CHAPTER 7
Obi-wan looked out the window of the vehicle they were in. He was still very much in shock from what had just happened. In Fact it was kinda hard for him to remember. He sat up straight trying to visualize everything that happened. We were walking to our ship and then there was a bright light and then a group of people surrounded us. They wanted our ship and then I tried to negotiate with them. Then Anakin got angry. Really Anger. Why was he so Angry? Obi-wan was pretty sure he had never seen Anakin that angry ever. Then Obi-wan straightened up as his memory returned to him. My negotiations completely failed. And Ahsoka almost had to pay the price for it. A great sadness struck his heart. His negotiations have always been either successful or not successful, not catastrophic. Never in his time as a negotiator has someone else gotten hurt for his failure. Obi-wan bent his head down. But never has he ever encountered someone that was that twisted and psychotic. Obi-wan shivered, this man genuinely scared him because he had morals that seemed good but he somehow used them to justify horrible acts. The Sith don't even do that. He thought.
Obi-wan looked up from where he was sitting to see Anakin and Ahsoka across the way. Ahsoka was quiet, she just looked out the window longly leaning against Anakin who was sitting directly beside her with his arm wrapped around her shoulders. Just as Ahsoka wasn't shocked anymore Anakin was not angry anymore. Both however had this horrible look of defeat on their faces.
There was a fourth person in the back of this Van, as they had called it, and she was sitting in front of them, Piper.
Obi-wan leaned forward eagerly. "How much further?"
Piper turned towards him. "Not too much further, we are almost there."
A realization crossed Obi-wan's mind as he leaned a little closer. "We forgot our ship back there."
Piper smiled a little. "Don't worry, it can't go anywhere. Nothing from Corosunt will work too well out here, Radiation does that to machinery."
Ahsoka, who had been listening, leaned forward. "Is that why our lightsabers don't work?"
Piper turned to her, adjusting herself so she could face them better. "Yes, that is also why you guys don't have a connection to the force."
Obi-wan started raising an eyebrow.
Piper then laughed to herself a little. "I will explain in detail when we are at our base, but basically, everything is too radiated for you to get any kind of reading of the 'force' out here."
Obi-wan leaned back in his seat and stroked his bread. This planet was getting more and more interesting by the second.
"What is this planet called?" Anakin's raspy voice called through the vehicle as it slowed and turned into a structure.
Piper turned to him. "Sagittaria." She stated as the vehicle stopped. She unbuckled her seat belt and scooted out of it. "Or what's left of it."
The four got out of the van, Piper told the drivers thank you and then she led them through a door which was an elevator.
"So. You are a police officer?" Anakin asked.
Piper sighed. "Yes, the official title is Detective, but because my line of work tends to get pretty violent most of the time I like to call myself an aggressive negotiator."
Anakin and Ahsoka both couldn't help but smirk at her comment.
Obi-wan was still a little uneasy at her methods and tried to challenge that. "Is that really necessary though."
Piper turned to him. "Well when it comes to the Calvary absolutely. What you guys went through was nothing compared to the stunts that they usually pull."
Obi-wan stopped for a moment. "Well, I guess you won't have to be an aggressive negotiator anymore."
Piper looked at him. "I wish, unfortunately I am going to be holding this title for a long time."
Anakin stopped. "Wait, are you saying that there are more of those guys?"
Piper stopped and sighed. "Tons." "That was just a small part-timer group."
Anakin took a deep breath. "They have our men." He stated calmly. "Are they dead?"
Piper looked at him. "If your men are captured, will they fight back?"
Anakin looked at her, his face turning pale. "Most likely."
"Well the Calvary don't believe in killing unless you 'give them a reason' to." "So as long as your men don't fight back, they should be okay. For now."
"We have to get them back," Ahsoka stated.
"Don't worry we will, but they could have taken them anywhere so we have to figure that out first."
To Obi-wan's surprise Anakin didn't even object. He thought for sure that his old padawan would surely object and say something like NO! WE NEED TO GO NOW! But he didn't, and Obi-wan concluded two possible reasons why:
1. Anakin was scared of the Calvary, and for good reason too.
2. He trusted Piper
Obi-wan sighed, he wasn't sure if he trusted Piper. His natural instincts were telling him to, but the code was telling him not to. She had just taken a few lives away and that seemed to not phase her at all. However, Obi-wan was also fine with the fact that those men were dead because they just tried to hurt Ahsoka.
The elevator stopped and the four walked out into a large room with three distinct floors. There were people of all species at desk typing and officers walking about. At the bottom floors were officers in uniforms all working aggressively. Some were talking through black phones while others were looking at holograms that showed the layout of the city. To the groups right, uniformed officers were lining up the calvary members taking off their mask and taking photos of them.
"Piper!" Came a loud voice from their right. When they turned to see who it was, a large muscular woman with tan skin and black hair came forward. She wasn't dressed in uniform, but like Piper was dressed in all black with a badge on her belt. "What kind of trouble did you get into now!"
"Oh you know to Sarge the usual: blew up a Calvary truck, killed and arrested a Calvary group, saved a few Jedi," Piper stated casually.
"Jedi!" The muscular women turned to the three Jedi. "We haven't gotten any Jedi in a long time!"
"Hello," Obi-wan began. "But I'm sorry you have got a Jedi…" Obi-wan was then cut off by the muscular women.
"And definitely not any as stupid as you three. Walking out into the night after a rainstorm! You guys are lucky I could dispatch Piper to save you guys!" The women stated.
"Well, we weren't sure if we could…." Obi-wan tried but the women just began laughing.
"Haha. It's fine at least you guys are safe. The name is Sargent Tris Douglas." Tris stated.
"Well I'm Obi-wan Kenobi, this is Anakin Skywalker, and this is Ahsoka Tano."
"Nice to meet all of you." Tris smiled. "Now….." Tris was suddenly interrupted by a loud explosion coming from a few offices away. "Oh dear god, what now."
Smoke came flying out of an office along with a coughing Pantronan and human. Immediately uniform officers ran to the area with fire extinguishers.
"I told you… cough… that it was too much!" The Pantornan stated his lavender silver hair stuck to his forehead.
"Hahaha…..it was...cough….fine!" The human with lightly tanned skin and black slicked-back hair laughed.
"I swear to god!" Tris began walking aggressively towards them. "I can't leave you two alone for five seconds!"
"Oh hey, Sarge. We were just…..cough…. experimenting!" The human stated, smiling.
"What could you possibly be experimenting on!" The Sarge yelled.
"Well, you see the question isn't what we failed at making the question is what we were trying to accomplish!" The Pandoran scratched the back of his head nervously.
"We were using a gastronome bomb." The human stated abortively.
"WHAT!" Tris yelled. "Oh! Of all the stupid, immature, reckless, things you two could have possibly done!"
"That is Rats and Donovan," Piper told the three Jedi who was just watching. "They are both detectives in training, kinda like assistant Detectives, the Sarge, one other detective, and myself are in charge of them, they are both pretty young, for their position so they tend to do stuff like this a lot."
A small ball thing rolled out of the room and by Anakin's boot. Anakin picked it up and began inspecting it. He then looked up at the Sarge who was lecturing the two boys and walked up to them.
"Is this what you were trying to create?" Anakin asked.
The Pandoran, named Rats, looked up. "Ahh yeah." "We wanted to turn it into a vacuum-like bomb, but we utterly failed."
Anakin took a longer look. "I think you were pretty close, you see you have this compartment wired to this one." "I think you just needed to turn off the power component before you wired the compactors together." Anakin did exactly what he said and the small ball began sucking. Anakin then threw it into the room and all the smoke was sucked into the ball.
"Woah!" The human named Donovan stated. "Bro! We have been working all day on that!"
"How did you do that?" Rats asked.
"Oh you know I have a way with mechanics," Anakin smirked, moving his mechanical arm.
Donovan then looked at Anakin's right arm. "Bro is that a mechanical arm!"
Anakin nodded and pulled his glove off to show them.
"Holy mother of Mayhem, this thing is incredible!" Rats's excitement spread on his face as he put on his glasses and began inspecting it.
"Thank you I designed it myself!" Anakin stated.
Donovan reached out to it. "I have never seen a prospect so integrated. How much flexion do you get with it?" Donovan asked.
"Almost 100 percent of what a human hand gets," Anakin smirked.
"What about dexterity and grip?" Rats asked.
Anakin began to chuckle to himself. "More than what an organic hand has."
"WOW!" Donovan stated. "We have been trying to create a hand gripper for small spaces, for the search and rescue team, how did you get past the tension problem."
Anakin smiled as he began explaining parts to his hand. On the other hand, Obi-wan put his palm to his forehead. And shook his head. Ahsoka was giggling to herself.
"What's the problem Master?" Ahsoka asked Obi-wan.
"There are three of them now," Obi-wan stated.
"Hey we are the ones that have had to deal with two of them," Tris told Obi-wan. "If you think one is bad, look at what two of them have done." She motioned to the black stained office, even though all the smoke was gone.
"Sarge I have some….. Oh." Obi-wan, Ahsoka, Piper, and the Sarge turned around to see a beautiful Zygerrian woman.
"Hey Kat," Tris stated.
"What did they do now?" Kat asked.
"You don't want to know," Piper replied. Then she turned to Obi-wan and Ahsoka. "Obi-wan Ahsoka this is Katniss, she is the other detective with me and Sarge who are in charge of the two Jrs over there."
"Nice to meet you. Katniss is a cool name. Where did it come from?" Ahsoka stated, holding out her hand to Katniss.
"Thank you, my parents got that name from a Classical book written a long time ago. It's a little long however so you can call me Kat." Kat stated with nice gentle eyes. "Ahsoka right?"
Ahsoka nodded.
"And so you are Obi-wan." Kat smiled to Obi-wan.
"Yes, yes I am and the one impressing your Assistant Detectives over there is Anakin," Obi-wan stated.
"If it has anything to do with machines, that is not hard to do," Kat stated.
"Yes, the same goes for our friend." Obi-wan then turned to Tris. "I'm sorry, but we do still have four possibly five men held captive by the Calvary and Piper stated that you guys could assist us."
Tris made a face, but Piper stepped in to bring her up to speed.
"The Calvary took their friends' hostage as a threat for the Jedi to not get in their way. So they could get their ship."
Tris nodded. "Oh, dear." "The Calvary really need to quit pulling this crap." Then she looked at Obi-wan. "We will get your men back." "But with all due respect, what are Jedi doing out here we haven't had any since I was a uniform officer."
Obi-wan ignored Tris' statement at the moment and continued. "We were informed that a really bad weapon that makes people disappear was created here and we're scared of it getting unleashed into the wrong hands. So we came to inspect the situation and talk to the people here."
"So you guys could use it against someone," Tris stated sternly.
"No, we weren't going to use it!" Ahsoka chimed in. "We just wanted to learn about it."
"Well, the only weapon Sagittaria has that 'makes people disappear' is the hydrogen bomb and there is no way our government is giving that to anyone," Tris stated.
"Oh, that is a relief," Obi-wan stated. "So where do those people go when they disappear?"
"They don't get transported somewhere else," Piper stated.
"Well, what happens to them?" Obi-wan stated.
Kat gave them a look with sad eyes. Tris gave a concerned look and Piper continued. "Remember when I was telling you about the Nukes that were unleashed on this planet?"
Obi-wan nodded.
"Well the correct name is a thermonuclear weapon and what happens is that atoms are ripped apart at such a high speed, the power of a tiny star is unleashed on a civilization so the people caught in that don't get transported somewhere else, they get vaporized and vanish off the face of this planet."
"Oh my." Obi-wan put his hand over his mouth to cover his shock.
"That's pretty much the reason why Sagittaria left the Republic a long time ago," Tris stated.
"Wait, Sagittaria was a part of the Republic!" Anakin's shocked voice came from their left.
The group turned to see Anakin with Rats and Donovan on either side of them.
"Glad you decided to join our adult meeting." Obi-wan began. "Did you have fun showing off your mistake."
Anakin rolled his eyes. "Yes actually, and we have been here for the past five minutes you were just too involved in your observations to notice." Then he turned to Tris. "Not gonna lie, I have a bunch of questions like who was the Jedi that came here?"
"Qui gon jinn." A deep voice came from the side. A man with light green skin with an elegant uniform walked up, "He was a good friend of mine."
"This is Captain Halls," Tris stated. "Captain it is good to see you, this is Obi-wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka."
"It is very good to see Jedi again." The Captain stated with a gentle smile.
All three of the Jedi's eyes widened, and Obi wan's mouth almost dropped to the floor. "So that was where he was going every so often."
Anakin turned to Obi-wan, "Huh?" He asked.
"Qui gon used to always disappear for a few days, he never told me where he went, he said he would eventually."
"Oh, so you must be his apprentice that he would speak so highly about." The Captain stated.
Obi-wan looked up with a gleam in his eyes. "Really?"
The Captain smiled a fair smile "Whatever happened to him?" The Captain asked.
Obi-wan looked sadly to the ground. "He was killed by a Sith many years ago." Obi-wan stated.
"Oh, I am sorry to hear that, he really was a good man." The captain replied.
"Yes, he sure was," Obi-wan stated. "Anyhow, we are greatly confused, we just learned that Sagittaria was a part of the Republic, but we have never heard of this until now."
The Captain smiled. "Sagittaria wasn't just a part of the Republic, we started it."