One of the Mandalorians fired a rocket from his wrist directly at Anakin, but he spun out of its path and seized it with his mind.
He turned, directing the missile in an arc before whipping it back around into the Mandalorian who fired it. The explosion blasted the man from the sky, his mind winking out in the force.
...
The remaining Mandalorian who had been shooting at him hesitated, and Anakin took the moment to look around. Back over the compound wall, he saw what looked like flashes of light, but he couldn't see what was happening inside.
Annoyed, Anakin reached out, and grabbed the wall, before pulling it towards himself. The fence flipped forward, slamming into the ground with a loud crash, revealing a crater in the ground where the two Jedi Masters had been.
There was a horrible second where Anakin thought both of them had been killed, before he saw Obi-Wan and Vos's green and blue blades flashing back and forth on the roof, as dozens more Mandalorians rocketed in to join the fray.
Then the Mandalorians who had been about to attack Anakin all peeled away at once, as the gunship spun around to face him. Death was coming his way, and Anakin bolted to the side as fast as he could to get out of the path of the storm of automatic blaster bolts that raked across ground towards him. Some blaster bolts were just too volatile to block, or they came too closely clumped for his lightsaber to be everywhere it needed, and the shots from the gunship were both.
The landscape behind Anakin was torn to shreds by the loud blare of blaster impacts, each loud ping of a shot coming so rapidly it almost sounded like an ear rending siren call. Anakin threw himself up, backflipping over the arc of fire and threw his lightsaber at the cockpit. It lanced through the air, and pierced straight through the transparisteel into the chest of the pilot.
The ship spun out of control, smashing into the ground and carving a line in earth. With a tug on the Force, Anakin pulled on his lightsaber, drawing it back to his hand, before charging to the compound to join with Vos and his master.
"Anakin!" Obi-Wan cried out, relief in his voice. "I should have known you'd be fine, you were always a great flier."
"You know me, Master. I just can't keep my feet on the ground."
Vos barked out a laugh.
Covering each other, the three backed away, as the fire from the Mandalorians stopped. Not because they were all defeated, but because they seemed to realise that firing at the clumped Jedi was dangerously counter productive. They milled about, in the air and on the ground, keeping their distance while trying to come up with a plan.
"We're lucky these aren't real super commandos." Obi-Wan grunted.
"What are they?" Anakin asked.
"I don't know, but they don't have beskar."
"So what do we do?" Anakin asked.
"We'll do what we were already planning to do." Obi-Wan answered. "Grab the prisoner, grab a ship, and get out of here with what information we can."
Vos nodded in agreement. "Padawan, can you get one of those parked ships running?"
Anakin glanced at one of the parked gunships. "Yeah."
"Then I'll cover you. Kenobi, get the prisoner."
They nodded, then split apart, rushing in different directions.
Trying to carve his way into the ship was a bad idea when they wanted to fly it, so Anakin pulled out his compad and started to slice his way into the loading ramp. As he worked, the Force sent him numerous warnings about shots headed his way, and he struggled to keep himself from flinching each time as Quinlan Vos deflected each shot. It felt like it took much longer than it really did, barely thirty seconds in reality, but finally the ship's computer relinquished control to Anakin, and he lowered the ramp.
Inside the cockpit, he froze at the sight of the controls. They weren't like anything he was trained on. There were countless layouts for starship cockpits across the Galaxy, and Anakin had never seen this particular variant before. Worse still, it was labeled in the Mandalorian alphabet, which he couldn't read.
"Anakin?" Vos called back to him from the ship's ramp, sensing his hesitation.
There was nothing for it. Anakin had always had a gift for machines, now was the time to use it. Letting the Force flow through him, he quickly began to work the controls, only really dimly aware of what he was doing. The ship's engines roared to life, and its shields flicked on. Vos backed up the ramp, as small arms fired bounced from the ship.
"Get us in the air! We'll circle back around for Kenobi."
Anakin nodded, eyes half closed as the ship shot forward into the sky. Behind him he heard Vos stagger and fall with a curse, but ignored it. He couldn't tell if it was the Force warning him, or the ship's sensors, but somehow he knew that the enemy had reinforcements incoming. Below in the base, Anakin felt Obi-Wan running, arms straining as he carried the armoured form of a woman, and smoothly turning the ship as hard as it safely could inside an atmosphere, before banking it down and swooping low.
Obi-Wan lept perfectly, rolling on the landing ramp and was helped aboard the ship by Vos. The woman he was carrying was red-haired, green eyes and a face covered in freckles and bruises. Definitely one of these mandalorians, judging by the armour.
"Where's Prialla?" Anakin asked.
They all looked at each other, and Anakin growled. He pulled the ship straight and accelerated away, reaching out with his mind to find her, but she was gone. Was she dead? He hadn't heard her cry out for help or sensed her death. She must have been shielding her mind, trying to hide from them.
"I'll call her." Vos said, taking out his holocom. He dialed her number, and it rang once, twice, three times before she finally answered.
"Guys! You'll never believe what I found!" The words rushed out, excited to the point of giddiness, though her image wasn't being displayed.
"Prialla, where are you?" Vos demanded.
"Walking away from the camp. Back the way we came. Towards the ship. It's still parked there, right? Sorry, got you on handsfree, my arms are full." She huffed out, breathing hard, like she was carrying something particularly heavy.
The three of them looked at each other. "It should be." Vos agreed. "Where did you go? What did you find?"
"Well, we sensed a young mind in the Force. Like a child, right?" The sound of Prialla's footsteps stopped, as she was gasping for breath. She turned on her holocom, and Prialla's image was displayed. Standing right at her shoulder was a teenage boy that it took Obi-Wan a second to recognise. "See?"
"Korkie Kryze?" Obi-Wan asked. "What in the blazes are you doing here?"
"The Prime Minister told me I need to go with him." He answered. "For my own protection."
"Good work." Obi-Wan breathed out. "I'm sure his testimony will be useful for bringing the Prime Minister to justice."
"That's not even the best part!" Prialla said, turning her body so the load she was carrying became visible. She was carrying the torso of a droid, one that had its arms and legs missing. "TC-72, tell them what you told me."
"Oh, thank the makers." The droid said in a female voice, relieved. It looked a lot like Anakin's old protocol droid, but had plasma scorches, and a single one of its metallic eyes was hanging out. "I thought I was going to be destroyed! These barbaric Mandalorians stole my arms and legs! For fun!"
"No, not that!" Prialla said. "Tell them the other thing that you told me."
"I was sent here to help my Master- Former Master now- Pre Vizla negotiate for and translate with some of the smaller Mandalorian clans, who speak more obscure dialects of old Mandalorian-"
"Right, but who sent you?"
"Well, I was just getting to that. I was purchased by Zitt Flabb of the Trade Federation's Office of Interdepartmental communications, and was gifted to Pre Vizla along with a sum of ten million credits to hire the mercenaries."
Anakin paused, blinking at that, looking over at Obi-Wan even as Vos broke out into a wide grin.
"Great work, Prialla!" Vos said. "Get back to our ship as fast as you can. We'll do some circling up here to try and keep the heat off you." Then he hung up.
There was silence in the cabin for a long few moments.
"...Any chance I can persuade you to hold off on making your report to Dooku until the investigation is completed?" Obi-Wan asked.
Vos just laughed.
...
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