Hand of Fate

Chapter 10 / The Missing Commander


The Inner Rim
3 Years After the Battle For Naboo

A relatively small diplomatic Nubian ship soared through silent space as the blue-and-green planet of Thyferra grew smaller behind it. Sleek in design and meant for trips of one to four, the yellow and stone accented cruiser only carried two passengers this time. In the dark cockpit, a gleaming copper-colored D-series protocol droid piloted as the acting captain finished marking down some notes on her datapad with intense focus.

"Hyperjump calculation initializing, Commander," the droid reported in a pleasant, female-leaning generated voice.

Sabé Nebira glanced over briefly. "Excellent, DC-10. Let me know when we're ready to make the jump."

"Of course," the droid replied.

Sabé finished her notes and set down her datapad, deep in thought, brushing loose pieces of wind-whipped hair back into the simple ponytail she'd put it in. A sense of pride came from being trusted by Padmé with jobs such as these. Ever since the battle of Naboo three years ago, Sabé's world had changed. No longer a palace security officer or a bodyguard handmaiden, she had been given the rank of Commander and tasked with a mixed bag: overseeing new recruit training, advising Naboo government along with Panaka on security measures, standing in as a handmaiden or guard when extra security detail was needed, and completing small missions for Padmé both onworld and off—sometimes with the queen, sometimes by herself, other times leading a small team herself. From minor espionage to ambassadorial work, Sabé had dipped her proverbial toes into waters she had only once imagined experiencing.

Today's journey had been to Thyferra, a planet that produced Naboo's bacta supply. Naboo and other systems relied heavily on this import, so working relations were important to upload. Meeting the officials, seeing the facilities and attending a bacta summit in representation to Naboo had been a little boring as far as Sabé was personally concerned, but all in a day's work, she supposed. She was now turning her thoughts in another direction and looking forward to the next few days: she had some time off and she and Zana were going to start working on medic school applications and possibly even tour a couple academies. In two years time, Zana would be ready to start that next part of her life and leave the nest so to speak, which was vastly bittersweet for her older sister. It was all going by so fast. It felt like no time at all had passed since the invasion. Since the battle. Since Obi-Wan.

A burst of rapid beeping drew Sabé's sudden scowl to the readout. "Commander, I'm picking up a very quickly incoming ship," DC-10 said, even as sensors increased from a mere warning to a scream. An attack? Even as she thought that, their ship lurched as laserfire began to pummel them from behind. "We're being attacked!" DC cried out in an alarmed tone even as Sabé grabbed controls and banked hard to the left.

"Where did they come from?!" she asked no one in particular even as they continued to take very damaging hits. "Kriff, DC, put all shields to the rear!" Sabé shouted, grabbing the thruster gear and throwing it to the side even as she yanked the throttle to engage her ship in an evasive barrel roll. "Activate a distress signal, now, and scramble it!" Who the blazes would be attacking us? She looped the ship forward in a wild spiral in an attempt to dodge the lasers, coaxing as much speed as possible out of a ship that wasn't built for dogfights or speed. She punched the rear view control with a thumb in an attempt to see who was attacking even as she suddenly veered to the right, but they had cloaking shields. She swore, hitting the console in frustration when she saw the error message: hyperjump impossible. Their engine had been damaged.

Suddenly, the ship lurched as if it was at the end of a rope—everything went still even as the engines pitifully tried to move the ship forward. But slowly, they began to go backwards. Even as her droid bemoaned their situation ("We're in their tractor beam. It's over. We're going to be killed!") Sabé was jumping up and checking her weapons, grabbing her blaster, then trying to peer out of the viewing port to see if she could physically see who was about to board them. All she could see was an outline of a dark gray ship with a skull painted in blood red onto the hull. Pirates? Bounty hunters? Slavers?

DC was now clanking around in a useless panic. "We're toast! It's over!"

Sabé grabbed the droid hard by their shoulder component. "Get your bolts together, DC!" she snapped, staring into the glowing greenblue photoreceptors. "You're making it really hard to stay calm right now." The ship creaked and moaned, and overhead, a shadow was cast as they came into their captor's docking bay.

Looking up and tensing as the stars of space were replaced by metal ship hull, Sabé's grip on her blaster tightened under sweaty fingers, her heart hammering and senses on high alert. "Come on," she whispered, nodding sideways toward the cockpit exit where the hallway to the main galley and boarding ramp was. "Let's welcome them onboard, shall we?" DC gave a fearful moan, following after the already running commander.


Naboo
Two Days Later

Obi-Wan dropped out of hyperspace in his small Jedi fighter, disengaged from the hyperdrive device, and headed straight toward a sight that had made him instantly nostalgic: Naboo. Swirled blue and green, the planet was like a jewel, and he remembered the first time he saw it from space like this. Qui-Gon had been with him then. As he navigated in, old memories and thoughts came up without bidding. Things he thought he had set aside in the years since.

When Padmé's transmission had come in personally addressed to him and begging for help, he had been both surprised and concerned. Then when he heard the situation and who was missing… he'd felt a definite lurch of something. Willingness to help, and urgency to leave. Sabé, an old friend made during a brief time. They hadn't had any contact since that night on Naboo, but he'd be bending the truth if he didn't admit she came to mind from time to time: Everything from snippets of memories with her to wondering what she was doing and how her life was going. And rarely, dreams. Nothing too specific, mostly just replays of their interactions. Learning that she was missing after an offworld mission was unsettling. Obi-Wan had immediately gone before the council to ask permission to take on the task of finding the missing commander, and since his padawan was incapacitated currently and the council looked on Padmé Amidala favorably, the request was granted. The only one who had been slightly hesitant was Master Yoda, for unknown reasons.

Obi-Wan made his approach into Naboo's atmosphere and flew into the Theed hangar, the same one where his confrontation with the red-and-black horned sith lord had happened. More memories came, things that haunted his dreams and nightmares alike.

Awaiting him was a small landing party. As his ship set down and the cockpit glass raised up to allow him exit, he gave the group a cursory look over: It was Queen Amidala, wearing an aqua-green and gold embroidered gown with jewel-adorned hair arranged into an impossible loop around her head. She was flanked by four handmaidens in soft blue robes and beside her was a young teenage girl who bore striking resemblance to Sabé—she wore what looked like a school uniform. A couple of officers accompanied them, including a familiar looking young man with an eye-patch.

Standing and exiting his fighter as gracefully as possible, he approached the party even as the queen and her party moved toward him. Through her painted mask, he could see her worry. "Milady," he greeted, "it is good to see you again." He bowed deeply to show respect.

Padmé Amidala inclined her head in turn. "Thank you so much for coming, Master Obi-Wan."

"I am eager to help, Your Highness."

She hesitated, glancing at his fighter then him questioningly. "Is Anakin not with you?"

Anakin. The mention of his unruly, constantly-in-trouble Padawan must have made Obi-Wan's expression change a bit. The Jedi Master took a moment to word himself delicately. "He's… currently unavailable." If that was what you wanted to call a two-week mandatory stay at the halls of healing due to the amount of broken bones he'd suffered in an act of ridiculous macho stupidity. Obi-Wan turned his attention to the anxiously silent girl just beside Amidala. There was no mistaking who she was. He bowed toward her as well. "Zana. I'm sorry to hear about your sister."

Zana had gotten a good deal taller and her features had sharpened and lengthened. She had been poised and mature at eleven, and he saw that now at what he guessed to be fourteen, she was the same. "Thank you for coming," she said, stress apparent in the way she held herself and spoke. "Something terrible's happened to her, I'm sure of it. Do you think you can help?"

"I'm most certainly going to try," he replied, conveying his empathy through his grim expression.

"We deeply hope you can help us find the missing commander," Amidala added. "We unfortunately don't even know how to begin looking for her."

Obi-Wan nodded. Amidala's message had been brief but informative: Sabé's ship, which Nubian officers had towed back to Theed, had been found abandoned by all appearances with evidence of some kind of boarding and attack. No clues as to who took her or why. "Can you show me the ship?" he asked.

The officer with the eyepatch stepped forward, then indicated to his right a laserfire-scarred vessel across the hangar by about fifty feet. "It's right over here." He nodded crisply and introduced himself: "Captain Gregar Typho."

Obi-Wan nodded acknowledgment. "Yes, I recall." They walked together with the group of women silently following then waiting a few paces away from the ship. The outside of the starcraft bore obvious marking of an attack from behind, which Obi-Wan scrutinized briefly before following the Captain up the ramp and inside.

Inside the main galley area, there were charred blasterfire lines and holes everywhere from what seemed to be quite the confrontation. Broken ship components scattered across the floor, signs of a valiant struggle. Grim, Obi-Wan ran his fingers across one particularly long laserfire scar across the inner hull on the way to the cockpit. Following behind him, Typho relayed more information. "The ship was left floating in space with the distress signal locked in and homing beacon activated. We have the coordinates marked down." Both men were now in the cockpit, which seemed untouched as far as laserfire went. Even as Obi-Wan attempted to access the main panel, Typho told him not to waste his time: "Ship logs are destroyed, security audio recordings wiped."

So whoever boarded and took Sabé didn't want to be caught or found. Obi-Wan nodded vexed understanding, then glanced at Typho for a long beat. The man appeared similarly apprehensive and distressed by all this to the queen and Zana. His feelings were radiating off of him loudly: fear, distress, worry, helplessness. "She's a good friend of yours, isn't she?" Obi-Wan asked. He remembered seeing them talking several times after the battle of Naboo.

Typho nodded, a jaw in his muscle jumping. "I've known her close to ten years now." His voice lowered and he swallowed. "Do you think they killed her, Master Kenobi?"

A question that Obi-Wan had asked himself too. He thought about it again then shook his head. "If they were going to kill her outright, they would have done so in the ship." He paused, trying to access the Force for more clarity about what happened here. None came, all he could sense was Typho's worry. So Obi-Wan went with deduction. "No. They wanted something else." The question was, what? Something far more sinister, more than likely. Knowledge that turned his feelings sour and dark.

Feeling a sudden pull back toward where they'd come from, Obi-Wan went back to the galley area, focusing in hard on the sudden prick of guidance that was flitting around him. Following his feelings, he drifted forward to the tech-station lounge, then crouched down and put a hand down to the floor, slipping it into the small two-inch gap between the lounge and the ground. His fingers made contact with something and he grasped, fishing out a broken metal chain with a large, pointy tooth hanging from it.

"What's that?" Gregar asked, hanging back a few feet.

The same thing Obi-Wan was wondering. It was obviously a necklace of some kind, and it had been broken off of whoever wore it. Turning while crouched, Obi-Wan showed Gregar the object. "Was this something you saw the commander ever wear?"

The captain didn't look familiar with it at all, shaking his head and frowning hard. "No, never."

A clue. But to what, exactly? Obi-Wan stood up, rubbing a hand across his short, stubbled beard in contemplation. The tooth was distinct because along the back of it there was a crease: internal small sawlike patterns running up either side.

"I've never seen anything like that before," Typho said, coming to stand near Obi-Wan to better see the object better.

"Neither have I," Obi-Wan said, even as the obvious solution came to him. "…But I think I know someone who might have." He pulled out his commlink and tapped into the local broadcast, hailing all the way to Coruscant and hoping the hail would be answered. A few seconds passed. And then the connection was accepted and a little blue likeness of Dexter Jettster appeared. The Besalisk male grinned widely.

"Obi-Wan!" he greeted.

It was hard not to smile back at the jovial individual. "Hello Dex, many thanks for taking my call."

"You betcha!" Dex waved an extra arm and gave a thumbs up. "Whatcha need, buddy?"

Obi-Wan held up the tooth on the necklace to the receptor zone so that Dex would be able to see it. "Do you recognize this?"

The Basalisk's gaze narrowed and a hand came to stroke his gullet thoughtfully as another one scratched his head. "Hmm. Show me the other side?" Obi-Wan did and Dex made a decisive sound. "Well I'll be damned, that there's a Ronk tooth! Feline type animal with a very mean bite. Only lives on one planet."

Obi-Wan perked up. That could be quite a lead. "And what planet is that?"

"It's in the colonies. Called Cilpar. Not a very advanced planet so take extra batteries with ya." Dex chuckled. "What's this all about, huh? Lemme guess, Jedi business as usual?"

Obi-Wan smiled—his relationship with Dex was often on a need-to-know basis, but Dex never seemed to mind it. "Something like that," he replied. "I owe you a drink next time I see you, old friend."

Dex signed off with a flourishing hand gesture, something like a bow. "I'll be waiting, flyboy!" The transmission ended. Obi-Wan began heading off the ship, leaving Typho to hurry and follow.

Outside, Amidala and her entourage waited. Zana and Padmé looked expectant. "Your Highness, I may have a lead," Obi-Wan said, and their expressions both immediately showed relief and hope, which Obi-Wan raised a hand of caution to. "It could be nothing, but it's worth checking into."

"Excellent news, Master Kenobi," Padmé said. "Do you need any assistance from any of my people?"

Typho looked cagey, ready to burst into action. "I'm ready to go with you, just say the word," he said.

Obi-Wan regarded Typho with a neutral expression. "That won't be necessary, Captain Typho." He put his hands together, concealing them in his robe. "I first need to discover if there's any validity to this lead." He bowed again, signaling his departure. "I'll be in contact as soon as I know something."

"Please, Master Kenobi," Zana said, her voice struggling and eyes shining. "Bring my sister back."

Empathetic, Obi-Wan nodded once by inclining his head. "I will do my very best, Zana." He gave another nod to the queen.

"May your journey yield a safe recovery of our lost friend," Amidala said even as Obi-Wan turned and went toward his ship.

Watching him go, Zana whispered, "so we plead," to whatever gods listening.


Nine Hours Later

The Jedi fighter punched to a stop out of lightspeed, jetting to a smooth, slow approach of Cilpar. In front of Obi-Wan a mottled green planet waited, and he glanced at his readout. Atmosphere breathable, technology minimal—nearly nonexistent. He wondered if this were a wild Bantha chase. Hoping not—and trusting the instinct that he was on the right path—he took in a deep breath and began his approach. He leveled out and skimmed near the planet surface, taking in a lush and wild world beneath. He saw wooded areas and rivers winding through thick, tropical jungle. Waterfalls were set between huge craggy rock expanses, and he could see plains in the distance. Here and there, bits of stone ruins peeked through. He saw no roads or technology. If those things were here, they were hidden. Even as he was waiting for the Force's guidance to direct where he landed, a sudden blast rocked his ship and alarms began to shrilly sound. Ion canons—what the blazes? He attempted to regain control, but the initial hit to his left wing had the ship going down, and fast. The jungle beneath was coming up fast, and contact was inevitable. "This is why I hate flying!" he complained, then sighed irritably as he realized there was only one choice left at his disposal. He hit the eject button right before his fighter crashed into the jungle floor.

Landing lightly with a flip and a Force-assisted cushion, Obi-Wan remained in a semi-crouch for a couple beats, taking in his surroundings. Off about twenty yards, his fighter was a ball of flame and bent metal—useless and broken. Well, I won't be leaving that way. Cilpar's air was humid, warm, and felt thick to breathe in. The tree canopy overhead was dense, causing what light got through to be very green on his skin and robe. The ground was full of low-growing ferns and rooted brush, with larger trees snaking upward toward the sky—vines hung down like ropes sporadically. Plants with leaves almost as large as Obi-Wan dotted the area. But that wasn't what took him aback the most: The massive lifeforce around him was utterly overwhelming. He could hear them—insects, birds, crawling things, rodents—and sense them too. Millions of beings, small and large, surrounded him. He turned in a slow circle, straightening up as he did so, contemplating his next move, trying to hear the Force through the din of life. A whisper called him forward, and setting his eyes on that direction, Obi-Wan left his destroyed fighter behind without a second thought. The Force always showed him the way.

For about thirty minutes, he worked his way into the jungle with only the Force as his guide, following it blindly. Stopping in a small clearing where the undergrowth was less, a now-sweating Obi-Wan wiped at his forehead with the back of his robe's sleeve and squinted around, pressing into the current where he could find the Force. Focusing proved hard with the loud abundance of lifeforce around him, so he closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, steadying himself. Are you here? A question he sent searching out across the miles. He waited, listening. And then, a sudden spike of warning that told him to act now. Obi-Wan's eyes snapped open and he was already reaching for his weapon. It went flying out of his hand as something massive with barred teeth and a yellow furry face tackled him, a rattling roar emanating from its throat. Even as the weight hit him and he went down onto his back, his sides and vocal cords alike screamed in pain against the razorlike claws that dug in. With an incoherent shout, Obi-Wan used a burst of the Force to push the gigantic cat-like creature away and into a tree—the claws left slashes behind. He leapt up despite the pain, calling his lightsaber to come flying into his hand where he swiftly ignited it. His opponent was a large yellow cat-like creature with wickedly long teeth he recognized. A ronk, Dex had called this creature. At the sight of the weapon, the ronk's ears flattened against its head and it hissed, visibly considering how much it wanted to try attacking again. It decided not to and instead ran away, disappearing into the underbrush.

Breathing heavily now, Obi-Wan's shoulders relaxed and when he felt it was safe, he turned off his saber. He touched a hand to his side. Blood came away on his palm and he made a sound of pain. Wounds that would need attending to soon. They were painful and deep, causing him to grit his teeth. He pulled his robe around himself a little tighter, then continued on, once again following the trail that the Force was leading him down. This time however with his injuries, he felt less peace.

After about five minutes, the first feeling of dizziness hit and he stumbled, knocking loudly against a plant that rustled. The world dipped wildly, going parallel and making him reach out for balance, nearly falling over. He blinked twice, shaking his head as if that could fix his sudden disorientation. Did that ronk do something to him? Next to him, a plant shook, and Obi-Wan looked at it in confusion. And then a metal face with glowing greenblue eyes appeared. "Away, you scoundrel!" came a metallic shout, and suddenly, Obi-Wan was trying to fight off a protocol droid that was attempting very badly to bash him with a medium sized rock. Even as the droid's joints whirred and groaned at the motion of hitting the Jedi, sticks and rocks hit Obi-Wan, who held up two hands, fighting a dizzy feeling while he tried to see who was attacking him.

Sideways thanks to his current confused eyesight, she ran out from behind the rest of them: an athletically built brunette woman with a face he knew. "Stop, stop!" she shouted breathlessly, getting in between the ones throwing rocks and Obi-Wan. "This isn't an enemy!"

Three people he did not know and the droid stopped their primitive attack, then stood back, stunned and confused as Sabé Nebira, looking a little older, a little wilder, and pretty disheveled turned around to face Obi-Wan. She was wearing a utility flightsuit that had empty weapons holsters and had become covered in various rips, tears, and smudges. Her hair was pulled back messily from her face. Seeing her again, he realized he had forgotten her face, or it had become more hazy in his memories. He only had a second to take it all in, because she looked amazed to see him. "Obi-Wan!" She grinned and threw her arms around him in a spontaneous hug that lasted only a second before she drew back, gripping him on either shoulder with a perplexed expression. "What are you doing here?!"

He felt unsteady and a little mentally clouded, but somehow he was able to summon some classic Kenobi charm. "Well I'm… here to rescue you."

Her smile was back. "Great! Where's your ship?"

His air fell. "Uh—" that was right. "It's… well, it's completely destroyed."

Sabé appeared to be trying to follow his logic, and of all things, was almost amused, her head tilting to the side as her brows worked in together. She folded her arms. "So how exactly do you plan to rescue me then?"

Obi-Wan could only come up with one answer. "I'm… still working that all out."

She made an amused, perplexed face. One of the refugees, a young woman with blue designs tattooed onto her arms, face, and neck, took her mistrustful stare off of Obi-Wan. "Miss Sabé, who is this?" she asked quietly in a thick accent.

Sabé answered without taking her eyes off him. Her voice carried a certain kind of nostalgia to it that he recognized. "This is Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. An old friend of mine."

Obi-Wan found himself smiling back softly despite the distinct hot feeling of a fever coming over him.

"He's a Jedi!" another one of the refugees said—an older man perhaps in his sixties—he looked impressed and intimidated. Beside him, a teenage boy who looked scared out of his mind. They both also had blue designs tattooed onto their skin. The three people besides Sabé were dressed in clothing that reminded Obi-Wan of a tribe of scavengers he'd come across once.

"Please accept my apologies for attempting to bash your head in, Master Kenobi," the droid said.

"It happens more than you'd think," Obi-Wan said, earning a brief chuckle from Sabé.

Sabé indicated each person in turn—the woman with blue designs, then the older man, then the teenage boy. "Obi-Wan, this is Demi, Takk, and Yez. Oh, and DC-10." She became more serious. "The Nikto pirates who kidnapped me are running a trafficking establishment off this planet, selling people they take from small villages here as well as people they steal off of vulnerable defenseless ships. Like mine. We were all being held. We escaped their base, and now we're on the way to these people's village to seek shelter."

As he took the information in, he became more and more troubled. This was something the council should know of indeed. He struggled to think clearly. "Are others being held?" he asked.

"Not right now." She cast a watchful glance around. "We should keep moving, get to the village, and then make a gameplan from there." Obi-Wan nodded, wincing against a strange pangs associated with his wounds that were hidden beneath his robe. Sabé didn't miss his expression. "Are… you all right?" She seemed to look more closely then at his sweaty appearance and strange color.

Not wanting to worry anyone, Obi-Wan tried to dismiss the question. "Just feeling a bit off."

Sabé followed where his hand was pressing lightly into his side. She unceremoniously gave him a suspicious look and pulled his hand and robe away enough to see the angry red slashes and bloody tunic layers. Her eyes went wide. "A bit off?!" she exclaimed, her face a very interesting mix of worried, shocked, and indignant. "You're hurt! What happened?"

Obi-Wan stared silently into her waiting brown eyes, feeling another wave of heat that made his skin prickle, burn, and freeze all at the same time. He forgot what she had just asked.

"Did a Ronk do this?" The woman—Demi—asked, craning her neck a little to see the wounds. "Scratch you?"

Obi-Wan swallowed against a dry mouth. "Yes."

Demi shook her head, her expression giving away how dire it was. She turned directly to Sabé. "Poisonous. He'll soon be very sick." She motioned ahead. "We need to hurry to the village." She began to lead the way.

Obi-Wan swayed slightly. Sabé caught him by looping his arm over her shoulder so he was leaned at her side. He sent a weak, apologetic look her way. "Who's rescuing who, again?" she asked, putting an arm around his waist to help hold him up.

It was like no time had passed at all since he saw her last. He still felt the same connection of camaraderie between them. A dry chuckle rasped out as they began to move out. "You're never going to let me live this down, are you?" he asked, feeling drunk at this point. Everything felt unsteady.

"Well, first priority is making sure you live, Obi-Wan," she said, laboring under his weight but hiding it with a show of humor. "After that… I promise not to let you live it down."

He responded with an incoherent sound, his eyes beginning to droop. They slowly made their way, following Demi on an invisible path she seemed to know by heart. They continued on and on, and Sabé glanced at Obi-Wan with more and more anxiety as he became less and less coherent. "Demi, how much further?" she asked, gritting her teeth and groaning with exertion as she re-hoisted Obi-Wan's increasing weight against her.

"Not much," Demi said, then they all heard it at the same time. "What's that?" she whispered, stopping and looking upward with frightened eyes. The distant drone of an engine.

Breathing heavily, Sabé looked behind where they'd come—in some places, bent branches and leaves plus trod on underbrush had left a clear trail. Meaning they were about to have company. "Scout speeders," she hissed, then swore. They'd be here in seconds, and… "Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan!" he'd collapsed completely, and he was too heavy. She fell to the ground with him awkwardly.

"We don't have weapons!" Demi cried out. "We're dead!"

Sabé shook her head, her jaw set, mind creating a plan of action in seconds. Her voice was severe and deadly calm. "We're not dead yet." Without another choice, she snatched Obi-Wan's weapon off his belt and for the first time in her life, held a lightsaber. Even as she did, she jumped up and ran toward the sound of the approaching speederbike and shouted for everyone to get down, putting a little distance between herself and those who she traveled with. She held the weapon at her side, and her finger hovered over the ignition button on the lightsaber. She tried to control her heavy, short breaths to her advantage as every muscle tensed and her pulse pounded at full volume in her ears. Into sight came swerved two speederbikes piloted by helmeted Nikto: Fierce, reptilian creatures. The first biker in front spotted her and leaned forward, gunning his bike even faster to run her down. The bike following slowed a bit. Sabé stood waiting, her adrenaline singing and waiting for the exact moment. The engines grew louder and louder. She could hear a zealous cry of victory from the Nikto who thought he was about to run her over. Her muscles grew tenser and tenser, threatening to spasm. NOW!

She ignited the saber and dodged sideways hard, grabbing the hilt with both hands and letting a sweep of the saber slice weightlessly through the length of the speeder, causing pieces to go flying everywhere as it crashed. The other Nikto on the speeder behind the first one lost control and crashed into a tree.

Sabé was already sprinting toward the first pirate who had been thrown in his attempt to run her over. His leg was cut off at the thigh, but even as he howled in pain, he was reaching for his blaster. Sabé turned off the lightsaber as she ran, rolling herself in a tight ball to cover the last little bit of distance. The lightsaber blazed to life again as she unrolled into a single-leg kneel right in front of the opponent with the blaster. With a vicious, artless stab right into his chest, Sabé killed him. Aware that her second opponent was still a threat, Sabé was already grabbing the blaster from the Nikto she'd just killed. She jumped to her feet, lightsaber in one hand and blaster in the other as she whirled and made two killing headshots to the other pirate who had just stood and raised his weapon to fire on her. His body fell over heavily.

Silence again came over the jungle, except for the ambiance of insects and creatures.

Chest heaving, muscles still taut, Sabé breathed hard and fast, stunned at how fast and how close that had been. Shaken from adrenaline, she looked back at the ones she'd just protected, checking to make sure they hadn't been hit by flying debris. Obi-Wan was unconscious, and DC-10 was attempting to hide behind a tree that was much too narrow to accomplish any kind of protection. Demi and her brother and father stared with what looked like respect and fear. Sabé cut the lightsaber off and jammed it into the empty knife holster at her side, already hurrying back at a stride. Obi-Wan looked like he was dying. Not given even a moment to think, she began to haul the unconscious Jedi up, looking to the teenage boy for assistance. "Yez, help me carry him. We need to get him to your village, now."


Author's Notes: Okay so what do you think so far?! How will they get off this planet?! Is Obi-Wan okay?! Also, shoutout to my reader Demi, she got a character named after her in this chapter :) FYI, I posted a little post of Sabé's costume, the location look, a photo of DC-10, and art of the ship Sabé was piloting onto the blog: .com!