CORUSCANT SPACE - 19 BBY
The
Invisible Hand
, a Providence-class dreadnought and the flagship of General Grievous, Dooku's droid protégée and the Separatist's chief military strategist, fled Coruscant just as fast her sublight engines would carry her, pursued by Jedi fighters and Republic battleships desperate to catch up before she reached open space and jumped to lightspeed. Vulture droids poured like a swirling cauldron of death from her ample hangar bays, while her turbolasers blasted away at anyone unfortunate enough to get too close. Anything to protect her prize: a prisoner so important his fate alone could well decide the outcome of the war.
Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.
Luckily for him, one tiny ship managed to evade the vulture droids and turbolasers, Jedi Master Shaak Ti shedding her robe as she jogged barefoot out of the hangar bay (for better traction) and left behind a pile of destroyed battle droids. A Togruta, a holomodel-tall humanoid alien, she had ample breasts and the slender, well-toned body of a professional athlete, her supple red skin gleaming with sweat as she jogged down the corridors, her big purple eyes on the lookout for any sign of the Chancellor. Instead of hair she sported two great white montrals (hollow, cone-like horns protruding from the top of her head), as well as a thick gray headtail hanging down her taut back, with two shorter, slenderer tails dangling from the sides of her head where a human's ears would be. Combined with the large oval patches of white skin around her colorful eyes, she looked more like Naboo's Queen wearing one of her ridiculous headdresses than a member of the revered High Council. Or, as Depa Billaba liked to say, a beautiful flower that had sprung legs and breasts.
Even with Force-enhanced speed she almost didn't react in time, hurrying around a corner to find the sparking end of an electrostaff swinging toward her face with skull-crushing strength. Drawing on her stripper-like flexibility, she bent backwards and just barely dodged the attack, her feet flying into the air as she flowed into a forward-moving backflip. She snapped her lightsaber on in mid-air, the blue laser blade flashing as several attackers rushed her before she even landed.
MagnaGuards—four of them.
Taller even than her, the gray humanoid battle droids moved like lightning and wielded lightsaber-resistant staffs that made them so formidable even seasoned Masters dreaded facing them. Grievous's personal bodyguards, it was a testament to her reputation that he had sent
them
to delay her instead of the usual army of spindly droids she would have cut through like a hot knife through jizz butter.
Delay
. If they didn't actually succeed at cutting her down as they had so many Jedi before her, which wasn't as ludicrous these days as it might once have seemed. A dark shroud had descended over the Jedi after Geonosis, making it difficult to fully utilize the light side of the Force. Here on the
Invisible Hand
, it had become much more than a shroud—it was like being blindfolded in the dark with stun-cuffs around her wrists and ankles.