatists," Sabine said.

"We have to wait for our new ship to arrive first," Zeb pointed out.

"Fine, but then we are gone."

We all left the trashed office to head to the medbay. As we entered, loud beeping greeted us.

I looked to see Screwy was weaving through the beds to get to us. He did not sound happy.

"Screwy, we don't mean to leave you out of fights. You just happen to never be at the right places at the right time," I tried to explain to the droid as we all walked to a somewhat small crowd of people huddled by a bed in a corner.

"Beep, beep, beep!"

"Next time try coming with us then!" I rolled my eyes and continued on to the crowd.

I saw Ahsoka and Anakin were at the edge of the crowd. The crew and I headed in their direction.

"How's it going?" Zeb asked once we were close enough to be heard.

"The senator is expected to make a full recovery, thankfully," Anakin said.

"We will have to alert the council of this," Ahsoka said.

"Yes. Good thing you and Six were there to help the senator," Anakin said.

Ahsoka and I shared a knowing look. No one seemed to notice.

We all exchanged a few more words about the battle.
Then, Anakin asked on when we planned to leave Naboo.

"Once we get our new ship," Sabine replied.

"The ship should be not here for a couple of days. I will alert you when it is," Anakin offered.

"Fine, then. We need to discuss things now. Screwy, come on in case there is danger," I said sarcastically to the annoyed droid.