Balance and Victory: A Star Wars Alternate Universe [COMPLETED!]

Chapter 14

Due to the ship not having enough fuel to make it all the way to Coruscant, Anakin was forced to pull the ship out of hyperspace early. They came to a planet called Jubilar, a desert planet in the Outer Rim. Anakin was glad that they wouldn't have to actually land on this dust-ball, because there was a fueling station on an asteroid nearby.

Of course, the delay made him impatient. This was a half hour that he could have spent looking for Leia, but instead he had to refuel the ship. What a waste of precious time!

Even worse, the fuel station was crowded- there was a long line to get onto the asteroid. Anakin would have liked to go back into hyperspace and stop at a different planet, but the ship probably didn't have enough fuel for that. He should have been thinking about this earlier, but planning had never been his strong point, and he had been slightly distracted with the small detail that his daughter had been captured by the Empire.

Artoo seemed to be sharing Anakin's thoughts exactly; he gave a sharp, agitated beep when he observed the long line.

"I know, it's annoying." Anakin sighed and steered the ship towards the line. "But we have no choice."

Just as he was about to join the line, the roar of jets sounded and a large ship sped by, right in front of him, cutting him off. The large ship's wing was just a few feet shy of hitting his windshield.

Anakin muttered a Huttese curse under his breath. "What does that guy think he's doing?" he exclaimed, quickly turning the ship around.

There was now a considerable distance between his ship and the line, and now the enemy kept spinning around him, forcing him to move farther and farther from the line. "Artoo," Anakin said, "get the laser cannons ready, just in case."

What was this guy's problem, anyway? Was he really that desperate to cut people off? Was there a fuel shortage in this system? Whatever the reason, Anakin did not have time to put up with the other pilot's aggressive rudeness.

But, the other pilot reacted first, and used his own machine guns to fire at Anakin's ship.

"Artoo, look at this guy," Anakin muttered in amazement, swerving the ship to dodge the fire, and shooting back. He wished this Z-95 Headhunter was more maneuverable; the controls felt stiff compared to the nimble Jedi Starfighters of the Clone Wars.

The enemy's ship was obviously of a much higher quality than the Z-95, and it easily dodged all of Anakin's blasts and returned fire at a rapid pace. Anakin figured that this pilot was not concerned with the fueling station. He was behaving far too aggressively for that to be plausible.

So, who was he, and what was his motive?

Anakin realized that the ship looked familiar. He felt that he had seen it before...

Then it hit him. This was Jango Fett's ship, the Slave I.

But Jango Fett is dead, he thought. Who got his ship after he was killed?

There was no time to wonder about this, though. It took every ounce of his concentration to anticipate the blasts far enough in advance to give the ship enough time to move out of the way. It had an annoyingly slow response time. Anakin just wished that he had a better ship, because he was sure that he was a better pilot than the stranger. This was not a fair fight.

Then, there was a tumultuous crashing noise, and Anakin's controls flashed angrily. He watched in dismay as a large chunk of metal flew by outside- a remnant of one of the wings. The ship started to spiral out of control.

"Artoo, we have to try to land on the planet," Anakin said through clenched teeth. "Otherwise, we'll break out of the planet's gravitational pull and spiral infinitely into space..."

But the steering controls were practically useless with the wing being blasted off. The enemy pilot kept shooting while Anakin struggled with his controls, but, miraculously, the other pilot kept missing.

Finally, he managed to steer the ship onto a course that headed straight down to the planet's surface. Once they broke into the atmosphere, the ship became slightly easier to steer, but it was accelerating at an uncontrollable rate. The ship hit a rough patch of air and shook unpleasantly. The enemy pilot continued to pursue them.

Artoo gave a nervous beep as the ship's turbulence grew increasingly worse. "I know," Anakin sighed. "This is going to be a rough landing..."

He realized that now they were taking a nosedive towards the planet's surface, and the landing would be quite dangerous. "Artoo, prepare to eject from the ship," he said, unstrapping himself from the pilot's chair and opening some of the doors. They had no parachute, but Anakin knew that the Force would help with their timing.

They hurried up to the door and jumped out just as the ship was about to touch the ground. Anakin used the Force to ease Artoo's landing as well as his own, and a deafening roar sounded as the ship crashed. Smoke and debris flew everywhere, and Anakin ducked in order to avoid it. They had landed in the middle of nowhere, so no civilians were harmed by the crash.

Then, the enemy ship landed and its cockpit opened. From it emerged a man who was completely covered in green Mandalorian armor which was unnervingly similar to Jango Fett's. He activated a jet pack attached to his back, flew up into the air, and pulled out a large machine gun.

Anakin realized he had no choice but to use his lightsaber. He reached into a hidden pocket and activated his blue blade, for the first time in several years.

The enemy warrior, who seemed to be a bounty hunter, fired off a series of laser blasts from his gun. Anakin deflected the blasts almost unconsciously.

He found it amazing that, even though he hadn't used a lightsaber in such a long time, he had not forgotten how to do it. His reflexes practically did all the work for him, bouncing the blasts directly back at their source.

The bounty hunter seemed to realize that his blasts were doing him more harm than good, because Anakin kept deflecting them right at him. Without a word, the warrior reached into his utility belt and pulled out a thermal detonator.

"Artoo, watch out!" Anakin shouted, even though he wasn't sure where the little droid was. The bounty hunter threw the detonator, and Anakin just barely had enough time to dive behind the cover of his crashed ship.

Another earsplitting roar pierced the air. The ground, and everything else, shook violently. A blinding flash of fire ignited for an instant and then disappeared.

For such a small object, that detonator had produced quite a large explosion.

The sound eventually died down. Anakin crept out from behind the remains of his ship, with his ears ringing from the violent sound and his lungs burning from the thick smoke.

As the smoke cleared, it became evident that the bounty hunter and his ship were gone. There was no sign of Artoo either.

"Artoo?" Anakin called anxiously, hoping his droid had survived the explosion.

To his relief, a faint beep sounded in the distance.

Artoo turned out to be hidden in a clump of dry-looking desert plants, and, despite being covered in dust, seemed to be undamaged.

"There you are.... Are you okay?" Anakin wiped the dust off Artoo's "eye," and the droid gave an affirmative beep.

"Good, because the ship's not." Anakin glanced sadly at the smoking heap of scrap metal. He had put so much work into that ship; it was a shame it was ruined.

The worst part was the fact that they had lost so much time while fighting the bounty hunter. Now, they were stranded in the middle of nowhere- on a desert planet of all places- and they had no supplies. The Empire was probably a whole day ahead of them now. Leia would have to suffer through that many more hours of being scared and trapped and alone.

(Author's Note: And so we meet Boba Fett, who has some unknown need to pick a fight with Anakin! And now Anakin gets to hang out on a planet he absolutely loves.... a planet full of SAND!! >:3 Mwahaha, I'm feeling slightly evil at the moment! Please vote and comment; I feel like many people who are reading this aren't voting or commenting. I appreciate all your feedback! Thanks for reading! :) )