Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [134]
He looks the dragon in the eye and doesn’t even slow down.
If anyone can save Palpatine, Anakin will. Because he’s already the best, and he’s still getting better. But locked away behind the walls of his heart, the dragon that is his fear coils and squirms and hisses.
Because his real fear, in a universe where even stars can die, is that being the best will never be quite good enough.
Obi-Wan’s starfighter jolted sideways. Anakin whipped by him and used his forward attitude jets to kick himself into a skew-flip: facing backward to blast the last of the tri-fighters on his tail. Now there were only vulture droids left.
A lot of vulture droids.
“Did you like that one, Master?”
“Very pretty.” Obi-Wan’s cannons stitched plasma across the hull of a swooping vulture fighter until the droid exploded. “But we’re not through yet.”
“Watch this.” Anakin flipped his starfighter again and dived, spinning, directly through the flock of vulture droids. Their drives blazed as they came around. He led them streaking for the upper deck of a laser-scarred Separatist cruiser. “I’m going to lead them through the needle.”
“Don’t lead them anywhere.” Obi-Wan’s threat display tallied the vultures on Anakin’s tail. Twelve of them. Twelve. “First Jedi principle of combat: survive.”
“No choice.” Anakin slipped his starfighter through the storm of cannonfire. “Come down and thin them out a little.”
Obi-Wan slammed his control yoke forward as though jamming it against its impact-rest would push his battered fighter faster in pursuit. “Nothing fancy, Arfour.” As though the damaged droid were even capable of anything fancy. “Just hold me steady.”
He reached into the Force and felt for his shot. “On my mark, break left—now!” The shutdown control surface of his left wing turned the left break into a tight overhead spiral that traversed Obi-Wan’s guns across the paths of four vultures—
flash flash flash flash
—and all four were gone.
He flew on through the clouds of glowing plasma. He couldn’t waste time going around; Anakin still had eight of them on his tail.
And what was this? Obi-Wan frowned.
The cruiser looked familiar.
The needle? he thought. Oh, please say you’re kidding.
Anakin’s starfighter skimmed only meters above the cruiser’s dorsal hull. Cannon misses from the vulture fighters swooping toward him blasted chunks out of the cruiser’s armor.
“Okay, Artoo. Where’s that trench?”
His forward screen lit with a topograph of the cruiser’s hull. Just ahead lay the trench that Obi-Wan had led the tri-fighter into. Anakin flipped his starfighter through a razor-sharp wingover down past the rim. The walls of the service trench flashed past him as he streaked for the bridge tower at the far end. From here, he couldn’t even see the minuscule slit between its support struts.
With eight vulture droids in pursuit, he’d never pull off a slant up the tower’s leading edge as Obi-Wan had. But that was all right.
He wasn’t planning to.
His cockpit comm buzzed. “Don’t try it, Anakin. It’s too tight.”
Too tight for you, maybe. “I’ll get through.”
R2-D2 whistled nervous agreement with Obi-Wan.
“Easy, Artoo,” Anakin said. “We’ve done this before.”
Cannonfire blazed past him, impacting on the support struts ahead. Too late to change his mind now: he was committed. He would bring his ship through, or he would die.
Right now, strangely, he didn’t actually care which.
“Use the Force.” Obi-Wan sounded worried. “Think yourself through, and the ship will follow.”
“What do you expect me to do? Close my eyes and whistle?” Anakin muttered under his breath, then said aloud, “Copy that. Thinking now.”
R2-D2’s squeal was as close to terrified as a droid can sound. Glowing letters spidered across Anakin’s readout: ABORT! ABORT ABORT!
Anakin smiled. “Wrong thought.”
Obi-Wan could only stare openmouthed as Anakin’s starfighter snapped onto its side and scraped