Jedi Fugitive (The Bad Batch)

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A/N: Woah, I know right. Three parts? Well, it's the 21st, which is the day the Bad Batch drops, so in honour of a three episode premiere, I posted three chapters. Hope you enjoyed!

Astera:

"What the hell's a Zillo Beast?"

"Very big, very tough. Even lightsabers can't cut through that hide!" The Zillo Beast in question roared at the sky again and Hunter yanked the Marauder's controls back before we could collide with it, only for the creature to swing its spiked tail into the side of the ship.

The Marauder jarred violently, scraping against the tops of the trees before Hunter was able to regain control and send it soaring after the Zillo Beast again. "Stop it before it gets any larger!" He yelled at Wrecker, still firing on the beast from the gunner's mount.

"I'm trying!"

Memories flashed in my mind, the Zillo Beast on Coruscant squealing in pain as blaster fire found purchase in the chinks of its impenetrable armour, the capsules of poison gas distilled from Malastarian fuel to finally subdue it. "Aim for the gaps in its armour! Those are its weak spots!"

"How do we take it down?" Hunter demanded, forcing the ship to swerve around another swipe from the Zillo Beast, the creature enraged at having its meal interrupted yet again.

"We used stun tanks to put the last one to sleep on Malastare." I hadn't been there personally, but Anakin had told me all about it after its tragic death on Coruscant. But I had seen the gas they had used to take down the Zillo Beast in the end. "And poison gas made from Malastarian fuel to kill it on Coruscant. But we don't have either of those right now!" Not that it would matter anyway - several more blips appeared on Hunter's radar, ships by the look of it, and closing in fast.

"We've got ships on our tail!" Hunter was forced to pull the ship up abruptly as cannon fire exploded around us, the Imperials' ships focused entirely on driving us away from the Zillo Beast rather than containing it themselves. Gonky was knocked off his feet, the droid honking in agitation and his stumpy legs wiggling uselessly in the air.

"Where did they come from?" Wrecker shouted wildly, too stunned to return fire on the Imperials chasing us. Only four of them had broken off to engage us - half the rest had gone for the Zillo Beast, the other half in the direction of the crashed ship. Where Tech and Omega were still investigating.

I fumbled for the comm button at my vambrace, half yelling in my panic as Hunter threw the ship's lever forward, accelerating it even further. "Tech, Omega, you've got Imperials inbound. Get out of there!"

"On our way!" Omega replied immediately. By now Wrecker had recovered enough to start blasting back at the Imperials, clipping the wing of a ship and sending it spiralling into the squadron of V-wing starfighters attempting to intercept us from the front as Hunter hauled the ship upwards again to dodge them. The damaged ship and the V-wing it crashed into both hurtled into the mountainside above the village, briefly illuminating the people below, running in panic and hurriedly searching for safe cover from the firefight in the air above them. A twinge of regret shot through me at the sight - the last thing these villagers had been expecting was a battle right above their home, which was now being destroyed, by the Zillo Beast and us.

"We need to get away from the village." Hunter nodded briefly at my words and directed the ship towards the forest again, circling around to dodge the next round of cannon fire from the gunships still on us. Below, a ship nearly identical to the one that had crashed loomed over the Zillo Beast, firing some kind of ray that clearly seemed to affect it - the Beast screeched in pain and whipped its head around, only to be met with a second blast that knocked it off the now destroyed power generator.