INT. BATTLEMOON/SGW-0027’S CABIN
Sigeu is her cabin. Having discarded her robes and niqab for the final time, she dons her armour. As it is with the shocktroopers, her armour consists of white plasteel worn over a white jumpsuit. Unlike the shocktroopers, however, her uniform comes complete with a white tabard and cloak worn over the armour. Her helmet, too, is different from theirs; it sports a T-shaped visor and pronounced neck guard.
Just as she prepares to slip the helmet on, her door BUZZES.
SGW-0027: (turns toward door) Come.
The door opens and Thex enters the cabin. He, too, has put on the armour of their class save for the helmet, which rests tucked in beneath his arm.
SGW-0027: (approaches THX-1138) Our ascension is almost at hand. You feel it?
THX-1138: Yes.
SGW-0027: After we’ve seized command of the Supremacy, what shall be our first order of business?
THX-1138: First we reverse the mutilation wreaked upon us, then we make love – love and a child.
They share a passionate kiss before donning their white helmets.
INT. BATTLEMOON – MONTAGE
The Jedi head on towards the Overbridge. They pass several beige-and-white-garbed clones on the way, but none see through their disguises.
INT. BATTLEMOON/OVERBRIDGE
The Jedi finally enter the Overbridge.
Now standing in amongst the clones on the Overbridge, the major flaw in the bold Imperial plan is uncovered. The Jedi may have disguised themselves as clones, but not these clones. These clones, bred to fulfill different duties than those clones the Jedi have patterned themselves after, were grown from different templates. The intruders stand out like sore thumbs and the clones, accustomed to the strict uniformity of their regulated lives, immediately take notice of their presence.
Noticing the unfamiliar faces from atop the command platform, UIY-2140 steps down to confront them.
UIY-2140: You are not assigned to the Overbridge. Explain your presence here.
OBI-WAN: We’re maintenance.
UIY-2140: No maintenance checks have been scheduled. Furthermore, you are not maintenance models.
TEYF BERAL: We’re new models!
JANO BERAL: Yes! Model BRLs!
UIY-2140: (frowns) You are defective. I will report this to the admiral.
As UIY-2140 turns to return to the command platform to report the “defective clones” to Sigeu, Obi-Wan raises his hand.
OBI-WAN: We are maintenance.
UIY-2140: You are maintenance.
OBI-WAN: A faulty transistor has been detected in the one of the terminals in the crew pit. We’re here to replace it.
UIY-2140: A faulty transistor has been detected in the one of the terminals in the crew pit. You’re here to replace it.
OBI-WAN: Return to your post and let us carry out our duties.
UIY-2140: I shall return to my post. Carry out your duties.
As the overseer returns to the command platform, the Jedi make their way down into the crew pit. The other clones, also having been affected by the Jedi’s mind trick, pay them no heed as they crowd in around one of the terminals.
Taking out his virus datacard, Obi-Wan slips it into a disc drive.
INT. KORRIBAN – GREAT TEMPLE/BURIAL CHAMBER – DAY
Like the rakghouls on Xuthltan, the tuk’ata are the products of Sith alchemy. Vaguely caninoid, the tuk’ata are oversized blue-black beasts, equipped with wicked claws, teeth, and crowns of poisonous stingers. While the bite and scratch of the tuk’ata isn’t as insidious as that of the rakghoul, the creatures themselves are just as vicious – and far quicker.
The dozens of Sith hounds converge on Anakin. Having retrieved his twin blasters, Anakin is already hard at working mowing down the beasts, dispatching as many as he can in a hail of blue blasterfire, but many of the tuk’ata – swift and cunning – slither out of his line of fire before he can even bring the barrels their way.
Working together, four of the tuk’ata decide to charge Anakin in tandem, each approaching him from different angles. Anakin manages to shoot down two of the beasts and send the third flying with a roundhouse kick, but the fourth takes him down, driving him into the floor and knocking the blasters out of his grasp.
Bearing its teeth wide, the tuk’ata lunges for the ex-Jedi’s throat. Throwing his forearm up, Anakin manages to position it between the beast’s jaws and his jugular. The hound’s three rows of teeth bury themselves deep into his forearm, breaking the skin and drawing pain, but the tough fabric of the light armour provides enough protection to keep the force of the tuk’ata’s jaws from crushing Anakin’s bones. Before the tuk’ata can change tactics, Anakin draws out his vibroblade. Engaging the vibrating blade, he buries it deep in the beast’s gullet.
Drawing himself back to his feet, cradling his injured arm close to his chest, bloody vibroblade clutched tightly in his other hand, Anakin is ready to continue fighting the tuk’ata. The tuk’ata, surrounding him on all sides and still legion in number, are all too ready to continue fighting him.
MARKA RAGNOS: (O.S.) That will suffice.
Hearing the voice of the Lord, the tuk’ata begin slowly backing away from Anakin. Red eyes still thirsty for blood, the Sith hounds disappear into the shadows.
MARKA RAGNOS: That was the trial of skill and tenacity. You have passed it, Skywalker.
ANAKIN: Then I have proven myself? You will train me in the ways of the Sith?
MARKA RAGNOS: (O.S.) You have proven worthy to proceed. It was but the first trial.
Before Anakin can begin an argument, the floor opens up beneath him, casting him into a deep abyss.
INT. BATTLEMOON/OVERBRIDGE/CREW PIT
The Jedi wait by the terminal, waiting for the virus to finish uploading.
OBI-WAN: It shouldn’t be long now….
INT. BATTLEMOON/SGW-0027’S OFFICE
Thex and Sigeu are seated in her office.
SGW-0027: Something’s wrong. (beat) Something’s amiss.
INT. BATTLEMOON/OVERBRIDGE/CREW PIT
Information begins scrolling across the terminal screen.
OBI-WAN: (grins) The shutdown codes are being transmitted! The inter-field generators are powering down!
INT. BATTLEMOON/SGW-0027’S OFFICE
SGW-0027: I sense a presence. (beat) Intruders.
Bolting out her chair, Sigeu leaves the office. Thex follows her.
INT. BATTLEMOON/OVERBRIDGE
Coming out onto the command platform, Sigeu looks down over the Overbridge. Eyes centering on the crew pit, she spies the unfamiliar faces crammed in around the terminal.
SGW-0027: (points at the Jedi) It’s them! Stop them!
INT. BATTLEMOON/OVERBRIDGE/CREW PIT
The interdiction zone nullified, the virus proceeds onto its second directive. In microseconds it erases the battlemoon’s operating system, causing all the craft’s systems – including those responsible for illumination and artificial gravity – to shut down permanently.
SEV BERAL: Now for us to return to the Troia’s Steed.
Taking advantage of the zero g environment, the Jedi leap right up out of the crew pit. Activating the magnetic soles of their boots, they come right down on the deck. Taking out their lightsabers, they make a run for it.
CUT TO
Sigeu and Thex floating above the command platform.
Activating the magnetic soles in their own boots, they return to the deck.
SGW-0027: (contemptuous) Jedi….
INT. KORRIBAN – GREAT TEMPLE/SHAFT – DAY
Anakin collapses into a dark shaft. Aligned diagonally, the shaft propels Anakin downward on a steep but safe angle. Throwing out his arms and legs, Anakin tries to stop or slow his descent, but the steep angle combined with the slick texture of the stone allows him no grip to purchase; he continues his downward slide unimpeded.
INT. OUBLIETTE/TUNNEL OF FORKING PATHS – DAY
Anakin finally emerges from the shaft. Standing up, he finds himself in a narrow tunnel. While the walls of the tunnel, lit with wall sconces, are of brown stone, the floor is coated in a uniformly black, perfectly non-reflective substance; it gives the unsettling impression that one is walking over an empty void.
Setting forward, Anakin soon comes to a fork in the tunnel; two paths are set before him, left and right, with no distinctions between the two, nothing to indicate which path is the one he should take. Shrugging, he chooses the one on the right.
Three steps along this new path, Anakin suddenly drops, finding that the floor has disappeared beneath him. Twisting around, he manages to grab hold of the edge he walked over, preventing a plummet which almost certainly would’ve led to his demise. Clawing his way back up, Anakin goes back and makes the left turn.
Very soon the young man comes to another fork in the path. This time there are three paths to choose from. Cautiously, Anakin inches his way through the forward path. When it becomes apparent that there’s no bottomless pit this way, Anakin sighs with relief and presses on. The former Jedi doesn’t get to revel in his relief, for he soon comes to a dead end. As he comes to the dead end, a stone door begins sliding down from the ceiling behind him, threatening to seal the passage and entomb him.
Opening himself to the Force, Anakin draws on it to boost his speed. Moving faster than any average Human could hope to move, he manages to just barely make it past the stone door.
Returning to where he was, Anakin stands there a moment, working to figure out which of the remaining paths to take. If he makes the wrong choice, he could fall into another bottomless pit. Even if he avoids that fate, another stone door could slide down, leaving him trapped with no way out. Anakin then realizes what he must do. Closing his eyes, he opens himself to the Force. Reaching out with his extra senses, he feels his way through both paths, seeking to intuit the safe route. His feelings telling him to go right, he goes right.
Anakin repeats this process five more times, each time coming to yet another fork with yet another extra path to choose from. Using the Force, he chooses the correct path each and every time until he finally makes it to the exit.
INT. OUBLIETTE/ANTECHAMBER-- DAY
Exiting the tunnel of forking paths, Anakin then finds him within an antechamber. Beyond the antechamber is a large, complex labyrinth.
MARKA RAGNOS: (O.S.) You have passed the trial of intelligence and intuition. (beat) Now for this, your final trial.
On the other side of the antechamber directly opposite Anakin, a hidden door opens. As it is slowly drawn upward, thick mist begins to billow out from a secret chamber.
ANAKIN: (afraid) No ….
Mist rolls out and spreads itself thin across the stone floor as the occupant of the chamber emerges. Seven feet tall, clad in chitinous black organic armour, the creature is humanoid, its original species and sex indeterminate. Its pallid cheeks have been slit open, the flesh peeled back to give it an everlasting Glasgow smile. Likewise its eyelids have been slit open and pinned back, allowing the piercing blue eyes to roll around their sockets in perpetual surprise. Opening its mouth of yellow teeth, it sticks its tongue out; barbed wire has been woven into the maroon flesh. Reaching to a belt it has secured around its waist, the thing uncoils it. But it isn’t a belt; it is a serpentine creature, black-green in colour, the mouth of its spade-shaped head filled with needle teeth.
HISSING, the DAEMON OF THE LABYRINTH takes its first slow, laborious, thundering step towards Anakin. Reaching to his side, Anakin goes to unholster a blaster. Then he remembers that all his weapons have been lost to him, including the vibroblade.
Realizing he will have to depend on his skills alone to survive, Anakin dashes past the Daemon – avoiding a stream of venom projected from the serpent’s fangs – and into the labyrinth. Allowing the serpent weapon to coil around its left forearm, the Daemon gives chase.