Onward to the next chapter... thanks to Ameliaxox for the review and society-of-the-spectacle for the follow. I know this is going kind of slow, but I don't want Obi-Wan and Satine to hit it off right from the start, because I don't think that would fit their characters. Anyway, let me know how I'm doing guys. Enjoy.
A little over two hours later, both Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon emerged from different corners of the forest.
"Do you have an answer?" Qui-Gon asked his padawan.
"Yes, Master."
Qui-Gon looked back at Satine. "We're ready for your friend Casimir, Duchess."
When they reached Casimir, he had a wary look on his face. "Good. What did you find out, Master Jedi?"
"I do not possess the title of Master Jedi," Obi-Wan said. "Just 'Obi-Wan' will do." He straightened up. His eyes flickered to Satine for a moment. "You were right when you said the enemy is south of our current position. I think they are southwest actually, so we should go northeast from here. Someone is leading this group. I get the sense that it's a female warrior, but I could be wrong."
"Bo-Katan," Satine spat out bitterly. "Of course, who else?"
"Er, I guess; I don't know the name."
"Can we move now?" Casimir butted in. "Every minute we waste puts you all and the Duchess in more danger."
"How should we be moved, Casimir?" Satine asked.
He hesitated. "Do you want my honest opinion?"
"I respect your opinion," she said honestly.
"Sending a starship directly to your location is not a smart move, especially if the spy communicated anything to his superiors before he was caught. It's too obvious. We are in too rural an area."
"So we take a hike to a better location for pick-up," she finished.
"I do not see a better option."
Satine rubbed her forehead. She was sick and tired of this camping out in the middle of the woods while peacekeepers battled for ground control. "Fine."
"We should walk toward Bralsin," Qui-Gon interjected. "Any transportation from there would look much less suspicious."
"And unfortunately there is also a good chance there are enemies residing there," Casimir sighed. "Which means we will first have to come closer to them before speeding away. While I was waiting for our Jedi friends to come up with an answer, Strike spoke to me and he told me Bralsin transportation is up higher than usual. Which means there are probably a slew of Death Watch members who have just entered the area."
"Then we had best get walking," Satine said glumly.
There was a clap of thunder. Rain began to fall. Casimir looked at her sympathetically.
"Right," Casimir said. "You travel until you reach Bralsin. It is about fourteen kilometers from where you are. Stay on the outskirts once you get there. Comlink me. Keep your eyes and ears open."
The transmission was broken. No one of their party of eight complained over the fact their clothes were getting soaked and the rain was coming down harder and harder. The guards led the way in the direction toward Bralsin.
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan walked a bit behind her. She looked over her shoulder at Qui-Gon and said, "Nobody would blame you if you decided to forget us and go back to Coruscant once we reach Bralsin. I don't think you meant to sign up for backpacking in the woods."
She heard Obi-Wan chuckle, but Qui-Gon only assured her that walking and a bit of rain was not enough to make them run away.
Gage was an idiot. He had been drinking too much in one of the very few bars Bralsin offered. He was a rebel. A member of the Death Watch. Itching for a fight. Only eighteen years old. But he was ready to fight and die for his belief that Mandalorians should be warriors and not pacifists. And he knew the New Mandalorian leader - Kryze - was nearby. A spy had told them she was near Bralsin before he vanished completely. Gage knew the poor bastard wasn't dead - he would be still alive, because Kryze didn't let her fighters kill anyone. As he stumbled out of the bar, he laughed at this thought.
He decided he was going to find Kryze. He had no idea what direction from Bralsin she was in, but he was going to move northeast and defy Bo-Katan's orders to report back to her at 16:00. He was going to stroll the perimeter and kill Kryze if she stumbled his way. They knew it was highly likely that she and her guards would come into Bralsin, so maybe he would get lucky. In his drunk state of mind, he imagined his name all over headlines - Gage Rio Ends the Mandalorian Civil War.
As he reached the edge of the forest, he climbed up a tree and nearly broke his neck in the process because his coordination was not so good when he was drunk. He waited out of sight with a blaster in hand. Normally, he would aim for his enemy's head, but he was going to aim for her stomach if possible. He wanted her to feel pain before she died.
Satine handed both Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan a ration bar each. "Here," she said. "I imagine you're getting hungry."
Obi-Wan gave a hurried, "Thanks." He opened the wrapper and took a bite. It was a ration - nothing savory - but he was hungry enough to make it taste good.
"That's the clearing ahead," she told them. "That's where Bralsin begins. Farmland."
Both Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan halted at the same time. They looked at each other. Satine noticed their footsteps had stopped crunching behind her. She halted and looked back at them.
"What is it?" she asked.
Obi-Wan was scanning their surroundings. He ignited his lightsaber.
The humming was unnerving to her. "What is it?" she repeated.
Obi-Wan shook his head. "Don't move," he told her. He walked in front of her, his eyes scanning, while Qui-Gon stayed behind and looked back toward where they had been. Everyone ahead of them had walked on and were out of sight, too eager to reach their destination.
That was when she heard a blaster. A single shot ran toward her chest. Obi-Wan deflected it with his lightsaber before she could even register that she had been shot at.
A young man jumped down from a tree with his blaster in hand. He stumbled before making a run for her, firing his weapon. Obi-Wan deflected every shot. Qui-Gon ran forward and threw his lightsaber - the blade was green - at the man. The lightsaber swiped the lower part of the man's arm clean off - right in between his wrist and his elbow. The lightsaber landed some feet away in a pile of wet leaves. Gage fell onto his knees, shouting and staring at the stump where the rest of his arm had been.
Satine gasped and started running backward until she stumbled and fell onto the damp ground. Nothing of this scene made sense. She didn't know how the Jedi knew danger was near. She didn't know lightsabers could deflect blaster shots. She didn't know lightsabers could clean cut through someone without producing any blood. The sight of the man's lower arm and hand being cut off was far more disturbing to her than being shot at.
Qui-Gon's lightsaber flew back into his hand while Obi-Wan held his lightsaber at Gage's forehead. Gage was moaning over his arm.
"Duchess, it appears we have another... prisoner," she heard Qui-Gon saying with near indifference.
There were shots up ahead of them. Shouting.
"They've found the others," Obi-Wan said.
So this is it, she thought. Bo-Katan had found her at last.
"We need to move back," Qui-Gon said. "Now. Forget our prisoner."
"That way," Obi-Wan pointed. "Can you -?"
But Satine had already taken off in the direction Obi-Wan had pointed. She wasn't very fast and she had not run in a long time, but survival is a powerful motivator. She ran until Obi-Wan grabbed the hem of her shirt and dragged her down.
"Stop," he hissed. Her knees were bleeding, but she was too full of adrenaline to notice. "Get down under those bushes -"
The three of them crawled under some thick bushes in a clearing. It had thorns - why in the hell did it have to have thorns. All three of them were bleeding and covered in mud. It was like finally being the child she had never been allowed to be - the kind that got filthy and played spy in the neighbor's bushes. She didn't dare speak.
"One of them is coming closer," Qui-Gon said. "Whatever you do, don't move, don't sneeze, don't even breathe until we give the clear."
Her arms began to cramp and her fingers were becoming numb, but she did not change her position. They stayed like this for maybe five or six minutes - it became hard for her to judge time while she was in such an uncomfortable posture. Her arms began to tremble. Then they heard rustling to their left. She stopped breathing. A man in Mandalorian armor walked into their sight. Obi-Wan recognized the armor from pictures of Mandalorians in his textbooks and he felt a surge of adrenaline at the realization this was an ancient enemy of the Jedi. The man was carrying a blaster in his right hand. He slowly passed them by until he was out of sight and they could no longer hear his footsteps. She breathed again, but did not move. They stayed like this in silence for a while before Qui-Gon broke the silence.
"We'll stay here for a couple of hours. You can change positions," he said. "But I would rather not get into a confrontation with your friends if we can avoid it. We don't need a full-scale war to happen at Bralsin."
She moved her arms, but that was not much more comfortable. It was awkward with the three of them laying there like this in the mud. Qui-Gon was on her left while Obi-Wan was on her right. Obi-Wan moved so that he was lying on his side with his back toward her. He finally broke the silence with:
"I spy something that's green."
Qui-Gon sighed, clearly not amused. "Don't mind him, Duchess. He makes lame jokes every once in a while. Best to just ignore him."
She chuckled in spite of herself.
Four hours later, it was dark. They walked through the woods away from Bralsin. It had stopped raining. Obi-Wan's lightsaber was their only light. Satine felt utterly defeated. She tried her best not to think about the guards she had just lost. Undoubtedly, the rebels would have killed them while the spy Obi-Wan caught was now free to fight her again another day. She could only hope that their deaths had been quick. Obi-Wan said something, but she didn't pay any attention. Then when Qui-Gon never said anything back, she realized he had been talking to her.
"What? I'm sorry, I wasn't listening."
"How did you decide that you wanted to be Duchess of the New Mandalorians? Or was the choice just handed down to you?" Obi-Wan repeated.
She swallowed and said, "My family are... were... staunch pacifists. My father was the leader of Clan Kryze. When he was killed by the rebels, the New Mandalorians needed a new leader. I was just two months short of my fifteenth birthday, but... I had made a name of myself with my speeches, I was of his royal blood, and they looked for me to be that leader, so I was. Am."
Obi-Wan considered this in silence.
"My sisters," she went on, "are not really... suited to be the leader of Clan Kryze. So half the way, the title fell to me through blood and circumstance, and the other half through my own determination... So, how did you decide you wanted to be a Jedi?" she asked.
A small smile flickered across Obi-Wan's face in the blue light. "I did not ever make that decision, Duchess. One cannot simply go up to the Jedi Temple and apply for a master. Jedi are selected just months after birth and raised in the Temple after they turn two or three. One can always quit, but very few do. So it completely was determined for me by circumstance, but I'm very glad it was."
"Oh?" she said, looking over at him quizzically. "And how is it decided who qualifies to be a Jedi and who doesn't?"
"Midi-chlorian counts by taking blood," he explained. "Only those with a very high count can be a Jedi."
Every time she thought she would receive an answer that would help her better understand the Jedi, the more mysterious they became.
"Mid-chlorians," Qui-Gon broke in, "are also the answer to your earlier question, Duchess. About how meditation tells us what we should do. Midi-chlorians live in our cells. They tell us what to do. Whisper it. They build the bridge between us and the Force."
"I don't understand," she admitted.
"Who does?" Obi-Wan murmured.
She looked back at his face, illuminated blue from the humming lightsaber. Their eyes met and then both quickly looked away.
When Casimir was finally able to rescue the three of them, they were starving, dirty, and bloody. He was convinced their ship would be noticed, but he did not see any better alternative. This game had gone on long enough. Satine was actually shaking from hunger. They were given food on the starship and they were able to clean themselves in the 'freshers. She was given new clothes while a peacekeeper fussed over her bloody knees as if she was made of fine china.
"I'm fine," she insisted heavily. "Just let me be."
When she emerged clean and fed, she saw Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan both talking to Casimir with deep intent as they stood in the dining hall. It had been weeks since she had last seen Casimir in person. He caught her eye, smiled, and gave her a little bow. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan both looked at her briefly. Qui-Gon looked away back at Casimir, but Obi-Wan's eyes rested on her. She looked infinitely better now that she wasn't dirty and bloody. She walked over to them.
"Do I even want to know the latest news?" she asked Casimir.
"Not bad actually, except for the disaster that you experienced," he told her. "We gained ground west of Sundari... Not quite into the city yet, but almost. Once we get Sundari, we can turn to the battle in space. Until then," he explained to Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, "there is no sense in taking on the greater Mandalorian Sector. It would be utter folly to think we can do that without having the capital of this planet first... It's late, you all should get some sleep."
She knew Obi-Wan's eyes were still on her. "You require sleep too, Casimir, you know," she said. "Unless you've been a droid all along."
"Some days I wish I was one," he replied. "Then I could just power down and recharge when my energy is too low. By the way, our friend confirms it was Bo-Katan's men that attacked near Bralsin."
"Of course it was," Satine said loftily. She tried to brush this off, but she still felt like a stone had just been dropped into her stomach. "As I said earlier, who else could it have been?"
Okay, so what I don't get is that Obi-Wan acted like he didn't know who the Death Watch were in The Clone Wars, yet on Wookieepedia it says it was the Death Watch who were fighting Satine at the time Obi-Wan was there on the extended mission, so... IDK. I guess it was pretty awkward when they were talking for the first time in like 15 years, so maybe they decided to pretend they didn't really know each other. Anyone have any answers?
