Chapter 8: The Edge

"Mira!"

Her screams tore at his ears, ripped at his heart. Throughout the corridor the crackling of the lightning echoed, bouncing off the walls. Everything in him fought against Savage's death grip, but to no avail.

He would have to watch Mira die.

Sprinkled between the bursts of Maul's dark attack, Kyle made out Mira's signature desperately calling for help. Squirming in agony as she looked for an escape from the pain. Panicking when she realizes there was none.

Not unless Kyle could give her one.

Crying out as his shoulders twisted in the wrong direction, Kyle sent a foot backwards into Savage's knee. Savage crumpled to the ground with a stifled cry, and Kyle reached through the Force for his lightsaber.

"Let her go!" he howled, raising his weapon. Anger of a kind he'd never known overtook his mind.

Kill him, it boded. Kill him.

Maul sneered, released his prey, and turned to face the Kyle, chills shooting up his spine as Mauls' amber eyes seared a hole into him. He forced himself to meet them.

"Now you'll negotiate?" Maul said.

Kyle's brown eyes flicked to the limp, smoking heap on the ground in front of him. Panic surged inside him like water breaking a dam. This hadn't been the plan, and it certainly hadn't his intention. Bile slithered up the back of his throat.

That shouldn't have been her.

But he would get her out, somehow. Even if it killed him.

"Come now," Maul's voice was low. "You know what I need. And you've just now worked up the courage to give it to me." Maul now towered over Kyle. "So I suggest you speak now, boy, while I'm still feeling benevolent enough to listen to you."

From across the room, Mira cried out as she tried to stand. Kyle's voice failed him.

Maul whispered, "If you tell me where the others are, if you tell me where you've come from—why you're here—then I will spare her."

Kyle's heart thrashed in his chest.

"I will spare her." Maul straightened. Kyle didn't trust the softness in his voice. "And in so doing, I will spare you from the guilt of knowing her death—her pain—was caused by you."

Mira trembled on the floor, tears pouring down her face as she looked towards Kyle. He cast his eyes downward.

"Nothing will be able to save me from that," he said.

"It could." Maul almost sounded fatherly. "Tell me."

"K-Kyle," Mira coughs. "Don't—"

Maul wheeled on her, releasing another barrage of lightning from his fingertips.

"Too late, I suppose," he sneered, the intensity of the bolts surging from his hand increasing. "So, my pet," he demanded over the crackling. "How does it feel to know that he has abandoned you?"

Kyle charged. The Force picked him up mid-stride, hurtling him into a nearby wall and pinning him there. Savage frowned up at him from behind his massive outstretched hand.

"Commander Targon," Maul called, twisting to look Kyle dead in the eye. "You know you can stop this. I feel it within you. The raw power of your anger. It is there. Use it—embrace the fullness of your ability in the Force—and you can save her and yourself without dropping any secrets."

The crushing weight of the Force eased from around Kyle's broad shoulders. As if releasing a wild animal from its cage, Savage stepped backwards. Good thing he did.

Kyle would rip him apart if he got any closer. His eyes burned as if salt had been poured into them, the heat in his irises only angering him further.

Kyle called his lightsaber to his hand.

Kill him, the voice said again. Kill him now.

"Oooo," Maul laughed, a sneer contorting his face as he held up his hands in mock surrender. "I didn't think you'd actually do it, boy."

Maul looked him up and down, focusing in on his scowling face. "You even look the part."

Kyle, Mira's voice shook through the Force. Your eyes—

They had burned the same way on the LAAT. Kyle panicked, blinking furiously.

"Such promise," Maul hisses. "Had only I found you before Writte did—"

Bellowing a battle cry, Kyle raised his lightsaber into a Djem So attack position and charged.

But his blow never fell.

The blast doors flew open behind him. Clone troopers poured through the threshold, opening fire on the Sith. A lightsaber ignited over the fire.

"I would back away., if I were you. Unless you want to be beaten again."

Kyle suddenly felt as if, to the Sith Lord, he had disappeared entirely. Maul bristled.

"Kenobi."

The Jedi descended from the ramp in a graceful front flip, charging towards Maul the second his feet hit the ground. Reaching out with the Force, Obi-Wan threw an unsuspecting Savage into the wall hard enough to knock him out before turning back to his original target. The Sith Lord took a few hurried steps back, a spider scurrying away from sunlight.

"Run, Targon!" Obi-Wan called. "While you still can, get out!"

Kyle froze, the words not quite sinking in, and then bolted. The Clone trooper platoon covered his escape. He surged down the winding hallway through which he came, relief winding him as the light at the end of the dark tunnel grew into an opening.

LAATs landed at the mouth of the cave. He made out Commander Vullen stepping onto one of the gunships, Win-Dell and Thanewulf just behind her and General Kenobi behind them.

Almost there. Almost there—

Help me….

The words, weakly whispered through the Force, stopped him dead in his tracks.

Someone… please….

Repulsor engines roared in front of him, thundering down the length of the tunnel. Kyle was close enough to them that their wind whipped through his robes. Escape was within his grasp.

Help me! The voice, once hardly audible, shrieked through the Force. He's coming back!

Kyle's jaw hardened.

He couldn't leave her.

Turning on his heel, he ignited his lightsaber and charged back down the tunnel.


Through clouded eyes, Mira watched in horror as Savage slowly rose from the ground, picking Obi-Wan up with the Force and hurling him across the room.

Maul snarled. "Keep him distracted while I finish her." His fingers pulsed with dark energy as he stalked across the room towards his victim.

Mira's entire body shook with frightened, strangled sobs. She willed her legs to stand, her body to run, but her muscles screamed under her commands. Her head sank onto the cold stone floor, the burns on her cheeks hissing.

Light beaded at Mauls' fingertips.

Lighting tore into her flesh and threw into a wall. She screamed. Mira fought to stay conscious, but she went limp.

The pain and suffocation from the dark side was too much.

Her ears rang. Dull, throbbing pain erupted in her chest. Was a rib it broken? Was it a burn? She tried to take a deep breath and raggedly coughed. Even breathing, now, was agonizing.

It would be easy. To close her eyes, to give up the fight, to slip into the Netherworld and return to her master's side—

The blast doors hissed open again. The humming of a lightsaber cut through the air. A familiar presence appeared in the Force, but Mira was too addled to pair a face with it. Was it…

Skywalker. It had to be. While Kenobi fought Maul.

Yes, it has to be. Kyle ran. Force knows he isn't coming back.

Force signatures blurred together as Mira's consciousness ebbed. Someone called her name—now she was convinced it was Skywalker—and charged into the room, kneeling by her side and gently lifting her into his arms.

She rested her head on her rescuer's shoulder before everything went black.


Master!

Even over the clashing of lightsabers, Anakin's voice is stalwart in the Force. A ghost of a smile quivers on Obi-Wan's lips.

Don't even start, he called back, shoving both Sith into the wall before pelting down the corridor. Is everyone out?

Yes, Master. Obi-Wan could just see Anakin rolling his eyes. Everyone but you!

I'm working on that!

Obi-Wan sprinted until his lungs burned. A LAAT surged into view. Calling on the Force, Obi-Wan sprang into it, extinguishing his lightsaber before hitting the durasteel.

He looked around, winded. Cody nodded a silent greeting.

"Well, " Cody said. "That was… fun."

Obi-Wan huffed, fixing the captain with a tired glare. "You don't say."

The wind cutting through his mop of sweaty russet hair, Obi-Wan looked out over the formation of gunships he traveled in. A Jedi's silhouette—one that can only belong to Anakin—darkened the sunrise.

"Is everyone accounted for?" Obi-Wan panted, looking to Rex.

"Yes, General," Cody replied with a nod. "It's nothing short of a miracle, but all five made it out."

Obi-Wan's brow knotted. "Commander Targon ran as soon as I told him to. The other three were in the process of evacuating when I touched down. Commander Rourke…" He took a deep breath. "She didn't make it. She's… she's still back there. We'll have to launch another assault—a planned one—to rescue her…."

His blue eyes drifted to another LAAT, to another pair of silhouettes hunched in the floor. Obi-Wan's jaw dropped.

He had gone back for her.

Perhaps his judgement hadn't been misplaced, after all.

Targon cradled Mira's limp body in his arms, gently running his fingers through her hair. A few medics bustled around the grief-stricken padawan, fitting a breathing mask to Mira's burned face while trying to assess the extent of the damage done.

And when Targon looked up—when the sun illuminated his face—tears shimmered on his cheeks.