“They’re heading for the main hangar!” shouted Japhta Fett at General Crouze as their skiff burst through the boundary wall of the Formal Gardens. Japhta crouched down as bricks scattered in all directions. The wall behind them, she resumed her position at the bow; a warrior queen leading her troops into battle.

“Keep on this course,” ordered Crouze to the steersman. ‘We should get there before them.’

Crouze sat back in his seat at the stern, looking forward to the battle in store, a battle he was confident they would win. His flight-troopers would soon finish off the Gungan army, and those savages would never again challenge Mandalore’s military might.

Japhta caught sight of Sarolyn’s skiff cruising in the distance. “There they are!” she yelled. “Blast them!”

Laser fire whistled across the fields as the guards shot at Sarolyn and her companions. Their skiff ducked and dived as it dodged the blasts.

“The Force is strong with that bitch!” muttered Japhta as her vessel bore down upon its prey.

Ayo, Yarua and Neema threw themselves to the deck as they returned fire. With one hand on the tiller, Sarolyn deflected the enemy bolts, her lightsabre swishing above the heads of her friends.

“They’re gaining on us!” shouted Neema above the melée as Ayo and Yarua hugged the deck, exchanging fire with the guardtroopers as the enemy skiff closed in.

Sarolyn cast a quick glance at the approaching skiff. Japhta Fett stood at the bow as if she were a ship’s mascot, repelling every shot fired at her with her lightsabre.

“I can’t get any more power!” said Sarolyn as she hit the throttle to no effect. It seemed that something was restraining the skiff, holding it back. “Japhta!” muttered Sarolyn as she felt the Force draining from around her.

Sarolyn was thrown to the deck as the skiff was rammed by Japhta’s craft. She yelled at Neema to take over as they were once again shunted in an attempt to throw them overboard.

Neema crawled to the tiller, keeping low to avoid the thick barrage of fire as Japhta Fett leapt on board and slashed at Sarolyn with her lightsabre. The young blonde girl’s hazel eyes blazed with anger.

Sarolyn barely managed to block the attack as the skiff rocked beneath them. As Ayo and Yarua blasted at the cracktroopers, Sarolyn and Japhta twisted and turned in battle, their weapons flashing and screeching with each blow. The skiff tossed like a dinghy in a storm as the two girls fought, their lightsabre duel punctuated with punches and high kicks.

Where did she learn all this? Sarolyn was shocked by Japhta’s ability in the Jedi Arts. Fett had been well taught since her expulsion and this disturbed Sarolyn. Somebody, undetected by the Jedi, had trained Japhta in the ways of the Dark Side.

Fett swung her weapon at Sarolyn’s breast. Sarolyn, anticipating the attack, batted it aside with an elegant lunge. The two girls’ weapons sparked as they clashed in deadlock.

A laser bolt struck Ayo and he screamed, clutching his shoulder in agony as he fell, swearing, to the deck. Yarua barked urgently as he continued to pick off the guardtroopers.

“You hit?” shouted Neema over the battle as Yarua tended to his wounded friend.

“I’m all right,” winced Ayo. “You worry about those troops. I’ll worry about me.”

The skiff continued to buffet as Sarolyn and Japhta fought, the two girls evenly matched and in their prime. Japhta swung her leg high in an attempt to kick Sarolyn in the face. Sarolyn, making the most of Fett’s moment of balancing, Force-pushed her overboard. They had not a moment to lose.

“Go, Neema! Go!” shouted Sarolyn urgently as Japhta scrambled to her feet, her designer dress torn and caked in mud. It was vital that they reached the hangar and stole a ship. Their lives depended on it.

Neema opened up the throttle to its fullest extent, and the skiff shot forward with a scream of its engines towards the hulking form of the hangar ahead. Sarolyn stole a quick glance behind her. Receding in the distance was the angry, muddied face of Japhta Fett, her catlike eyes narrowed with fury as her guards helped her to her skiff.

The three gold ships of Japhta Fett’s personal star fleet dominated the centre of the vast hangar, a trio of golden saucers parked in a neat line. The skiff careered through the open portal, the scream of its engines echoing around the roof as it slid to a halt beneath the leading ship.

Sarolyn bundled Neema and Yarua from the skiff as she helped the wounded Ayo to his feet.

“I’m fine,” protested Ayo painfully as he tried to free himself from Sarolyn’s grasp. Clutching his shoulder, he clambered down and joined his companions.

Blaster fire erupted from the far side of the hangar, each shot howling with resonance. Sarolyn threw herself and Ayo to the floor as laser bolts exploded against the landing gear of the ship.

Sarolyn breathed a discreet sigh of relief when she found the ship’s hatch above to be open. The four of them hurried aboard just as a guardtrooper unit moved to surround them.

Neema threw an emergency switch and the hatch snapped shut with a sharp hiss of its pneumatics. The hatchway opened up into a bright, clean vestibule from which three short corridors diverged.

“Cockpit’s upstairs,” said Ayo as they raced towards the central ladder-tube. “Fire her up, Yarua,” he yelled up the ladder as he followed his Wookiee co-pilot into the cockpit. “Let’s get the hell off this planet!”

Yarua barked as he set his massive bulk into the co-pilot’s seat, the chair protesting under the strain. Ayo slumped down beside him, the ship’s systems flickering into life with bleeps and whirrs as the pair of them urgently set to work.

“I think this ship’s brand new,” said Ayo as they powered up the engines. He sniffed the air. Although the cockpit was set out in much the same way as that of the Red Planet, there was none of the ‘lived in’ look about it. The ship smelled new, and some of the seats were still coated with plastic wrapping.

“Still,” Ayo continued, “seems pretty straight forward.” He turned to Yarua and grinned. “Just think of it as a clean version of the Planet.” Ayo winced. Although he was hiding it from Sarolyn, his shoulder was still causing agony. He peered at a scanner screen.

“Shields up, Yarua,” he said as the ship began to rise. “We don’t want to damage Her Ladyship’s starship, do we?” Outside, Japhta’s skiff had arrived, her troops piling out of the vessel.

Sarolyn and Neema were having problems of their own. Japhta’s huge securitech droid had emerged from its holding room and was hovering before them in her luxury cabin. The droid raised its twin blasters at the two girls as it glided towards them. Neema raised her hand and its restraining bolt flew from its chest and landed in her palm. The droid fell, short-circuiting, to the floor in a cloud of smoke.

“So much for security!” said Sarolyn as they raced to join Ayo in the cockpit.

“Deactivate the shield and alert the fighters!” shouted an enraged Japhta as her personal starship drifted towards the open sky. She would have been reluctant to admit it, but she was fully prepared to sacrifice her favourite ship for Darth Rakshas.

Japhta scanned the hangar. Most of Naboo’s allocation of F-wings were in use, strafing the Gungans into submission. Beyond the remaining Falcons, a solitary fighter lay parked in its bay, its systems tended to by a gleaming P2 unit.

“Get your men and the Minister into the Falcons,” ordered Japhta to General Crouze as she ushered Cip Whyteleafe from the skiff. Crouze and his men piled into the two ships, frogmarching Whyteleafe up the ramp of the leading ship as Japhta took the controls of the skiff.

“When you’ve downed the Mill,” said Japhta into her wrist comm as she parked the skiff beside the fighter and leapt to the ground, “get Whyteleafe back to Coruscant. I’m going to Despayre. His Lordship needs me there at once.”

Japhta Fett climbed into the control pod of the F-wing and strapped herself in, dangling from the harness as if she were the pilot of a hang-glider. As the front dome slammed shut, she knew that her destiny as a Sith lay before her. It was time she showed the Jedi and the Federation the true power behind the Republic.

The F-wing began to float up and out of the hangar, passing the two remaining Falcons as they prepared for takeoff. She knew that this starfighter was twice as fast as her flagship, and she knew that Sarolyn was trying to get to Despayre to stop her. Japhta Fett would be waiting.

Forward to Chapter 37

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