Before the Throne
Chapter 7
"Well, I suppose we're even now….I saved your life, you saved mine."
"Yes, but mine was the more daring rescue of the two."
-Satine Kryze and Obi Wan Kenobi
Satine lay curled in a ball, her limbs weighted with misery. The cell had grown chill, but she barely noticed. To have come this far….to be within reach of victory, of peace…and to fall so precipitously into an abyss, a trap laid by those she thought were trustworthy: it was too cruel. Her year of exile had been in vain; she would as well have died in the first wave of civil war, have fallen to the first mercenary sent to kill her. Why had the Jedi suffered so much on her account if their labors were to end thus, in ignominious defeat? Why had fate ever brought them into her life at all? Why had it ever brought him into her life?
The door opened, and Besh Kevvla once more stood over her. She did not open her eyes. Vile, murdering slime. He was beneath her notice.
But he was also a man accustomed to having his way. He yanked her upright, hands crushing her arms as he twisted her into a sitting position, smiling coldly at her sharp intake of breath, her furious scowl. "Wake up, my lady," he said. "There is an important function which you must attend."
She stumbled to her feet, helpless in his iron grip. "What do you mean?" she demanded, attempting to regain her dignity.
Kevvla's grey eyes burned with pleasure. "A funeral," he announced. "A Jedi funeral."
Her knees gave way, but Kevvla held her against himself, his breath hot on her face. "Are you familiar with their customs? They preserve an ancient and somewhat barbaric practice – but I thought it would be respectful to observe their ways. I've had my men build a pyre in the courtyard. I know you will wish to be a witness."
He was dead. It was impossible, and yet Kevvla's cold, cold eyes held an unflinching hatred. Envy. Maddened bloodlust. He was dead – and therefore she was dead, a mere husk of a woman, bones and blood and thoughts a hollow echo of life, a puppet which would totter forward a few more paces before it fell to dust and was blown away on the hot wind. Dead, unseeing, she straightened. There was nothing more to lose. She regarded the demonic man before her with the absolute contempt of the deceased for the living. Kevvla was nothing, less than nothing.
"Unhand me," she snarled. "I will come." She could do that much for him before she crumbled into nothingness. He would have done the same for her.
Kevvla's smile was a thin knife, twisting in an open wound. She walked beside him, her pace steady, her face impassive, her heart utterly destroyed, already reduced to ephemeral ashes.
It took hours to evacuate the court from the bomb shelter beneath the Halls of Honor. When all the councilors and elders had at last been rescued, and guided through the makeshift tunnel, they opted to return to the palace, where crowds still swelled and clamored. The recent bombings had thrown the already dispirited city into greater confusion. Fear and hope mingled uneasily, two dangerous emotions tainting the Force with volatile sparks of heat and light. A riot might break out at any moment; Mandalore had lived with war and destruction for too long. Its people knew little else.
The Jedi master led the way forward, to the grand entrance. Here the gathered people parted, unconsciously, allowing the grim figure and his retinue of Mandalorian nobles to pass. Whispers and murmurs grew to a steady rumble, and then to shouting. By the time Almeck, Ceot, and the others had attained the top of the ceremonial stairwell, the crowd was moving again, calling for news, for blood.
"People of Mandalore!" Almeck called out. His voice was deep and commanding. "Peace! Hear me!"
The shouting and jostling died down; a heavy expectancy settled over the gathered citizenry. Grave faces strained to hear what the governor might say.
"Our struggle is not yet over," Almeck cried out. "The enemies of Mandalore – the tyrants who ruled here but yesterday – have fled. We are free of their terror. But we must have peace. We are a constitutional monarchy. Let us abide by our laws- the laws we chose for ourselves."
A voice called out from the back of the assembly, carried clear on the cresting silence. "What of the Duchess Satine? Is she dead?"
Almeck faltered and looked to Qui Gon for a moment. The Jedi shook his head, once.
"It matters not," Almeck responded, boldly. "The Duchess wished for peace. Let us fulfill her dying wish. The court will gather and elect a new ruler from our ranks, and the ranks of the old families. Order must be restored. The war must end."
There was a cheer and a new outbreak of shouting and jumbled speech. The court made it into the stronghold of the palace safely, leaving the seething and unruly crowd outside.
"There is much to be done," Almeck sighed. "I do not know who among us can shoulder this burden. Mandalore must be rebuilt form the ground up."
Qui Gon nodded solemnly. "First, governor, we must face the threat that still exists. I sense that we are all in grave danger yet."
Almeck held his gaze steadily. "Come," he said quietly. "We must make ready."
In the courtyard, half-shadowed by the ragged edge of the broken dome overhead, Kevvla's men had indeed built a tall funeral pyre- a flat rectangle of stone surrounded, piled, seemingly upheld, by dead boughs and fragments of wood. Where in all of barren Mandalore they had collected so much dry kindling, Satine could not imagine. Perhaps this settlement had once sheltered an agricultural concern, and they had plundered the withering corpses of its orchards.
Kevvla stood beside her, one commanding hand still gripping her arm. They occupied a small balcony, a few stories above the bare expanse of duracrete below. From this vantage point they enjoyed a fine view of the proceedings. Against her will, Satine's eyes lingered on the pyre, as though she were herself laid out upon it, lifeless and cold. If only it were so, and not thus: hers was the worse part. To have perished would have been far kinder.
As though reading her thoughts, Kevvla tightened his grip and whispered in her ear. "Look well, my lady. You are next to enjoy this honor….unless you wish to reconsider my offer."
"I will never yield, you contemptible traitor."
"We shall see," he growled. There was a stirring in the shadows of the courtyard opposite. "Here they come." He nodded in the direction of the motion, at the ranks of warriors emerging from the arched opening below. Two men bearing flame-throwers came first, and then two more, marching stiffly behind. Then, out of the shadows, another pair appeared, dragging a limp and bloodied form between them.
Satine gasped, clutched at the railing. Kevvla sneered, darkly amused. The beaten figure raised its head, looking straight across the wide space into the balcony, and then turned toward the pyre heaped in the courtyard's center.
"Obi Wan!" Satine struggled wildly against Kevvla, her dull mind suddenly, painfully revived, her hollowed and empty soul abruptly set into blazing life once again. He was not dead; and so, neither was she. And then realization dawned, more awful than the first, devastating falsehood. Kevvla meant to go through with the so-called funeral. He had planned this from the start. "You cannot!" she screamed at him, her barely- healed heart shattering anew. "No! This is unspeakable evil! You must not!"
But Kevvla 's eyes were without mercy. He raised a hand in signal, and the guards continued dragging their prisoner forward, ascending the piled branches and tinder, dropping the captive heavily upon the slab at the top. He struggled to rise, pushing up on weary arms, but one of the Mandalorians kicked him hard in the ribs, and he sprawled backward again, supine. The fire-starters stood at attention, ready to drench the fuel-soaked wood with spouts of flame.
"No…" Satine's breath fled. Her heart clamored for release from its cage. No. No. She could not watch this. How could this be happening? She turned to Kevvla, ready to beg, to drop upon her knees, to yield whatever he wished. Behind his eyes was the soulless, howling maw of war without beginning or end, of limitless hatred. He looked down greedily upon her, pushing his cape aside with an elegant gesture.
At his belt hung a lightsaber, trophy of this, his grisly victory.
Below, the armored guards were busily securing the prisoner's legs, each ankle shackled to the slab of stone. There was a tussle, as the Jedi fought off their attempts to similarly bind his arms. One man went flying off the heap, scattering wood as he tumbled down the incline. The other sailed through the air, landing on the cracked pavement with a groan and a cry of pain.
Satine pressed close to Kevvla, pleading. He started in surprise, in pleasure, in victory.
"Besh," she moaned, one hand on his face, the other sliding down his breatsplate…lower…lower…
He gripped her about the waist. His hand crawled along her body, possessive, lusting. "I knew you would come to me in the end," he murmured. His touch burned.
Her hand reached the saber hilt; her fingers closed about it.
She raised her lips to his ear. "I will never yield to you," she hissed– yanking the 'saber free, twisting her body to one side, sending the weapon spiralling out in to space, across the courtyard, in a gleaming arc.
Besh Kevvla stood frozen for a moment, watching the weapon begin to fall, change direction slightly, fly in a too-straight line into the outstretched hand of the Jedi below. The guards leapt into action, and Kevvla turned upon the Duchess with the fury of his whole race. "You damnable, filthy little harlot!" he snarled, lifting her off the floor, above his head. She kicked and writhed, but he stepped forward with a howl of rage and sent her plummeting over the edge, to her death.
"The warning was clear," Qui Gon told the court. "He mentioned a place called Belsaac. Does this name mean anything to you?"
The elder named Celot spoke. "Alas, yes," he replied. "Though many have forgotten it. Before the civil wars which reduced us to the condition you see, Master Jedi, our world was a center of trade, of culture. Our engineers especially were renowned, though we have always guarded our secrets carefully."
Qui Gon nodded. This much he knew already.
"Below the surface of the planet are rich stores of natural fuel. Themane, and other substances. They exist in subterranean pockets, both liquid and gaseous depoits under pressure. Naturally one of our engineering masterpieces was the development of mining equipment to extract these resources. Some of the outlying towns were erected solely as mining operations. You can see the remnants of protective domes on the horizon if you use macrobinoculars. They are scattered throughout this continent particulary. Belsaac was one of these."
"Is it still in operation?" the Jedi asked.
Celot laughed grimly. "No, indeed. During the first air strikes, mining centers were targeted. The disruption of fuel supplies was a strategic key. Aerial bombardment often resulted in a fissure – the pressurized fuel deposits exploded, usually taking the whole town with them. Belsaac was lucky. Since its supply had been nearly exhausted already, the damage was minimal. Only three fourths the population was lost. Half the dome survived, and some of the buildings. But it has been abandoned to the elements for many long years."
Qui Gon frowned over this news. "I do not think it is truly abandoned," he mused. "If Kubrec heard rightly, the insurgents are using Belsaac as a base. What I do not understand is why they would withdraw to their fortress when they have the upper hand here. It makes no sense."
"Be assured there is a reason," Almeck sighed. "No Mandalorian surrenders or withdraws unless he is dead."
The Force did not hold any ready answers; all it whispered to Qui Gon's inner ear was that danger was already upon them, insidious and inevitable. His flesh crawled.
A messenger entered the private chamber – a youth from one of the ruling houses, a boy no more than fourteen. His pale face was an unnatural white. "My lords," he addressed the court. "A communication from Aurrick Tor, their leader. He has sent a holo to the court. Here it is."
The boy held out a slightly trembling hand, on which rested a projector plate. The blue image sputtered and resolved into the faceless figure of a Mandalorian elite warrior, clad in full traditional armor. A half cape draped over his right side.
"Leaders of the usurpation," this man said, his gravelly voice ringing off the chamber's high ceiling. "I give you one planetary rotation to surrender completely. If you do not comply, the entire capitol will be destroyed, with all those who dwell therein. DO not doubt my words- I have never yet failed to deliver a promise to a foe. The Jedi and all the members of the court will present themselves unarmed at the west entrance to the city. My men will be waiting. If you do not show, or if any of you offers resistance, then I bid you farewell. May the nine hells consume your dishonored souls forever."
A stunned silence followed in the wake of this deathly pronouncement. Qui Gon's hand tightened around his saber hilt. Force help us all, he thought.
The lightsaber landed in his palm, and his fingers closed hard about it. No longer desperate, no longer aching, no longer defeated, he felt the Force surge through him like liquid fire, pure and bright. The blade leapt into life, and he leapt with it. Hands reached for him; the saber flashed. A blaster shot careened toward his heart; it shattered on the burning blue blade, a spatter of red. Two downward strokes; the chains around his ankles fell away. He soared upward as twin streams of fire jetted from the flame-throwers. He reached through the Force, the roaring, blazing sea of light, and found Satine, hurtled toward her, collided with her in mid-air, snatched her from death, landed skidding on the hard tiles of the courtyard.
He was burning without pain. He had no strength of his own at all – this was nothing but borrowed luminosity. Perhaps he was dead, after all, and now existed only as an empty vessel of the living Force; surely there was no Obi Wan left, only this endless rush of light. His saber moved, without his will, without his thought. He didn't even count the number of foes, see their armor, their weapons, their running feet. Satine clung to him, a vine curled about its tree, a bird held aloft on the wind, a star pendant in its celestial orb. Half-drunk on his own exhaustion, on the limitless strength flooding through him without control, without moderation, he fought with a calm ferocity he had not thought possible, with total abandon, with no restraint. He knew this to be dangerous- and yet he felt no fear, no hesitation.
A hailfire of blaster bolts descended upon them – he batted them away, saber moving in one unbroken blur of speed. Pavement cracked; portions of the far wall splintered and fell; stone and grit erupted in clouds of dust and falling shrapnel. The air was heated with plasma, rang with the hum of his blade. He looked up, spotted the balcony and Kevvla, felt death closing in below. The flame throwers approached, ready to spout sweeping tongues of fire. He seized Satine and jumped.
Even as he cleared the railing, Kevvla was moving to intercept him. Something hard struck him in the ribs; Satine was knocked out of his grip; he fell sprawling on the balcony's floor. He rolled as Kevvla's foot swept toward his head. A Force-push slammed the Mandalorian into the railing. A blaster bolt pinged off the blade's edge at point blank range, tracing a searing burn across the outside of his thigh. He swept up, attacked, cut the weapon in half. Kevvla's armor stopped the blow, catching the powerful strike on a curved shoulder-plate. Kevvla staggered under the force of the blow, but struck his foe in the knee, sending him backward with a cry. He unsheathed a throwing shiv, fingered its narrow hilt. Obi Wan scrabbled for Satine, hauled her upright, ducked as the knife whizzed past his ear. His blade came down again, driving Kevvla back, screeching hideously against he scarred beskar breatsplate. Kevvla stumbled back one pace, hissed, twisted about.
"Run!" Obi Wan gasped at Satine, and they pelted through the interior door, into a wide hall surrounded by arched windows. Kevvla came flying after them, rage and spite leering at them, emblazoned on his armor, in the face of the ravenous skeletal beast painted thereon. The Force roared and surged – a window shattered into fragments, exploding into the air in a hurricane of power. Obi Wan dived through the opening, Satine still wrapped tight around him. They fell, turned over once, landed on a sloping surface, slid downward. A skylight approached; his saber spun and flashed, the panes splintered, and they dropped through, jagged shards biting into his arms as he flew past the opening.
Kevvla's footsteps echoed harshly on the roof above. They spun around, panting. Here, lined in neat rows, were small craft – scoops, speeder bikes, freight carriers, ships of elegant design. Obi Wan pushed Satine toward the nearest one, leapt into the seat. A speeder bike - Mandalorian designed. Fast, maneuverable, powerful, versatile. He grinned.
"Obi Wan!"
Kevvla dropped through the broken skylight behind them, snarling. The young Jedi wasted no time. He jammed the ignition switch, opened the throttle, revved the drives, and lifted the bike off the ground. Kevvla dashed for a second bike. They drove toward the hangar doors, toward a solid panel of durasteel. Obi Wan summoned the Force – the ocean swelling around him, inside him- and wrenched the panels open a scant meter. They sped through, the intakes scraping and spitting sparks against the edges as they shot past.
The city was a ruins – a tumbled mass of broken stone, of blasted and blackened remnants. The bike was light, responsive. It obeyed his very touch, and he obeyed the Force. They swooped, dodged, wove a maddened path through the ubiquitous destruction. The whine of a second vehicle hounded them, and soon enough streaking shafts of heat and light clipped past them, narrowly missing them, exploding into half-crumbled walls and showering them with rubble.
"Kevvla!" Satine shouted.
Obi Wan gritted his teeth, pulled in the Force, deeper, deeper…it was in his marrow, blinding him, consuming him. He was going to melt into light and dissolve in radiance, utterly die. He didn't care. He welcomed it. The Force filled him, overflowed, guided his hands, his body. They dove and spun and sped, avoiding the deadly projectiles, evading the crazed Mandalorian warrior. The split hemisphere of the shattered protective dome loomed ahead. Past fear, past caution, Obi Wan pushed the bike faster and faster, wrenched it upward at the last moment. It followed the curve of the dome, streaking upward along the inside curve. Kevvla followed, his own machine no less agile. They ascended, dizzily, almost inverted, their speed keeping them pressed to the dome's cracked surface.
Kevvla drew nearer, nearer. Obi Wan stood, releasing the controls, trusting the Force. His saber blazed. Kevvla drew nearer. He was alongside them, upon them. The saber flashed, carving a long scar across one of Kevvla's intakes. An explosion, a trail of smoke; they careened downward, along the dome. Swooping back toward the ground, Kevvla leapt clear of his dying mount, tumbled through the air, hit a rooftop. The bike skittered, spun, crashed into another ruined building, erupted into flame and flying debris.
Obi Wan dropped back down, seized the shuddering controls, jerked them back around and over the gutted cityscape. A fissure in the dome lay ahead – laying on speed, he shot through it, through the massive walls and into the clear open air.
Mandalore's angry barren wilderness spread before them. Within his bones, his blood, the Force shimmered, and the last dregs of his strength fluttered into ash within its infinite blaze of light. Behind him, wrapped around him, pressed against him, was Satine. His lady. They were alive. They soared over the endless stretches of rock and dust, the hot wind scorching over faces and hands, tearing at singed clothing. Death dropped away in the distance, forgotten in the rush of freedom, of speed, of light.
For the first and last time in his life, Obi Wan loved flying.
