The N-1 starfighter roared through the narrowing entrance of the Trade Federation energy barrier, its yellow hull soaring like a flash of light through the interior.
Inside the hull of the Trade Federation control ship, a long corridor stretched out before him, flanked by dormant droid racks and ranks of unlaunched fighters. Flashing emergency lights pulsed brightly overhead.
Anakin barely blinked. His hands adjusted to the controls before his mind consciously told them to.
Despite the time away from combat, from starships and battles, this sensation was like stepping into a memory.
R2 shrieked sharply behind him, spinning in his socket as the hangar entrance loomed larger.
"I see it, buddy," Anakin said, calm, his voice low.
"Don't worry, we'll be out before they even know we're here."
The fighter banked hard, skimming just above the hangar deck, past stunned droid technicians and crews barely registering the blur of yellow and chrome. Blaster turrets twisted too late, and alarms screamed.
Anakin fired without hesitation.
Twin lasers surged from the starfighter's cannons and ripped through the first line of docked droid fighters. The chain reaction was immediate, fuel lines caught flame, and secondary explosions rattled the hangar as sparks fell like rain.
Anakin's thumb then tapped the release, and one proton torpedo dropped like a hammer into the hangar's fuel supply.
The result was instant.
A massive shockwave ripped through the internal bay behind him, detonating rack after rack of munitions. Fire and smoke chased his tail but never caught him.
He was already gone.
Through it all, Anakin's expression never changed. His mind wasn't even here, not completely.
This was because the moment Anakin cleared the barrier of the hangar bay, he felt it.
A shift in the Force.
A ripple that bled through the hull, through his bones.
He stilled.
For a brief, piercing second, the background noise of chaos and alarms faded away.
The cold, sharp, dark signature that he has been tracking this whole time vanished.
Snuffed out like a candle in the wind.
Darth Maul was gone.
In its place, two flickers remained.
Both were deeply familiar.
Anakin blinked once and drew in a slow breath.
"Qui-Gon's alive," he whispered.
Obi-Wan… fainter. Flickering, but still there.
"And Obi-Wan…"
They lived.
He didn't dwell on it.
He couldn't.
The moment passed through him like the wake of a wave, and then his mind snapped back to focus.
His focus narrowed. The Force stretched before him like a star map, guiding him with perfect clarity.
Anakin exhaled once through his nose, then brought the ship about.
He reached out with the Force, which traced his path.
The core of the ship was close.
Not the bridge, he didn't need to disable command.
This wasn't about slicing off the head.
This was about crushing the heart.
"Power generators..." he whispered, eyes narrowing.
Seconds before, on the command deck of the Trade Federation control ship. Inside lay a dome of flickering monitors, vertical data readouts, and orbiting droid attendants. Rows of pilot droids stood at attention, facing their terminals, their hands moving in perfect mechanical sync.
Standing above them on the central dais was Commander Daultay Dofine, his hands clasped behind his back, expression sour and sweat-slick despite the chilled air.
A battle droid approached, blaster slung lazily at its side.
"Sir, reporting unusual activity in Hangar Bay Three," the droid buzzed. "All systems offline. No droids responding. No visual feed."
Dofine didn't even turn. "Then reboot the system."
The droid tilted its head. "Already tried. There is no system left to reboot."
Dofine's eyes twitched. "Explain."
"Hangar bay appears… gone."
"Gone?"
BOOM.
The entire bridge shook, sending a few Neimoidian technicians and B1 droids stumbling. Sparks flared from one of the overhead terminals.
"What was that?" Dofine snapped, whirling around.
"Status report!"
A younger Neimoidian at a lower station frantically jabbed at controls. "Something just ruptured near the central fuel depot, internal damage!"
"That's impossible! There haven't been any breach alarms, no hull warnings!"
"How can we have a detonation inside the ship!?"
"I-I don't know, sir! Long-range sensors didn't detect anything inbound. No enemy ships penetrated our perimeter. I have no record of anything entering the hangars…"
More alarms blared. The central lights dimmed.
Then came another tremor.
The floor thrummed.
Panels across the bridge darkened one by one, energy failing at key junctions. The Neimoidian's console shorted out with a crackling sizzle, forcing him to leap back.
Another droid stepped forward. "Main power fluctuation detected. Stabilizers are failing and the shield matrix is—" it stopped mid-sentence, red lights dancing across its photoreceptors. "Shield generator two is… destroyed."
Dofine's mouth went dry.
Anakin moved past the next corridor, avoiding the explosions behind him, jamming the yoke left, then right, weaving between plasma conduits and narrow support beams.
The dim corridors of the Trade Federation control ship erupted into noise and fire as Anakin's sleek yellow N-1 frame skimmed the narrow confines of the hangar's inner pathways.
A pair of ceiling-mounted laser turrets snapped to life as if yanked from slumber, both pivoting with precision toward the fast-moving target that had no business being there.
"R2," Anakin said quickly, eyes locked on the blinking readouts, "reroute shield power to the front."
Behind him, R2 gave a confused, low whir of protest.
"I know it leaves the back open. That's the point."
A high shriek came from R2's dome. He jittered in the droid socket, clearly unconvinced this was a great idea.
"You're fine," Anakin said as he reset the throttle.
"You can panic when I start sweating."
The N-1 corkscrewed forward just as the turrets opened fire. Red bolts hissed through the tight corridor, and one shot grazed the edge of his port wing, but Anakin adjusted in microseconds, pulling the nose up, twisting hard, and inverting.
With practiced ease, he rolled the fighter under one turret's arc and fired. Both turrets shattered in a clean hit and shortly detonated in a brief, blooming fireball.
Alarms blared around him, and automated defense systems scrambled to catch up to his speedy fighter.
But they were too late.
The fighter flew through the final corridor, lined with pipes glowing faintly from reactor bleed-off, and the vibrations around him changed.
The Force began to hum with pressure.
He could sense it now, deeper than metal, more alive than circuitry.
R2 beeped a sharp alarm, pinging data into the cockpit display.
The power core.
Like a beating heart made of energy, pulsing at the center of the ship. Its rhythm echoed in the Force, stressed, enormous, vulnerable.
He leveled the fighter, pulling out of the spin, and increased throttle.
"Let's end this," he muttered.
"Alright, Artoo… we're going in."
R2 shrieked a warbling alert, a full siren of spiraling beeps and panicked whistles.
Anakin listened, completely unfazed.
The main core chamber loomed like the hollowed-out interior of a reactor. Giant coils of crackling blue light spiraled upward through the center, bound by vertical magnetic stabilizers. Below them, the core thrummed with the energy of a dozen engines.
Anakin's eyes narrowed.
The core looked like an enormous spherical hub, suspended by energy clamps and humming with raw power. Plasma coils wrapped the space in a cage of blue fire.
Focusing on the Force, he saw the weak points of the reactor core.
Not from the schematics or sensor data, but from how the Force rippled through them. The flow of energy was distorted at key nodes.
That was all he needed.
He fired.
One final proton torpedo ripped through the base of the outer containment columns, exploding into bright white flame. Sparks cascaded downward like artificial lightning. The energy matrix then flared dangerously unstable.
More blasts followed.
All power core systems were falling apart. A ruptured heat exchanger blew across the spine of the central control mechanism, taking multiple secondary relays with it.
Commander Dofine stumbled forward to one of the surviving consoles and slammed his palm on the override. A 3D schematic of the control ship flickered to life, then immediately blinked red in almost all sectors.
Power lines, core pathways, and venting ports.
All failing.
"What is this? What's happening to my ship?!"
"Damage spreading from inside, sir," the droid replied. "Source unknown. Systems are—"
The bridge shook again, this time, a full jolt that sent half the droids slamming into railings and staggered Neimoidian officers against their terminals.
A heap of flame burst from a control panel on the upper level. The bridge lights stuttered violently.
"Sir!" another Neimoidian cried. "The main reactor core is reading unstable!"
"Unstable?!" Dofine barked. "Impossible!"
Another explosion echoed from below.
The young Neimoidian screamed. "There's a fighter inside the ship!"
Dofine stared at him, blankly. "WHO?!"
"I—I don't know! Something's flying through the internal maintenance shafts—some kind of fighter! It's too small and fast to track… it bypassed every perimeter!"
Another Neimoidian reported in pure panic, "SIR! The reactor has been breached, and the core integrity has been compromised. We need to evacuate immediately!"
Dofine looked up at the schematic one more time. Every part of the ship flashed red with 'ERROR' signs ringing throughout the systems.
Dofine's whole expression turned completely pale, and sweat formed on his head as all understanding was shattering right before him.
"…Evacuate where?" he croaked, stepping back.
"We don't have any ships left…"
The bridge jolted again, this time accompanied by the unmistakable sound of a deep, mechanical wail as the power core gave out a last dying surge.
From the outside, the Trade Federation control ship began to fracture, power surging through its lines like lightning trapped in glass.
Inside, Dofine stood frozen in the heart of the storm.
"It can't be…"
And then the lights died.
The ceiling cracked.
And the fire came.
R2 beeped again, something quick, clipped, anxious.
"Yeah, I know. That's the reactor whining, and that's our sign to get out of here."
Anakin circled once more, then pulled hard toward the escape shaft, back the way he came.
"Reroute all shields to rear and prepare to launch counter-thrust on my mark—"
Another explosion cut him off. The core flared white-blue behind them.
Anakin didn't slow down.
His ship twisted sharply, tipping nearly vertical as it cut between pillars.
One more turn. He pushed the throttle to maximum.
R2 squealed a loud warning.
The pressure in the ship spiked.
Behind them, the first explosion triggered a cascade. The entire belly of the Federation control ship trembled. Systems failed, and all power grids are overloaded.
The main reactor core has erupted.
Anakin angled the nose toward the narrow corridor he'd entered through, using the Force for guidance.
Fire chased him.
Hull plating peeled behind him.
Anakin gritted his teeth, weaving between the collapsing struts of the hangar. A final blast behind him ignited the stored fuel reserves.
"NOW R2!"
The astromech didn't need another cue. With a flurry of beeps, he released the ship's magnetic stabilizers and launched all counter thrust, increasing their speed immensely through final docking opening barely wide enough for a fighter.
The fighter roared out of the shaft like a meteor breaking orbit, flame chasing its tail, entire decks collapsing in the wake of the reactor meltdown. Metal screamed and bulkheads exploded behind them.
The N-1 burst through the outer hangar exit just as the entire Trade Federation control ship began to collapse.
Then...
The cold vacuum of space wrapped around them again.
Flames chased but couldn't follow.
He was out.
Behind him, the control ship burned like a dying star, its spine broken, its shape crumpling inward. Secondary explosions lit the sky like fireworks.
And all around it, the battle changed.
A corona of fire blossomed outward from the exploding command vessel, tearing the Trade Federation's core control network apart in an instant.
Droid fighters spun wildly out of control, as their signals went dead. The command link was severed.
And above it all, in the heart of the stars, a yellow N-1 starfighter arced cleanly away from the blast.
In the silence of space, Anakin let go of the controls briefly. Letting the ship coast.
He looked out at the stars, at the debris drifting where a massive ship had once been.
Anakin let out a breath and finally leaned back in the seat.
R2 spun twice in his socket, whistling a breathless string of victorious static.
Anakin chuckled.
R2 let out a long, dizzy whistle and clanked back into standby mode.
Anakin smiled faintly. "Told you."
Smoke drifted low across the battlefield, curling around shattered Fambaas and scorched terrain. The once-proud Gungan army lay in ruin. What remained of the Gungan army stood or knelt in chains, hundreds lost, their vibrant energy reduced to breathless silence.
Boss Nass, bruised and bound, stared numbly as yet another squad of battle droids marched past, herding his captured warriors toward transports. The war drums had fallen silent.
Even the wind dared not speak.
Nearby, Jar Jar Binks stumbled forward, prodded in the back by the blunt end of a B1 droid's rifle.
"Move, swamp rat," the droid said in its flat, nasal voice. "You are now property of the Trade Federation."
Jar Jar flinched, hands up, lips trembling. "Mesa sorry! Mesa just doin' what mesa can, okay? No need for..."
WHACK.
The droid struck him across the back of the head with its rifle butt. Jar Jar yelped and fell to one knee.
Another droid stepped up behind the first, leveling its rifle.
Jar Jar winced and shut his eyes, arms shielding his face.
Then...
Silence.
The hum of circuitry vanished.
No impact came.
He cracked one eye open… then the other.
The B1 droid was frozen in place, mid-swing. Its rifle was held high but unmoving. A faint whine of power-down whispered from its chest… and then it slumped, crashing to the ground with a dull clatter.
Jar Jar blinked.
"Uh…?"
All around him, droids collapsed in unison, rifles clattering, limbs twitching, heads sparking faintly before going still.
Entire ranks fell like lifeless puppets.
The Gungans stared in utter disbelief.
Boss Nass looked up from his knees, stunned. "D-Dey shut down…"
And then...
"Wesa free!" a young warrior cried.
A ripple ran through the crowd, then a thunderous roar.
"WESA FREE!!"
Gungans leapt to their feet, arms raised in triumph. Shackles thrown down. Jar Jar stood up, chest heaving, and turned to the frozen droid beside him.
He poked it once.
It didn't move.
"…Mesa alive?" he whispered, then suddenly beamed.
"Mesa ALIVE!!"
He whooped, tossing his helmet in the air, joining the chorus of cheers as hope, unexpected and wild ecstasy, swept through the battered ranks.
Boss Nass smiled weakly, tears in his eyes.
"They did it…"
Above them, the sky still glowed with fire.
But down below, the hearts of the Gungans burned brighter.