(warnings at end of chapter.)
Chapter 20: Narrow Escape
They moved at a walk through the area. They had, at least, missed rush hour, so he didn't have to worry much about workers overhearing his lecture on some techniques that were not supposed to be taught without Council permission, especially not to Padawan's, because they were effective methods of shielding from other Force users, which meant large potential for abuse.
He'd started with some things that could be figured out with some deduction and common sense rather than the harder, prohibited ones. Things like combining the blurring, fading-into-the-background technique he and Anakin had used copiously on that mission to Lanteeb with the reinforced shielding Ahsoka already knew that protected her mind from the debilitating effects of Dark acolytes presences'. That would make it harder for the Council members to locate them; buying time to use to teach more advanced methods, the ones the Council permission was usually needed for. How to disappear into the Force, how to detach yourself so you didn't register in a Force scan, and then the theory of how to build a false signature so someone would not see a person and feel a gap - or nothing - and catch on, though he hoped it wouldn't come to that. He didn't want them to get that close in the first place.
He wondered slightly about the wisdom of letting Ventress overhear this, but reasoned that she already knew how to do much of the stuff he was explaining anyway, just in a different manner, and this might give her the option of using a Jedi method instead of a Sith one.
They were halfway through the maze of factories and generators when he felt a flicker in the Force, where he'd been monitoring the place they had rested, and realised that at least one team had reached it. He passed this on, and fell silent, concentrating on hiding his presence, noticing the other two do the same, Ahsoka concentrating intensely on the newly learned Force skill.
He felt the scan that came a few minutes later pass by without noticing them. It helped, he realised, that they were searching for Dark presences in the Force. Not light or grey. Ahsoka's new shielding probably wouldn't have held if they were looking for her signature specifically - that required reinforcing and mental battle against all the different techniques that could be used to make someone slip up, and she didn't even know what most of those were yet, let alone how to counter them.
"They'll probably follow the trail we left," he murmured, his voice hushed with relief. Ahsoka stared at him.
"We didn't leave a-"
"We did, at first. Like the one Ventress left outside the warehouse. It'll stop, when they reach the point where you managed to hide yourself, but it will give them an idea of direction."
Ventress shrugged, and abruptly veered off to the right. Slightly amused at her unspoken understanding of what he was about to do - or had she just decided that that was the best way to solve the problem on her own? - he and Ahsoka trailed after her.
It was not long after that he began to experience a prickling on the back of his neck, feeling his (shorter) hair stand on end. "Do you-"
"Clones," Ventress interrupted his question, her shoulder tight even as she gazed into the distance, feeling out the answer. "They've surrounded the district."
Surrounded? Completely? He reached out carefully, and found she was right - not only were they surrounded on this floor, but above and below. He swore mentally with the worst words he had picked up from Anakin and a lifetime of travel around the Galaxy. It was a diverse range - Anakin's Huttese to the ARC Clones Mando'a curses to languages from almost anywhere he had spent more than a few days.
This day was going to consist of a long game of tooka and rat, he could tell. "Let's get to their line."
"The thinnest part's over that way," Ahsoka's voice was strained. Ventress gave her a condescending look.
"That way will be a trap then, and we are not going anywhere near it."
"Why not?" The teen demanded. "Anakin says-"
"Spring the trap," Obi-Wan provided. "And again, that's older than Anakin. However, we're attempting to avoid a confrontation here, not win one. Which is what that method is for."
Ventress smirked, and Ahsoka scowled, and Obi-Wan took a deep breath and reminded himself that Jedi Masters were calm, even when their allies were being aggravating. Even if he wasn't a Jedi in name any more, much less a recognised Master. "However, Ahsoka has a point. There are the least amount of Clone's there. It is the sensible place to break through."
"Sensible, except the trap," Ventress reminded him, and it was his turn to smirk.
"Ah yes, the trap. It may please you to know, Ahsoka, that we will be springing a trap, should everyone agree."
He ignored Ventress' instant, "I don't." He'd ask her opinion once she knew what his plan was.
"Just not their trap. This is a factory area, generating electricity. It should be fairly simple to rig up our own trap, for them. Not quite in their trap, but to one side of it, so they have less reinforcements to call on."
There was a pause, as Ahsoka nodded slowly, eyes bright, and Ventress fought against letting her face show the appeal she found in the irony.
One dispute successfully mediated, he thought in relief. And we may just have a way out of this noose as well.
They made their way towards the part of the line Ahsoka had pointed out. Obi-Wan surveyed the equipment they had to work with. The line was currently holding. He supposed it made sense. They were known to be in the area, and since there had been police everywhere, their pursuers would have realised that a moving line was something the three of them were able to get past. Even if Obi-Wan doubted that the…method the three of them had used to get past the police sweep would work under different circumstances, there were plenty of hiding places around. At least it gave them space to work - all they had to worry about were the Jedi Masters.
Speaking of them…"they've stopped," he murmured.
"What?" Ahsoka asked absentmindedly, studying the wiring in the control panels, then switching a few around. Ventress watched him with narrowed eyes, having already guessed.
"The Jedi," he elaborated. "They've stopped, where Ahsoka completely shielded her presence." He didn't miss the small, pleased grin that flashed across Ahsoka's face at this, and was glad of it.
They worked on their project, recalibrating the corner rods that would generate a sheet of super-conductive air coloured a bright red, Obi-Wan checking periodically where the group he had sensed were. It worried him, that there was only one group: they were hiding themselves in the Force enough that he could only tell that there were some people there, not how many.
Eventually they were done, the safety mechanisms that limited the size of the sheets disabled, the rods in four clusters of three.
Scouting the area carefully, only meters away from the Clone's at some points with a single wall standing between them and large numbers of blaster bolts being shot at them, they found places for the rods. Two were places on the floor in front of the line, then peering through grimy windows on the upper bits of multi-story buildings allowed them to spot one place on the floor behind the clones and one above the rough centre of the triangle the other three created. A retreat and whispered conference, then they used thin, high capacity wires to link one of the building's generators to one of the easily reached spots, and he waited there as they got into position.
He didn't have to wait long. Ventress sprinted at the line, seeming to come out of nowhere, and he used the noise of shouts and blaster fire to cover the ignition of the long ago Sentinel's lightsaber as he carved a hole into the floor and placed the first bundle in it, knowing Ahsoka was doing the same at the second easily reached spot. He moved as quickly as he could to halfway between his bundle of rods and the ones Ahsoka had just placed as Ventress got past and disappeared into the buildings on the other side, to where she would place her bundle. Ahsoka distracted the Clones from pursuing the former Separatist by appearing on the upper stories of the buildings and appearing to also attempt to break the line, only to be driven higher and higher, and then back by the deadly energy blots coming at her. He felt an affirmative directed through the Force to him as she retreated, going, he knew, to the first spot where making a simple connection would activate the whole thing. He stepped into view, lightsaber spinning against the hail of fire that came his way.
This was the dangerous part.
In the course of their scouting, they'd realised that the reason there were so few Clones in the area to their left was that there were also two Jedi Masters. He had to stall there, deflecting the bolts until the pair came and were inside the invisible triangle based pyramid before Ahsoka could activate it.
Sure enough, moments later, two citibikes sped into view, Plo Koon and then Saesee Tiin leaping off and advancing towards him with lightsabers lit. Obi-Wan swallowed hard, stubbornly locking his mind down as he felt Saesee attempt to read him.
The two Council members advanced down the otherwise deserted street, the blasters going quiet as their Generals got in the way of their line of fire.
It was his men, he realised with sudden shock. They were using his own men to hunt him down.
Warily, watching him for any sudden movement, they passed halfway, the present members of the 212th falling in behind. He stood there, smiling humourlessly, his lightsaber loose and ready by his side, almost insulting in his nonchalance. He noticed them react to this, Plo frowning disapprovingly at him, Saesee lengthening his stride, his jaw clenching. Good. If they were annoyed, they wouldn't notice…
They were meters away from him when he sent a pulse through the Force and Ahsoka connected the wires, linking the generator and the bundle of rods, which generated three sheets of air, the fourth coming an infinitesimal moment later as the current passed through the bundles to the rods that created it, completing an enclosure that trapped the clones and two Jedi.
Plo screamed, and Obi-Wan immediately force-pushed him backwards, realising he'd waited a moment too long, and that the Jedi Master's leg had been caught in the sheet. His breath frozen in his lungs, he watched as the Kel Dor landed against Saesee no no thatwasn'tsupposedtohappen no who had jumped back when it activated centimetres from his skin, and who caught him. Plo groaned, and Obi-Wan's heart clenched painfully in relief. Alive. Thank the Force.
He was trembling, he realised as his gaze met Saesee's through the red sheet, the low hum and crackle of energy filling the air, reminding him of Naboo, and he turned away from the fear and blame in Saesee's eyes.
"Sith…lightning…"
A shudder ran through him. He supposed it would be an easy assumption to make, since one moment Plo had been advancing towards him, and the next he'd been in severe pain due to electrocution. Wrong…but an easy assumption to make.
Plo raised his head, taking in the shimmering barrier that crackled ever so slightly. "…Oh."
Medics were there, ripping away his trouser leg, and Obi-Wan blanched at the deep burns that were revealed. Localized.
The shouts from nearby troops that had not advanced and been caught brought him back to himself, and with another difficult swallow, he deactivated his lightsaber and ran.
Ahsoka quickly joined him, eyes too wide, fear echoing around her, disrupting her shields so much he could faintly sense it. "What happened, I heard-"
Plo Koon was her friend. The one who'd brought her to the Temple, given her advice, covered up for her when she snuck onto the citadel mission. "I - I miscalculated the distance. No one died but Plo got his leg caught for a moment, it-" his mind kicked in through the horror, automatically analysing the injury, "deep burns, there's medics there, they'll be able to prevent infection and they'll have bacta, and a healing trance will deal with the deepest parts," his voice was shaking too, and she was staring at him, "and a bacta tank when they get the shields it down and can transport him, repeated so the skin has time to adjust as it heals, which won't be long, we need to go-" His voice broke. "They'll have to filter out the debris as it sheds the damaged flesh-"
"He'll be okay?"
"I think so-" Something bleak receded from her eyes, and she shouldered him around to the left of the cage.
"Come on." Her words were tight, but only with pain.
They had little difficulty running around it, breaking through the line, listening to the sound of running feet and shouted orders and yessirs and feeling the other two Jedi approach - Mace Windu and Ki-Adi-Mundi, they weren't bothering to conceal themselves in favour of Force speed. But the two had an entire district to cross, and as soon as Ventress re-joined them they found another lift shaft where the sent the lift to its highest level and then they sprang down, jumping from one side to another with nothing but sheer non-Force-assisted leg strength and agility.
The Clones didn't give chase. From the shouts, their orders had been to hold the line, and not let them though, and the soldiers were focusing on restoring the line. By the time Mace and Ki-Adi got there and gave new orders, the three fugitives would be long gone.
A.N. I considered having the energy barrier be the sort that Barriss gets caught in by the Clones in the episode with the zombie worms taking over the ship she and Ahsoka are on, but then I realised that they wouldn't be able to control the input anywhere near that much. So, electricity burns! I'm so horrible to them…
Next Chapter: Looks in on Mace.
Warnings: character injury