Anakin woke and gasped as his body ached with waves of pain and weakness. He immediately knew that something was wrong as no sound came from him as he tried to gasp. It was like he was deaf as he brought his hand up to his throat in confusion. No, it was more than just not hearing. His throat felt puffy and there was no rush of air when he moved to breathe in. His chest felt heavy like there was a heavy weight on it as he struggled to move it in and out as he started to panic…

  But then he stopped in confusion as he realized that he was not in fact choking or feeling a need to breathe. He frowned down at his chest. His body was covered in heavy burns and trails from the Jedi master’s slices with the lightsaber. His clothes clung to him in tatters from the blows they’d been subjected to.

  Anakin looked to the side and saw the sprawled out body of the Jedi Master that he’d been fighting before. He was still. Anakin hesitantly reached out and put a hand on the man’s wrist before rapidly withdrawing it as soon as they touched. The man’s body was cold…

  What had happened? One moment Anakin had the lightsaber and had an advantage, even if not much, and the next there had been a hissing sound and the both of them had started choking.

  With a silent groan of protest, Anakin stood to his feet and scooped the stolen lightsaber from the ground of the hallway. How was he alive? Why did he not breathe anymore? His chest remained flat and unmoving and despite that he felt as healthy as ever. Well, besides his many injuries and now familiar exhaustion that was running through him. He started hobbling down the hallway as the pain from the burns and his stiff and trembling legs slowed him down.

  Had Anakin survived due to his adaptation ability? It… Wait, hadn’t Draeth said that he could adapt to space if he survived long enough? Was that what was happening here?

  Anakin reached a door and bracing his hand against the bulkhead peered at the access pad next to it. The lights changed and started flashing red around him again, although the perpetual silence of his surroundings made it feel muted and surreal rather than the insistent warning that they’d been before.

  After a few seconds of tapping at the door pad uselessly, Anakin realized that he was being an idiot. He had a lightsaber. He raised the weapon and activated the plasma blade to point towards the bulkhead. It was odd to see the blade activated while not hearing the distinctive plasma crackle and deep thrum that he was used to.

  Anakin plunged the weapon into the door and started carving through.

  Halfway through carving a hole in the door, sound suddenly returned to his ears as he heard the distinctive rush of air blasting at high speed from the burning holes of melted metal that Anakin had already carved.

  Anakin was nearly finished carving the full circle when the loose slug of metal started shaking and rattling violently and Anakin heard the soft sound of creaking and twisting metal even through the low air pressure around him.

  He threw himself to the ground just before the chunk of metal came flying away from the bulkhead and slammed into the floor five meters away.

  The trickle of air from before turned into sandstorm strength winds for a few seconds as air poured through the new gap and cooled off the melted edges of the hole in the door that Anakin had carved with his stolen lightsaber.

  After a few seconds, the air pressure started to equalize and Anakin stood to his feet as the winds blasting from the hole in the bulkhead started to die down slightly.

  He stepped through the gap into the main ship and his hearing returned. Anakin coughed slightly as his lungs fully filled with air again.

  “Hello,” he said in a hoarse voice through his puffy and sore throat as a test.

  Lightsaber still activated, Anakin kept hobbling forward. He had to find something with a hyperdrive that could let him escape. He hoped this ship had smaller ships that might have one, but if they didn’t then he’d have to find the control deck and seize control of the whole ship…

  — — —

  “Get as many of the crew to the hangars as possible,” the Jedi master said calmly, “Take us out of hyperspace immediately.”

  “Yes, Master Jedi,” the ship’s captain said, “Exiting hyperspace now…”

  The blaring alarm continued through the ship as the monster of a boy limped towards the sealed bulkhead door through the visual of the screens.

  “Can you handle him Master Jedi? Do you mean to stop him at the hangars to prevent him from getting a ship?”

  The captain turned to the console and pressed a button, “This is the captain. All combat personnel move to the main hangar. Repeat, everyone to the main hangar. The prisoner is loose and still alive somehow.”

  The blue of hyperspace disappeared and they were isolated in deep space between the stars.

  “You misunderstand me, Captain. I meant everyone. You and the rest of the crew are to evacuate the vessel immediately. Give me the command codes and I will remain behind.”

  “Everyone? But Master Jedi, we can’t simply leave our vessel behind, this ship is worth millions of credits to the Republic…”

  “I will take responsibility. Give me the codes. You must prevent him from getting his hands on any of the starfighters or the troop transport that are hyperdrive capable.”

  The captain hesitated before nodding and typed a few things into his console.

  The Jedi master nodded and typed his own Jedi identification number to accept the control transfer of the ship’s systems from the captain. The captain pressed the button and sent another announcement to the ship, clarifying that they were evacuating the ship and that all crew should be moving to the hangar at full speed unless they wanted to be left behind.

  “If there is a chance of the dark side user of escaping then I shall self destruct the ship,” the Jedi master said flatly after he finished using his newfound authority to lock the captain out from all the ship’s systems, “He must be destroyed at all costs before he becomes any more powerful.”

  “B-B- Master Jedi!” the former captain spluttered, “I can’t allow that, this vessel is-”

  The Jedi master remained stony faced and withdrew his lightsaber and held it in his hand as a silent threat even with the plasma blade sheathed.

  “This is treason!” the captain yelled, his face turning a particular shade between red and purple as he yelled, “I’ve flown on this ship for over ten years now and I won’t let some Jedi freak destroy…”

  “You will do nothing, I have control,” the Jedi Master replied, “Think what you wish.”

  The Jedi master glanced down as a data disk popped out of the console and he grabbed it and held it out to the captain. The man looked angry, and swiped the disk from the Jedi’s hand. After his initial outburst and typing a few things on a nearby console, the captain seemed to have realized that the Jedi had tricked him and locked him out of the ship’s systems completely.

  “Take that to the Republic. They need to know what happened here and what our recordings from the ship have captured,” the Jedi Master said to the captain, “Now go, he is nearly through the bulkhead. You must flee quickly if you don’t want to go down with the rest of the ship.”

  The captain hesitated, before with a muttered curse he tucked the data disk into his pocket and fled the room, rushing after the rest of his deck crew towards the main launch hangars in the belly of the ship.

  The master Jedi turned back to the console and letting the light side of the Force flow through him confirmed everything in the ship’s systems. The final confirmation appeared and the Jedi Master stopped and pressed it. He paired the system with his communicator on a dead man’s trigger and after a moment pressed the thumb of his free hand onto the button on the communicator. The second he let go of the button, the whole ship would violently self destruct and hopefully take down the monster left inside.

  The Jedi master activated the plasma blade of his lightsaber with his communicator in his other hand as he dashed out of the command deck and towards where he knew Skywalker was even now hobbling in the direction of the main hangar where the rest of the crew was gathering and piling into the troop transports so densely that they were practically stacked on top of each other inside. The vehicles were only meant for two hundred at most, but there were three hundred crew trying to cram inside in time…

  — — —

  Anakin hobbled around the corner and saw the hallway open up into a large hangar and felt his heart soar. Yes! They did have more ships, at least a few must have hyperdrives right?

  He sped up his pace, ignoring the pain and stiffness as he moved only through sheer force of will and heavy assistance from the Force.

  He walked into the hangar into chaos and all the frantic bustling from the people inside immediately stopped as Anakin was spotted, heavily burned and injured and an ignited lightsaber held in his hand.

  “Go, go, go!” One man shouted, “Leave now! Before he gets us!”

  There was a mad scramble into one large and bulky combat transport and two smaller shuttles on the other side of the hangar. The engines on the three ships started up and as Anakin watched in confusion, the transport lifted off as the last person leapt inside into the literal piles of people inside the three ships and the back ramps closed as the ships lifted from the hangar floor.

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  The transports lifted up as one in the hangar even as another group of ten people came running in from the side.

  “Wait, wait for us! I order you to stop! Come back!” One man shouted while holding what looked like a datadisk aloft and waving it towards the transport ship.

  The ship ignored the captain and moved forward slowly through the hangar shields before entering the vacuum of space. As soon as it left the hangar, the jets fired full throttle and the ship started flying away.

  “No! I’m your commander, you can’t leave us!” the man from before shouted fruitlessly at the ships that were rapidly shrinking into the distance.

  Anakin turned to the line of twelve Aurek single person space-fighters, their distinctive V shape forming a series of arrows lining the side of the hangar closest to Anakin.

  He started hobbling towards the closest one, only to groan as something hot sliced across his back and sent him tumbling to the floor.

  Before Anakin could even react a long searing pain passed across the back of his neck, like he’d been blasted with a flamethrower.

  Anakin rolled over and raised his lightsaber defensively, but his pitiful attempt of a block was expertly brushed aside by the Jedi Master with a flick of the wrist before the Lightsaber came plunging down for Anakin’s face.

  Anakin twisted his body and the strike just barely missed his forehead and instead singed his ear and the right side of his head.

  He twisted and blindly slashed out with his lightsaber at the Jedi master’s knees, but the man simply hopped back lightly to avoid the blow before dashing forward to pounce on Anakin as he lay on the floor again.

  There was shouting behind him, and Anakin felt something slightly warm splash off of him. One of the other people over there had fired a blaster at him, which had done nothing due to his heat resistance.

  “No, ignore him! Complete your mission, Captain!” the Jedi master demanded as he stabbed Anakin in the gut with his lightsaber and used the Force to wrench Anakin’s hand to the side and send his lightsaber skittering across the hallway of the hangar.

  Anakin noticed that the lightsaber stabbed into his gut barely sank a centimeter into his skin as the Jedi master kept dragging its point all over his body mercilessly as the man completely overpowered Anakin.

  Anakin raised his arms up to his face defensively as the Jedi master shifted focus and started battering him. But slowly but surely, Anakin could feel the blows from the lightsaber growing less and less painful. His heat resistance was growing strong enough that even the lightsaber was close to having no effect on him…

  Anakin heard the rumble of engines and saw the ten people from before left behind by the shuttles climbing inside of the Aurek fighters. One of them was already rising into the air as their cabin closed. The indignant man with the data disk from before was at the back of the group, huffing and puffing as if out of shape as the others outpaced him to reach their ships.

  The Jedi master stabbed through Anakin’s defensive arms and landed a strike directly onto his nose, which hurt a lot considering it had already been severely burned by his battle with the other Jedi master before.

  Anakin noticed suddenly that the Jedi master was only fighting him with one hand. The other was tightly gripped around a communicator that he held in his left hand.

  Anakin drew on the Force and reached out and drew the device to him as he ignored the Jedi’s blows on him for a moment.

  Sure enough, the Jedi’s eyes widened as Anakin pulled the device from his hand and drew it to himself. Using the distraction, Anakin rolled to the side, and was about to roll backwards to return to his feet…

  But deep in the ship there was a loud rumble and before Anakin could react the world was consumed in fire and tearing metal as the ship exploded around him.

  — — —

  Anakin blinked as soon as the rumbling and chaos around him settled down slightly. He used a burst of the Force to stop his body that was spinning rapidly as he was launched away from the exploded ship. He felt oddly bloated and even more lightheaded than before as he floated in space, flung away from the ship by the massive explosion. Everything was silent again, but Anakin caught the signature flashes of a series of hyperspace jumps. Anakin turned his head and saw nothing. Nothing where the transport ships had used to be…

  He turned his head the other way and saw the slowly spreading debris of what used to be a Republic military ship. Completely reduced to scrap just for a chance to kill him…

  Anakin shook his head and refocused. He could worry about it and brood over what happened later. Now he had to figure out what to do. He was here somewhere that was presumably deep space. The main ship was toast, and while he felt alright for now, the bloating and lightheadedness in his body was getting worse the more time passed. He was so tired by now that he doubted that his body would be able to adapt again to space before he died.

  Anakin scanned the debris floating around him as he stabilized himself even more. There must be something. One of… Yes! Anakin spotted something through the field of debris in the distance. He raised his hand and focused as best as he could to draw on the Force even as he struggled to keep awake. He was drawn forward towards the ship that looked mostly intact as he used the Force to pull him along.

  As he flew through the vacuum of space while maintaining his focus on drawing on the Force, Anakin noticed small chunks of what must be the other Aurek fighters. As far as Anakin could see, only this one vehicle had survived.

  He finally reached the surviving Aurek fighter that still had its shields softly humming. Anakin felt the hum flowing through his body as he reached out and placed one hand against its surface and slowly pushed himself through. If you went slow enough, then ship’s shields like these usually were designed to let things pass through.

  Anakin floated over to the small one man cockpit and looked inside for the pilot. Oh. Dead. Very dead. The anti-gravity systems must have failed and not protected the pilot from the force of the explosion…

  He felt around the edges of the glass cockpit, looking for a way in from the outside for over a minute even as it grew harder and harder to focus.

  Finally, he found what seemed to be a manual release and pulled it hard, causing the hatch to pop open and release a hiss of escaping air. The pilots were supposed to wear space suits as they flew, but in the rush this person had just been inside with just their normal Republic uniform.

  Anakin floated inside the now open cockpit and tried to settle down inside. But it was a one man fighter, and the body of the dead pilot was taking up too much room.

  ‘Sorry’ Anakin mouthed in the vacuum of space before unbuckling the corpse and slowly pushing it upwards where it started floating away to merge with the rest of the ship's debris.

  Anakin hunted around and pressed another button and the glass bubble from above closed up again. Anakin strapped himself into the bloodstained seat and inspected the control panels covered in little bits of gore. He brushed aside a larger chunk that was blocking one of the dials and it tumbled end over end in the zero gravity.

  Despite his throbbing head and painful wounds, Anakin blearily tried to figure out how to work the ship. He knew how to pilot the pirate ship that he and Slarena had stolen so long ago. He saw that some things here were the same while he didn’t understand anything about most of the other buttons.

  But after a few minutes he managed to repressurize the cabin with air again and activate the maneuvering thrusters to gently navigate the ship away from the fields of debris spreading out from the destroyed Republic ship.

  When he was far away enough, he experimented with the navigation computer which luckily had a map showing exactly where they were in relation to some known galactic systems. Still over a day’s travel to coruscant.

  Anakin checked the amount of fuel on the ship and calculated how far he could go. Yes, he had enough but there was almost no margin for error. He quickly plugged in the coordinates to the planet and after a moment, the ship thrummed before entering hyperspace and everything around Anakin was surrounded with blue and streaking stars.

  The facility with all the droid engineers was more towards the mid rim of the galaxy despite still technically being in the outer rim, so Anakin was just close enough to reach it. He could feel his injuries, he would need some serious bacta and treatment soon before all of this damage caught up with him.

  He just had to last about… he checked the nav computer. About twenty hours.

  If he could get there and contact the engineers, then the CIS could save him. He just had to last that long.

  — — —

  Anakin took weak shallow breaths as he lay in the cockpit of the fighter that smelled absolutely rancid by now. He didn’t have to breath with his adaptation to the vacuum before. But as he felt the damage in his body start to creep up on him, he started breathing heavier out of reflex from the pain.

  Anakin felt like his body was split into a dozen hurting portions, only held together by a few weak staples keeping him together and conscious. Somehow Anakin knew that if he fell asleep then he wouldn’t ever wake up again.

  He was panting, his mouth dry and feeling like he’d been left in the deserts of Tatooine for days. Only the thrumming of the Force flowing through him kept him aware and awake, but even that was slowly not becoming enough as Anakin’s focus wavered and his body kept failing on him.

  His whole body was covered in deep burns both heavy and light. His nerves had been fried by the stun cuffs full force before his body had started adapting. He’d choked and damaged his lungs and throat from the lack of air before he adapted to that too. His body was quivering and exhausted from powering all of his various abilities that had kept him alive.

  Anakin blinked as he realized that his surroundings were no longer a bright blue. It took over a minute of fumbling, but he eventually managed to focus enough to switch on his comms as he hovered over the mostly abandoned planet. He didn’t know exactly where the facility was, just the general area on the planet. He fumbled and blinked as he struggled to focus, but eventually managed to activate a tight beam transmission and blasted it across that whole region of the planet as his ship hovered above.

  No one else lived there, and his focused transmission shouldn’t be detected on the other scattered settlements on the planet… Probably.

  “Hello,” Anakin rasped over the channel as he transmitted to the planet below, “It’s me. Anakin Skywalker. I know you’re down there, I’m hurt and there’s…”

  Anakin snapped back as he realized that he’d trailed off and stopped mid sentence, “The B1a. Better than that… corporate junk. I can’t… Bacta. Dooku. Please. Going black…”

  Anakin woke up again with missing time to find himself slumped over the console in front of him and on the edge of falling unconscious. The Force within him was fading and dimming and causing blackness to start pressing inwards from the corners of his vision.

  There was a flashing light on the panel in front of him. Anakin dumbly pulled himself up slightly and pressed the button clumsily with stiff fingers.

  “Anakin? Are you there? What’s going on? What are you doing in a Republic Aurek fighter? Where’s Count Dooku?”

  “Captured… by Republic,” Anakin rasped at the talkative button, “Escaped in fighter. Dooku in another ship. I—”

  “Anakin! Anakin keep on talking! I’ve sent the coordinates. Just set the autopilot to land!”

  He had lost more time. He started mumbling and struggled to understand the foreign words he was hearing through his fuzzy mind. He mumbled a confused noise at the helpful button and it spoke to him again. It took a few tries, but Anakin’s sluggish brain finally realized that it was telling him what he was supposed to be doing.

  He followed its directions and mumbled in confusion whenever he didn’t understand. He mumbled a lot. The ship rumbled and started dropping down towards the planet on its own as the button stopped trying to talk to Anakin for a moment.

  He lost more time and he was descending down into a dark hole in the ground until he landed on a platform. There was someone banging on the outside of the ship and Anakin pressed the button to open up the glass bubble in response after staring blankly at the person on the other side for a moment.

  A droid walked up and gripped Anakin and lifted him out of the cockpit with its strength and started carrying him somewhere as a group of concerned people watched on and crowded around the droid. As he was carried through hallways of metal and surrounded by muttering, he saw flashes of vaguely familiar faces.

  Anakin felt a warm hand touch his cheek. The human contact made the tightness built up within him to hold on and keep going until safety release all at once. His body slumped all at once and he was out like a light before the warm hand even fully finished pressing into his skin.