On one of the landing decks, the canopy was lifting and parting to show a small, ultrafast armored shuttle of the type favored by the famously nervous Neimoidian executives of the Trade Federation.
"Running away again, Grievous?", Obi-Wan sarcastically asked.
"He knows that he is both outmatched and outnumbered. It is not too obvious for him", Master Fisto added.
Grievous's wheeler sprayed a fan of white-hot sparks as it tore across the landing deck; the bio-droid whipped the wheeler sideways, laying it down for a skidding halt that showered the shuttle with molten durasteel.
But before he could clamber out of the pilot's chair, several metric tons of Jedi-bearing dragonmount landed on the shuttle's roof, crouched and threatening and hissing venomously down at him.
"I hope you have another vehicle, General!" Obi-Wan waved his lightsaber toward the shuttle's twin rear thrusters. "I believe there's some damage to your sublights!"
"You're insane! There's no—"
Obi-Wan shrugged. "Show him, Boga."
The dragonmount dutifully pointed out the damage with two whistling strikes of her massive tail-mace—wham and wham again—which crumpled the shuttle's thruster tubes into crimped-shut knots of metal.
Obi-Wan beckoned. "Let's settle this, shall we?"
Grievous's answer was a shriek of tortured gyros that wrenched the wheeler upright, and a metal-on-metal scream of blades ripping into deck plates that sent it shooting straight toward the sinkhole wall—and, with the claw-arms to help, straight up it.
"It seems you'll have to chase down Grievous before he escapes again", Shaak Ti said to the Stewjon Jedi Master.
Obi-Wan sighed. "Didn't we just come from there?"
Boga coiled herself and sprang for the wall, and the chase was on once more. They raced through the battle, clawing up walls, shooting through tunnels, skidding and leaping, sprinting where the way was clear and screeching into high-powered serpentines where it was not, whipping around knots of droids and bounding over troopers.
Boga ran straight up the side of a clone hovertank and sprang from its turret directly between the high-slanting ringwheels of a hailfire, and a swipe of Obi-Wan's blade left the droid crippled behind them. Native troops had taken the field: Utapaun dragonriders armed with sparking power lances charged along causeways, spearing droids on every side.
Grievous ran right over anything in his path, the blades of his wheeler shredding droid and trooper and dragon alike; behind him, Obi-Wan's lightsaber caught and returned blaster bolts in aspray that shattered any droid unwise enough to fire on him.
The Jedi frowned on the General's cowardly move, seeing how he doesn't care of anything that stood in his way.
"Commander Cody will have to take care of the droids while I have other business to attend to", Obi Wan mused to himself.
A few stray bolts he batted into the speeding wheeler ahead, but without visible effect.
"Fine," he muttered. "Let's try this from a little closer.'' Boga gained steadily. Grievous's vehicle had the edge in raw speed, but Boga could out-turn it and could make instant leaps at astonishing angles; the dragonmount also had an uncanny instinct for where the general might be heading, as well as a seemingly infinite knowledge of useful shortcuts through side tunnels, along sheer walls, and over chasms studded with locked-down wind turbines.
Grievous tried once to block Obi-Wan's pursuit by screeching out onto a huge pod that held a whole bank of wind turbines and knocking the blade-brakes off them with quick blows of the electrostaff, letting the razor-edged blades spin freely in the constant gale, but Obi-Wan merely brought Boga alongside the turbines and stuck his lightsaber into their whirl.
Sliced-free chunks of carboceramic blade shrieked through the air and shattered on the stone on all sides, and with a curse Grievous kicked his vehicle into motion again.
The wheeler roared into a tunnel that seemed to lead straight into the rock of the plateau. The tunnel was jammed with groundcars and dragonmounts and wheelers and jetsters and all manner of other vehicles and every kind of beast that might bear or draw the vast numbers of Utapauns and Utai fleeing the battle.
Grievous blasted right into them, blade-wheel chewing through groundcars and splashing the tunnel walls with chunks of shredded lizard; Boga raced along the walls above the traffic sometimes even galloping on the ceiling with claws gouging chunks from the rock.
With a burst of sustained effort that strangled her honnnking to thin gasps for air, Boga finally pulled alongside Grievous.
Obi-Wan leaned forward, stretching out with his lightsaber, barely able to reach the wheeler's back curve, and carved away an arc of the wheeler's blade-tread, making the vehicle buck and skid; Grievous answered with a thrust of his electrostaff that crackled lightning against Boga's extended neck. The great beast jerked sideways, honking fearfully and whipping her head as though the burn was abiting creature she could shake off her flank.
"One more leap, Boga!" Obi-Wan shouted, pressing himself along the dragonmount's shoulder. "Bring me even with him!"
The dragonmount complied without hesitation, and when Grievous thrust again, Obi-Wan's free hand flashed out and seized the staff below its discharge blade, holding it clear of Boga's vulnerable flesh. Grievous yanked on the staff, nearly pulling Obi-Wan out of the saddle, then jabbed it back at him, discharge blade sparking in his face—
With a sigh, Obi-Wan realized he needed both hands.
He dropped his lightsaber.
The Jedi looked at him, where Obi-Wan raised his hands in defense. "I know that our weapons are our lives, but I have to that for the moment"
"You could have at least put it away in your belt rather than dropping it", Luminara retorted.
As his deactivated handgrip skittered and bounced along the tunnel behind him, he reflected that it was just as well Anakin wasn't there after all; he'd have never heard the end of it.
He got his other hand on the staff just as Grievous jerked the wheeler sideways, half laying it down to angle for a small side tunnel just ahead. Obi-Wan hung on grimly. Through the Force he could feel Boga's exhaustion, the buildup of anaerobic breakdown products turning the dragonmount's mighty legs to cloth. An open archway showed daylight ahead.
Boga barely made the turn, and they raced side by side along the empty darkened way, joined by the spark-spitting rod of the electrostaff.
As they cleared the archway to a small, concealed landing deck deep in a private sinkhole, Obi-Wan leapt from the saddle, yanking on the staff to swing both his boots hard into the side of Grievous's duranium skull.
The wheeler's internal gyros screamed at the sudden impact and shift of balance. Their shrieks cycled up to bursts of smoke and fragments of metal as their catastrophic failure sent the wheeler tumbling in a white-hot cascade of sparks.
Dropping the staff, Obi-Wan leapt again, the Force lifting him free of the crash
Grievous's electronic reflexes sent him out of the pilot's chair in the opposite direction.
The wheeler flipped over the edge of the landing deck and into the shadowy abyss of the sinkhole. It trailed smoke all the way down to a distant, delayed, and very final crash.
The electrostaff had rolled away, coming to rest against the landing jack of a small Techno Union starfighter that stood on the deck a few meters behind Obi-Wan. Behind Grievous, the archway back into the tunnel system was filled with a panting, exhausted, but still dangerously angry dragonmount. Obi-Wan looked at Grievous.
Grievous looked at Obi-Wan.
"It's now or never. Grievous had nowhere to run", Plo Koon said. "He had only a few options to choose from"
"And I doubt surrendering is one of them", Obi-Wan added. "
There was no longer any need for words between them. Obi-Wan simply stood, centered in the Force, waiting for Grievous to make his move. A concealed compartment in the general's right thigh sprang open, and a mechanical arm delivered a slim hold-out blaster to his hand. He brought it up and fired so fast that his arm blurred to invisiblity.
Obi-Wan... reached.
The electrostaff flipped into the air between them, one dis- charge blade catching the bolt. The impact sent the staff whirling—Right into Obi-Wan's hand.
...
Back at Sundari, Republic and Nite Owl forces overwhelmed the Shadow Collective, capturing Rook and a few others in the process. Taking cover, Saxon attempted to communicate with Maul with his coms. "Lord Maul! I need backup! My forces are falling! We need your support!"
The Jedi looked at Master Kenobi, who sighed. "I have seen what happen to people who work under Maul. None of it ended well"
"Betrayal and the use of expendables are the way of the Sith", Mace agreed with him.
Above Sundari, Maul looked below at the raging battlefield that was already clouded with smoke before replying to Saxon. "No. I think not", he answered back in a casual ton. "Any moment my ship will be arriving. Die well, Mandalorian"
"No! Wait-", Saxon cried out in terror before Maul abruptly cut off the connection, intending to make his escape.
"If Maul managed to deceive an entire planet, in addition to several syndicates that could consist of worlds into working with him, it is to no surprise that Sidious managed to deceive the entire Republic and the Jedi into working with him as well", Shaak Ti spoke in a low tone.
His trek stopped when he heard a pair of lightsabers being ignited behind him, turning back to find out that Lady Tano had managed to catch up with him.
"Obi-Wan was right", Ahsoka admitted. "You are difficult to kill"
"I wouldn't say difficult, but he was rather too angry to die that is", Obi-Wan retorted.
Maul frowned at the remark before Ahsoka rushed towards him, jumping forward for a strike that was quickly blocked by Maul before she delivered a flurry of blows that were parried. However, neither could not be aggressive as they have back at the Throne Room, as the beams itself could easily be severed if they are not careful.
"The end, I am sensing", Yoda observed, seeing how things are going between the two duels.
"We could have destroyed Sidious!", Maul roared.
"Only for you to take his place!", Ahsoka shot back, with the two exchanging blows even further until Ahsoka found an opening, and landed an elbow at Maul's face, followed by a kick, pushing him back and causing Maul to almost lose his balance over a support beam.
"Despite what Maul may be planning, his words were overall genuine", Mundi said, recalling what the Zabrak had said earlier.
"She couldn't have known", Plo Koon reasoned out. "None of us in the future have"
...
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