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Chapter 14
Grievous whirled four lightsabers in the air like the whirring blades of a colorful fan. Beside him, the communications console buzzed to life, and a different voice spoke over the open channel, but again it was indiscernible beneath the static.
"A moment too late, Grievous," Obi-Wan said, and he forced a confident grin in the hopes Grievous wouldn't see through his bluster. Grievous fleeing might be the only thing that saved any remaining clones. "Reinforcements are on their way."
Grievous slashed one of his lightsabers through the communications console. It exploded, and all of the static and lights abruptly died. He brought the lightsaber back to himself, whirled all four in one last rotation, and then stood still.
"Yes," Grievous replied, and there was something airy, almost gleeful, to his tone. "They are."
The droid general lunged across the bridge at Obi-Wan and swung his lightsabers in a brilliant and colorful whirlwind. Obi-Wan rolled out of the seat moments before it split in half. He grabbed one of the halves with the Force and flung it at Grievous' head, but the half-droid cut it out of the air. Obi-Wan took the momentary delay and snatched a blaster from a fallen clone and flipped towards the viewport, putting distance between himself and his enemy. He watched the blur of lightsabers and fired in the space between. Grievous stopped his theatrics to deflect the shots.
Crouching, Obi-Wan collected another blaster and opened fire with both, but Grievous marched forward against the barrage, all four lightsabers expertly repelling the bolts. One of the beams fired back, and Obi-Wan dodged left to avoid it, only to be hit by another in the right forearm. His muscles twisted as the bolt tore through, and the blaster dropped out of his curling fingers.
Grievous continued his march towards him. Obi-Wan looked beyond him, to the destroyed frame of the ship, to the few sections still holding it together. He turned his blaster on a point of weakened metal and opened fire, burning through the frame. Grievous dove at him with a wild and triumphant roar, but Obi-Wan grabbed the frayed metal with the Force and tore it apart.
The ship lurched beneath them and tipped further into the dome roof, and it stood perfectly vertical, with the building straight down and the sky straight up. Metal shrieked as it tore. Everything on the bridge rolled towards the viewport, including Grievous caught off guard. He disengaged his lightsabers and used his hands and feet to claw for purchase. Obi-Wan, having expected the shift of balance, jumped to the side of a computer, grabbed an entire console with the Force, and hurled it at Grievous. Grievous and the console flew into the viewport. The transparisteel shattered from the preexisting structural damage coupled with Grievous and the plummeting metal console.
Grievous rolled out onto the front of the ship but found easy handholds amidst torn sheets of metal. He crawled towards the shattered viewport, and Obi-Wan had half plucked another console from the floor before Grievous stopped, looked to the sky, and unleashed a quiet, rippling, but painfully audible laugh. The droid general let go and plummeted towards the building below, and he vanished around the curve of the ship.
A flood of darkness rolled over Obi-Wan and crushed him under an invisible but entirely tangible weight. The air smothered him and took the air out of his lungs. The hairs on his neck and arms stood, and he turned at the presence of another.
Sidious stood at the top edge of the bridge and sneered down his narrow nose at Obi-Wan. His billowing cloak swirled around him in the wind and rain, covering him in a moving shadow. His thin, pale lips twisted in a smile.
"How are you…" Obi-Wan choked on the rest of his words. He shuffled to a more secure foothold on the broad computer console that now served as a platform. Rainwater slickened it.
"Alive? I wonder," Sidious said. The grin stretched across his face. "It is as though I knew all along exactly what you intended to do."
A chill swept through Obi-Wan. He'd wondered at it. Everything from the battle on Coruscant had felt too intentional. Looking at the past and the future, everything had been intentional.
"Now you understand," Sidious said. "For the Jedi, the future is always in motion. But I own the future. It twists and turns exactly as I demand. You are all just insignificant pieces of the game that I play." His smile diminished, overcome by the intentional glare of a predator hunting his prey. "Though I will admit your existence has been somewhat of a detriment. You have managed to keep one fragment of light alive that should otherwise have been easy to snuff out."
"What are you—"
"Young Skywalker never had a chance," Sidious said, and he paced a slight track on his high ledge. "I didn't even have to try, and you and yours so willingly handed him over to me. Handed me his hope, his innocence, his compassion… You delivered him to me perfectly trained and terrifically broken. How easy it was to meddle in his confused little head, what with your kind's illogical and impractical advice. Did you not see him dying on the inside?" In a soothing tone, sickly sweet, he said, "How did you fail to see his suffering?"
Obi-Wan shuddered. His future self had asked himself the same questions hundreds of times. To hear them spoken by Sidious, to hear them said aloud by his enemy, made them that much more significant.
"And to think," Sidious said, his face twisting into a knot of pale wrinkles, "that all young Skywalker ever wanted was to make you proud, to know that you accepted him."
"Of course I accepted him—of course he knew," Obi-Wan said.
"Did he?" Sidious' smile faded. It wasn't a jeer, it wasn't a taunt; it was a legitimate question. His head tilted, and the grin slithered back onto his wretched face. "Because from the very start, all your precious Padawan knew was that you didn't want him. Your vow to your dead master bound you to him against your wishes."
"You…" Obi-Wan's heart stuttered, and he grabbed at his chest. His lungs twisted and air refused to reach him.
"Certainly you grew to love him," Sidious said, slow, calculated. "And him to love you. But in those first few months and years, how easy it was…" Extending his fingers, he dug into the air as if clawing his way through soil from the grave. "…to grab those little insecurities and twist, and pull, and grow them until they became a relentless monster eating away at his core. Until all parts of your beloved Anakin Skywalker died."
Obi-Wan's foot slid forward, but he had no weapon, and Sidious had the tactical advantage. And Force lightning. He could do little to harm the Sith Lord from his precariously helpless position. He could always rip the entire ship down on them both, but somehow he doubted it would kill the treacherous former Chancellor.
Obi-Wan scanned the floor for additional weapons, only one blaster still in hand, but they'd all tumbled to the shattered viewport as the ship tipped. They lay mostly buried in the bodies that had rolled with them.
"You had your moment, and you failed," Sidious continued, and Obi-Wan watched him in expectation of an attack. But Sidious only smiled again, intentional. Goading. He hopped off his high platform and landed on a computer console just above Obi-Wan. Fearless. "You had your chance, and you walked away on a beach on Mustafar, and you let the light die."
Another wave of shivers swept up Obi-Wan's spine as he recalled leaving Anakin to burn. He'd often wondered if he had stayed, if he had shown Anakin mercy, would he have returned to the light? Did Obi-Wan's departure push his young friend deeper into darkness to the point of no return for the next two decades?
"I have seen the future, and it is inevitable." Sidious jumped from his console to Obi-Wan's, and the ship shuddered as he landed.
Obi-Wan fired the blaster, but Sidious flicked it out of his hand with the Force. The two both attempted to push the other with the Force, minds and bodies locked in a frozen struggle, and then Obi-Wan staggered back.
"Your death will sever the final thread." A wicked grin tore across Sidious' face. "There is nothing you can do. I want you to let that sink in."
And then, Sidious turned and looked up, and Obi-Wan followed his gaze with an icy sense of trepidation and horror clawing into existence in his chest.
A suit of polished black armor stood on the edge of the back half of the ship high above them. The black helmeted face stared down at them. Frozen save the cloak at its back that whirled in the wind. A memory out of Obi-Wan's nightmares—the symbol of all he had lost, the death of all he had loved.
Darth Vader.
"If only you had reached out a hand to him," said Sidious, almost sympathetically. The old man turned and faced Obi-Wan, and legitimate grief marred his face—as legitimate as could be had from the mastermind. Their eyes met, and pleasure leaped through Sidious' eyes and betrayed his sympathetic tone. "But you rejected him again, didn't you?"
Obi-Wan grabbed all of the remaining seats out of the floor and hurled them at Sidious in a violent barrage. Sidious deflected them with the subtle wave of his hand, and then he thrust out his other hand and caught Obi-Wan's throat in an unrelenting vise grip. Sidious lifted Obi-Wan with nary a struggle, despite every effort Obi-Wan made to break the grip. His feet kicked in open air. Sidious' choke crushed Obi-Wan's throat, and pressure built in his head.
"His attachment to you kept him bound to the light for far too long. And now you have played your role magnificently—not just one rejection, but two." Sidious squeezed his hand into a fist, and Obi-Wan's neck bent under the additional pressure.
Obi-Wan tried to produce sound but couldn't. He clawed at the invisible hands at his neck to no avail. He kicked at nothing. Life ebbed out of him, and darkness crawled from the corners of his vision and consumed him.
"Now it is my time," Sidious said, and he drew and ignited his blazing red lightsaber. "Die, Kenobi." The lightsaber moved in a flash within Obi-Wan's fading vision.
And then Obi-Wan dropped to the wet console and landed hard on his back. An influx of air to his lungs brought back some semblance of clarity to his vision.
Over him, Vader grappled with Sidious and pushed him back, pushed him away from Obi-Wan.
"What are you—" Sidious bellowed, surprise marring his face, obvious from his wide and wild eyes.
Vader and Sidious twisted in a whirlwind of black, and then Sidious aimed his lightsaber at Obi-Wan. Whatever he intended to do with it came to naught. Vader slammed his massive bulk against Sidious to deflect the blade, but Sidious brought the lightsaber down instead and cut through Vader's right arm—above the metal, above where flesh and metal combined. Obi-Wan stared in horror as the arm fell away, burned.
Vader roared in a deep, inhuman voice, flung himself at Sidious, and hoisted the smaller man onto his shoulder like a sack of flour. The lightsaber dropped, and Obi-Wan caught it in the air and drew it to himself.
"You fool!" Sidious screamed, and he slapped his hand on Vader's helmet and unleashed Force lightning upon him that swirled around the both of them.
Despite the lightning, just as he had in the future, Vader marched with Sidious and slammed him against the nearest wall. He pinned him not with a Force choke but instead with his last remaining hand. Sidious continued to pour lightning through him, but Vader held his ground. Obi-Wan struggled to his feet and moved towards them, the red lightsaber ignited in his hand.
Sidious must have seen him coming. He waved a hand towards the top of the ship, and the bridge ripped apart from the rest of the vessel, all of the last remaining supports severed, and plummeted. All of them flew away from each other as the ship slipped beneath them. Obi-Wan let go of the lightsaber and caught the railing with both hands and braced his feet against the wall of the ship so that he could jump if he needed. Sidious caught beneath a twisted computer console where a chair used to park, holding him in place. Vader tumbled and rolled like one of the many corpses—Obi-Wan snagged him with the Force. He tucked him in a corner, the safest place he could put him before the ship crashed through the building beneath it and crumpled straight through the floor.
Water rushed in from the viewport along with sheets of metal and floating corpses. Obi-Wan swung up onto the railing and Force leaped higher into the ship, away from the rapidly rising water. He pulled Vader with him, but Vader thrashed against his grip with the Force and then his hands when he reached him. The black suit of armor roared at him, clawed at him with his one hand, and then clawed at his own mask.
Sidious lashed at them with Force lightning but stopped when the ship lurched again and he lost his footing. He nearly toppled into the water.
A booming voice rang out on a loud speaker that surely covered every inch of the city.
"Obi-Wan Kenobi!" Obi-Wan recognized the voice of Plo Koon. "Grievous' troops are in retreat. We are coming in!"
Metal clattered on metal high above them, the sounds of hundreds of feet stampeding along floors.
Sidious glared one last time at them, and then he kicked out a chunk of already shattered viewport directly beside him. He threw himself through it and vanished on the other side.
Obi-Wan clawed his way up to the top of the ship and onto a somewhat stable structure. The ship and the building had merged into one, and it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended in the endless twisting maze of metal. He grabbed Vader with the Force and pulled him up, then continued his own climb. Above, clones and Jedi cut through the metal bars to reach them. Streaks of light and rainwater broke through from endless holes torn through the walls.
Obi-Wan pulled Vader up alongside him, but the suit of black armor continued to struggle. The Force lightning had shot straight into him, a steady stream of it, and should have been strong enough to kill. And with the loss of the arm, he'd be in a poor state. Obi-Wan grabbed at the broad shoulders of the armor to try to still him, but Vader thrashed, clawing at his helmet with his hand.
"Take it off!" Vader screamed, over and over again.
Obi-Wan grabbed at the mask and tried to unfasten it, but it was held fast, and Vader's flailing did nothing to help him get a better grip.
"Hold still!" he ordered, but the other did not listen or hear him. At last Vader clasped at Obi-Wan instead, grabbing at his tunic, his sleeves, anything he could hold. The baritone screams continued.
"General!" Cody dove down along with Plo, Aayla, and at least fifty other clones.
Several hands grabbed at Obi-Wan and drew him back. From anyone else's perspective, it must have looked as though Vader wrestled with Obi-Wan in an attempt to harm him. Obi-Wan let himself be pulled away but stared as the black suit of armor writhed on the ground.
"General, are you all right?" someone asked.
"Obi-Wan?"
Obi-Wan stared in disbelief at the shape of Darth Vader, one arm gone, clones swarming around him with blasters aimed and ready to fire.
It was not hate or anger that Obi-Wan felt stirring within the heart of that black suit of armor—it was agonizing, paralyzing fear.
"Let me go," Obi-Wan said to whoever held him, and he pulled at his arms. They held him back. "Let me go!" He broke free and returned to the thrashing suit of armor. He pushed aside the clones with their blasters aimed. "Anakin, hold still!" Obi-Wan dug his fingers into the helmet and cut his skin on sharp metal, but he managed to find the latches that held it in place. He disengaged the locks and pulled the mask free.
The scent of death stung his nose as he removed the mask, and the face beneath was the face of a corpse. Eyes sunken, cheeks hollow, skin ashen instead of healthy tan: Anakin had become only a shadow of a man. Obi-Wan dropped the mask, and it clattered into the metal debris beneath them.
Soaked in sweat, Anakin's hair lay flat on his head and face. His eyes rolled back and his body seized, and yet he clawed with his one hand at the rest of his armor.
"Get it off," he muttered, and his voice was his—was Anakin's, no longer tainted by the mask. "Take it off!"
Obi-Wan held Anakin at the shoulders of the oversized armor, tried to hold him steady, but part of it was also to still his own shaking hands. Obi-Wan spun towards the others, and a rush of emotions choked his words as he barked at them.
"We need a medic! Now!"