Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith Read Online Free PDF Page B

thunderbolts of disintegrating energy.
    And that immense ship was getting bigger.
    Fast.
    "Anakin! We're going to collide!"
    "That's the plan. Head for the hangar."
    "That's not-"
    "I know: first Jedi principle of-"
    "No. It's not going to work. Not for me."
    "What?"
    "My controls are gone. I can't head for anything.''
    "Oh. Well. All right, no problem."
    "No problem?"
    Then his starfighter clanged as if he'd crashed into a ship-sized gong.
    Obi-Wan jerked and twisted his head around to find the other starfighter just above his tail. Literally just above: Anakin's left lead control surface was barely a hand span from Obi-Wan's sublight thrusters.
    Anakin had hit him. On purpose.
    Then he did it again.
    CLANG
    "What are you doing?"
    "Just giving you . . ." Anakin's voice came slow, tight with concentration. ". . . a little help with your steering . . ."
    Obi-Wan shook his head. This was completely impossible. No other pilot would even attempt it. But for Anakin Skywalker the completely impossible had an eerie way of being merely difficult.
    He reflected that he should be used to it by now.
    While these thoughts chased each other aimlessly through his mind, he had been staring bleakly at a blue shimmer of energy filling the yawning hangar bay ahead. Belatedly, he registered what he was looking at.
    He thought, Oh, this is bad.
    "Anakin-" Obi-Wan began. He tried rerouting control paths through his yoke. No luck.
    Anakin drew up and tipped his forward surfaces down behind the sparking scrap that used to be Arfour.
    "Anakin-!"
    "Give me . . . just a second, Master." Anakin's voice had gone even tighter. A muffled thump, then another. Louder. And a scrape and a squeal of ripping metal. "This isn't quite . . . as easy as it looks. . ."
    "Anakin!"
    "What?"
    "The hangar bay-"
    "What about it?"
    "Have you noticed that the shield's still up?"
    "Really?"
    "Really." Not to mention so close that Obi-Wan could practically taste it-"Oh. Sorry. I've been busy."
    Obi-Wan closed his eyes.
    Reaching into the Force, his mind followed the starfighter's mangled circuitry to locate and activate the sublight engines' manual test board. With a slight push, he triggered a command normally used only in bench tests: full reverse.
    The cometary tail of glowing debris shed by his disintegrating starfighter shot past him and evaporated in a cascade of miniature starbursts on contact with the hangar shield. Which was exactly what was about to happen to him.
    The only effect of full reverse from his failing engines was to give him more time to see it coming.
    Then Anakin's starfighter swooped in front of him, crossing left to right at a steep deflection. Energy flared from his cannons, and the shield emitters at the right side of the hangar door exploded into scrap. The blue shimmer of the bay shield flickered, faded, and vanished just as Obi-Wan came spinning across the threshold and slammed along the deck, trailing sparks and a scream of tortured metal.
    His entire starfighter-what was left of it-vibrated with the roar of atmosphere howling out from the unshielded bay. Massive blast doors ground together like jaws. Another Force-touch on the manual test board cut power to his engines, but he couldn't trigger the explosive bolts on his cockpit canopy, and he had a bad feeling that those canopy bolts were the only thing on his craft that weren't about to explode.
    His lightsaber found his hand and blue energy flared. One swipe and the canopy burst away, ripped into space by the hurricane of escaping air. Obi-Wan flipped himself up into the stunningly cold gale and let it blow him tumbling away as the remnants of his battered craft finally exploded.
    He rode the shock wave while he let the Force right him in the air. He landed catfooted on the blackened streak-still hot enough to scorch his boots-that his landing had gouged into the deck.
    The hangar was full of battle droids.
    His shoulders dropped and his knees bent and his lightsaber came up to angle in