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Chapter 8
General Grievous marched outside the ring of clones and droids that surrounded Obi-Wan and Gubacher.
Obi-Wan kept his hands up but scanned the outer gate behind them and the walls ahead of them for potential escape routes. The HoloNet Station glowed with bright white lights from every angle, highlighting everything and giving little hope of concealment. Clones clustered on every wall with blasters aimed and ready. Any attempt at escape would mean instant death.
Not that Obi-Wan thought Grievous would allow anything else, especially knowing that Obi-Wan would defeat him. Grievous was arrogant but not stupid.
"Take their weapons," Grievous said with the wave of a hand. He didn't even bother to look back, victory certain. Thus his arrogance showed.
Two clones marched forward, blasters raised at Obi-Wan and Gubacher. Obi-Wan ignored them and stared at Grievous' back and contemplated striking him from behind, throwing his lightsaber and taking him out while going down in a rain of blaster fire. He doubted he had the time for it. He could dive forward and try to get Grievous to the ground. Hopefully his own foolish droids would shoot him in an attempt to kill Obi-Wan. Anything to make Obi-Wan's careless mistake meaningful. His mind was not where it should have been.
"Oh, I say! Be careful with that!" Gubacher whined as the clone fetched the card from his hand.
Obi-Wan glanced over and then did a double take at the clone. The closely shaved blond head, the patterned armor—he was wearing his standard-issue armor and not basic tunic or trousers—Commander Rex collected the card from Gubacher. And as Rex turned away, the corner of his lip quirked upwards ever so slightly, and then he retreated to the circle.
Another clone in full, standard-issue armor took Obi-Wan's lightsaber. Obi-Wan stared as the man left, and he choked back a sliver of hope as the clone not only pushed past the circle but kept walking. And then he quietly set the lightsaber on the ground and strolled away.
Obi-Wan's eyes darted around the circle. Among the droids and clones in tunics and trousers were clones wearing full armor, minus the helmets, and the clones donning armor stood on the outer edge of the circle. Their blasters weren't point inwards, not all the way. They were pointed at the other clones and droids.
Atop the walls, the clones as one replaced their helmets on their heads—helmets that had the striking orange markings of a Togruta.
"General Kenobi, this time I will live to see you suffer," Grievous said, and he chuckled before coughing and sputtering. He spun, and his cloak billowed out around him. He wore his usual lightsabers but left them untouched, opting instead to wave a hand in the air. "Kill them."
All of the droids and clones moved at once.
At the same instant, Obi-Wan shoved Gubacher down and ripped his lightsaber off the ground and to himself using the Force. The clones on the outskirts of the circle got the jump on the rest and shot down a line of droids and unfriendly clones, allowing Obi-Wan enough time to ignite his lightsaber and fend off blaster fire. He snapped the glowing blade back and forth and flipped the searing beams back on the droids.
"What treachery is—" Grievous roared at the turn of events and drew his lightsabers, all four of them, and stormed into the circle. The ring broke apart as clones and droids turned on each other, leaving Grievous to Obi-Wan. "Jedi scum!"
Obi-Wan half hauled Gubacher up and half Force flung him out of the ring. The doctor wailed as he flew over the heads of clones and droids, his tentacles flapping like limp ribbons in the wind. Obi-Wan let him fall out of sight and turned in time to deflect one of Grievous' lightsabers from severing his head. Grievous slashed with one, then another, then another, and forced Obi-Wan to backpedal to free his own lightsaber between blows.
Weary of defending, Obi-Wan gave Grievous a gentle Force nudge backwards several feet and reverse lunged to place distance between them. Obi-Wan spun his lightsaber around his wrist, scattering a stray blaster bolt that threatened to tag him in the arm, and then caught his weapon in time to receive another swing from Grievous. Only this time, he put enough force in his swing to push Grievous off balance and prevent a second swing.
"You cannot win. We have this city," Grievous said with a wet hiss to his words. He leaned close, his yellow eyes ablaze with something distinctly pleasurable despite the unfortunate change of circumstances. In a near leisure drawl, he added, "We have… Skywalker."
Obi-Wan felt a ripple of concern, but it came and went in a blink, banished into the Force so that it could not impede him.
"You will have to do a bit better than that, Grievous."
Grievous puffed a sound akin to a cough and a laugh, and then he swung his second blade around. Obi-Wan sidestepped and deflected both, and then he conveniently snagged a nearby droid head, decapitated by some grizzly method employed by the clones, and flung it at Grievous' head. Grievous batted it out of the air, but Obi-Wan used the momentary distraction to step back and assess the situation.
His head cleared. All around him, clones and droids fell. Clones engaged droids on the walls on either side of the security yard, and sometimes one or the other toppled off their stations and plummeted to the ground. The clones would continue to fight and be needlessly slaughtered until that card was in place. Gubacher lurked on the fringes of the battlefield, barely crawling away, playing dead to keep from being noticed. They had to get to the tower and quickly. The sooner the clones were freed, the better.
"Get the Jedi!" Grievous shouted. "Forget the clones, you imbeciles! The Jedi!"
"Roger, roger!" answered a chorus of droids. It was hard not to notice the discouragement in their tones. Poor things.
Several of the droids turned their blasters into the circle. A wave of destroyers rolled through the outer gates. Over the distant cityscape, an army of vessels drew near, the HoloNet Station their obvious target.
Grievous dove into the midst of his legion's blaster fire and whirled his four blades about him in a vibrant, high-speed display. Obi-Wan jumped back into a gap made by several friendly clones and shoved two droids into Grievous' whirring weaponry. Grievous cut them down without mercy and dove through the ring after Obi-Wan. One of Grievous' lower arms shattered in a flash of whitish-blue, and the metal appendage clattered to the ground. He sidestepped the second flash of a lightsaber and dove aside behind a line of droids.
Obi-Wan stared at the Torguta now standing between him and Grievous.
"Ahsoka!"
Ahsoka whirled her lightsabers in her hands, flipping them in a showy display—she learned that from Anakin—and glanced over her shoulder at him.
"Rex is waiting at the tower. Go! I can manage this bucket of bolts." When Obi-Wan frowned and tried to make sense of how she was there, how all of her unit had returned unscathed, she yelled, "You're trying to help the clones, right? Hurry!"
Duty called. Obi-Wan offered a curt nod and then spun towards Gubacher. He slashed through a colorful rain of blaster fire, picking off whatever droids he could in the process, and hauled the doctor to his tentacles and dragged him towards the tower. Grievous threw himself at Ahsoka, but she spun and deflected his three remaining lightsabers in a flashing, mesmerizing dance.
She would have made a fine Jedi Knight.
"The card—the card!" Gubacher muttered, his voice laden with dismay.
"It's in good hands," Obi-Wan said, but he didn't bother to explain further.
A second wave of unfriendly clones came through the outer gate and swarmed the yard. Their allies were heavily outnumbered. They had to turn the battle quick or it would be lost. Obi-Wan flung Gubacher over his left shoulder and reverse lunged to the tower, all the while deflecting blaster bolts and impetuous droids with his lightsaber in his right hand. As soon as he had a moment of breathing room, he swung around and raced to the tower.
The lock mechanism on the far right of the door sizzled and smoked: a blaster's handiwork, no doubt. Without slowing, Obi-Wan waved his hand and swept the door open.
Inside, computers and monitors sprawled along every wall and in every crevice, and lights flashed and glared from all the devices. Sidious' face and message played on an endless loop on every monitor, great and small, his grin menacing but his voice muted. Thankfully.
The fear in the Force was palpable. Civilians huddled under their desks and peeked out at him from behind their chairs. He set Gubacher down, and the doctor brushed himself off as Obi-Wan turned off his lightsaber.
"We mean you no harm," he said, and then in a stern warning added, "Find better places to hide. The enemy is just outside."
Obi-Wan ran to the center of the massive central room where Rex waited at a turbolift. The tower went up in a never-ending tunnel of gray and flashing lights. Most of the main floors were open to the turbolift, though all of the doors on the central floor made Obi-Wan assume various other rooms branched off the main one.
"The central computer is up on top, near the transmission towers," Rex explained, holding the lift with his blaster. He handed the card to Gubacher, who took it with a joyous cry of relief.
"I don't know how you did this, Rex, but you and yours may have saved us all." Obi-Wan led the way onto the lift, let Rex type in their destination to the highest floor, and swept a hand through his hair as he finally caught a breath. "Let's hope this works."
"It will work," Gubacher said. He clutched the card possessively to his chest, puffing. He waved his mechno-fingers ambiguously in the air and added, "It may be temporary, but it will stop all this."
"The chips weren't removed?" Rex asked. Not condemning.
"We started the process on some, but there were just too many. We tried to evacuate everyone to Kamino to speed the process, but we ran out of time."
Obi-Wan stepped ahead as the turbolift halted and the door slid open. A single, straight platform lay ahead of them with one enormous computer and screen front and center. Nothing screamed danger, so Obi-Wan led the way out onto the bridge, his lightsaber gripped and ready in hand. Gubacher's tentacles slapped at the metal walkway as he scuttled along behind him. Rex took the rear, blaster aimed, and he scanned every direction. The top level was vacant save Sidious' enormous face plastered on one of the screens. The enlarged size did not do him any favors.
"Commander Tano saw the vision. In the future, she removed my chip, so she was aware enough to help everyone remove theirs," Rex explained. "We barely made it back in time."
"We appreciate your prompt return." Obi-Wan flagged Gubacher down, and the doctor scurried to the computer and plucked at the controls. He slipped the card into a slot and hacked away. The screens flickered, and ripples spread through Sidious' face. Obi-Wan passed a sideways glance at Rex. "How much do you all know?"
Rex met and held his gaze for a moment before returning to his diligent scan of the perimeter. Ever the soldier.
"Everything, sir."
Obi-Wan nodded but left it at that. He sensed no hostility from Rex, no sense of betrayal, and perhaps everything was not actually everything. Had Ahsoka recognized Darth Vader as Anakin? Did she and the clones know the devastation he wrought? He had no way of knowing for certain, and it mattered little given the current circumstances.
Emotions could not cloud their judgment. Lives depended on clear thinking and concise actions. Yet something whittled away at the back of his mind, something that he couldn't release to the Force. It set him ill-at-ease, twisted his stomach in knots, and filled him with concern. An incessant nagging—a wretched, terrible feeling.
We have… Skywalker.
A blaster beam shattered a section of the monitor over their heads and rained glittering shards down on them. Gubacher hit the floor in fear, but Rex whipped around and returned fire. Grievous and a host of droids and clones marched through the doors and blew apart the nearest computers. The tower workers scattered and screamed, disappearing through back doors.
"Hurry! We aren't getting out of here unless we can free the clones," Obi-Wan said, and he dragged Gubacher up by the back of his tunic and urged him towards the computer.
"I just need a little more time," the doctor muttered under his breath but hastily went back to work.
"Rex." Obi-Wan dipped his head at the doctor, and Rex answered with a nod.
Knowing Gubacher would be safe in Rex's hands, and no one cared more for the freedom of the clones than Rex, Obi-Wan climbed on the railing along the edges of the bridge and braced himself in a crouch. Grievous vaulted himself onto the outer frame of the turbolift and started climbing. The lightsabers still ignited in his hands burned holes through the metal frames. A cable snapped under his blade somewhere inside the lift's shell. It ricocheted and echoed within the metal casing.
Droids and clones pointed blasters at Obi-Wan on the bridge and fired. He lunged off the railing to draw the fire to himself and let his grappling hook fly. It locked around a frame under a lower level's bridge and let Obi-Wan spin at rapid speed around the turbolift tube. Grievous, hands occupied, swung one lightsaber at him, but Obi-Wan deflected with his own blade and kicked Grievous in the face, sending the half droid sprawling several floors below.
Obi-Wan gave himself some slack in the cable and spun across a lower level bridge. Stabbing his lightsaber through it, he cut it down and toppled it over the heads of a cluster of droids below. Then he dropped and rode the bridge to the floor.
"Destroy that computer!" Grievous flung out a hand and pointed at the top level with his lightsaber.
Droids and clones marched on the central pillar and climbed by using the scaffolding and frames or by using grappling hooks. The turbolift remained at the top and didn't descend. Droids started climbing in the shaft as well, and Obi-Wan had a strong mental image of the turbolift falling and crushing them all. He circled the central turbolift, spinning his lightsaber, and set his sights on Grievous. Blaster bolts smattered the floor around them as Rex fired on incoming foes.
Ahsoka and a handful of friendly clones rushed the doors as dozens of droids, destroyers, and clones smashed through the few windows of the tower. Explosions ripped apart the walls and covered the room in a cloud of smoke, embers, and sparks. Obi-Wan slammed into Grievous, their blades locking. Ahsoka took that as her cue and, with her small unit of clones, attacked the army climbing the tower.
"You are too late," Grievous said, and he bore so much confidence that it set Obi-Wan on edge.
"Not yet," he replied, and he shoved Grievous back, thrust three times, and then blocked another swing that locked them together.
A wet, gurgling chuckle erupted form Grievous' throat. And the unease in Obi-Wan grew into a twisted knot. Something wasn't right at all.
"Go! Go!" screamed Gubacher from above.
All of the screens flickered in a rainbow of colors, and then darkness swallowed Sidious' face and turned the monitors black. Grievous threw his entire weight into Obi-Wan, knocking him off balance, and then vanished into a swarm of droids. Obi-Wan snapped his lightsaber to deflect blaster fire back on the droids. Droids shattered and metal parts sprayed everywhere.
All of the clones paused, and those who had been fighting under Order 66 clasped their heads. A light came on in their eyes that hadn't been there moments before, as if coming out of some sort of dazed trance. And then their blasters turned and opened fire on the droids.
It had been a success, the clones spared for a time, and yet Obi-Wan couldn't breathe. He had the terrible sensation of having lost the war. Images reverberated through his head of Anakin bending a knee to Sidious, of the Jedi decimated on the floor of the Temple, of Sidious taking over as emperor of the Galactic Empire. He felt in that moment same as his future self felt for the next 20 years: that he had failed and there was no hope.
Grievous' laugh echoed in his mind. He knew something—it had been a trap, and they'd fallen for it, somehow.
Obi-Wan dove through the droids and the clones blasting at each other and rushed outside. A fleet of fighters and gunships waged battle in the sky, clones versus droids. Ships exploded in dazzling clouds of fire. An entire army of droids, hundreds of them, marched towards the HoloNet tower and decimated the outer wall. They blasted straight through it and stormed over its ruins.
A line of clones and Jedi stood between Obi-Wan and the oncoming droid army. Grievous was gone.
"We must hold this tower at any cost," Master Tiin shouted at the line. "Nothing less than your freedom is on the line, men. Do not let them take it!"
Obi-Wan stepped forward and joined his Jedi comrades in deflecting the onslaught of blaster fire. The clones answered with their own torrent of fire. Most weren't wearing armor, leaving them particularly vulnerable. Nevertheless, they held their ground even as their fellow clones dropped one-by-one beside them.
"We just need to hold on a while longer," Master Ti said to seemingly no one in particular. "This ends here and now."
The knot in Obi-Wan's stomach tightened. Several of the Jedi—no, only the members of the High Council—glanced west, over and over again. Obi-Wan did, too. The hazy illumination over an endless sprawling city looked back.
He returned his attention to the battle, to defending the tower against the enemy. He and his fellow Masters dove through the first line and punched the droids to the ground, and then they fell back and allowed a second wave of blaster fire to pass over their heads. A few clones launched explosives into the sea of droids, and brilliant orange explosions painted the bleach-white yard in gold.
Again, the High Council members looked west in expectation. Waiting for something. Had they formulated another plan? Was help on the way? Obi-Wan followed their gaze again and saw nothing, only the same city glow.
He saw nothing, but he felt it. When he allowed his mind to separate from the battle and from the present, an image jumped to the forefront of his thoughts: Anakin kneeling before Sidious.
He couldn't see what the other Masters searched for, but he felt it. Anakin was out there, in the distance, and the heavy shroud of the dark side hemmed him in from all directions and nearly suffocated his presence from existence.
Obi-Wan's lightsaber went slack, and he hastily caught it up before it could fall off his fingertips.
"Master Kenobi!" someone shouted at him.
"General!"
"Master!" Ahsoka's voice shook him out of a momentary daze.
Obi-Wan glanced at her, at Rex and several of his troopers rushing from the tower to join the fight. They all stared at him and whatever strange sort of bewildered expression he must have been making. He swallowed the contents of his stomach several times as that dark, corrosive feeling ate away at him.
Master Ti and Master Fisto both glanced back at him as if he were out of his mind, but as soon as they really looked at him, their faces fell. For a brief moment, the entire battlefield seemed to stand still, and everything went quiet.
"What have you done?" Obi-Wan asked, and his eyes leaped from one High Council member to the next. A few exchanged glances. They knew something he didn't. The pit of unease grew, and no matter how much Obi-Wan demanded it leave him, it remained. His voice rose. "What have you done?"
Master Ti met his eyes, and a wash of grief swept over her face. Not guilt, only momentary sorrow, and it was fleeting.
"It will all be over soon."
The incessant knot twisted relentlessly in Obi-Wan's belly. He took several steps in no particular direction. Something terrible had been done. Obi-Wan felt he was merely a piece on the board of a game other people played. Grievous, Sidious, even the Masters—he had no idea what was happening on any side, not even his own.
And the dark side smothered Anakin.
Go. A voice, a presence spoke in his mind. He felt the pull of the Force as though he were in deep meditation. A warm, familiar voice reverberated through his head, though it sounded muffled, as though under water. Go quickly!
Obi-Wan turned and ran west. Towards Anakin. Ahsoka called after him, but he didn't catch her words.
"It is already too late," Master Tiin shouted.
Not if Obi-Wan could help it.