It's big. It's a bit all over the place. It was hard to write here and there. But I think we've got some important (and hopefully touching) scenes here, and a day earlier than targeted!
17: I hate Vizsla too. As I'm sure you can imagine we'll only hate him more as time goes on.
I hope you all enjoy the chapter xxx
Bo-Katan had been doing pretty well – she'd kept her word to Pre and taken out two of her assigned assailants – until the last punch. It only ever took one; damn human design and the failure of the brain after a good rattle in the skull. This was why they wore armour, but there was no armour in punishment fights.
She laid on the cold floor with her arms held spread wide and watched the ceiling spin. She could hear nothing but her heartbeat. You're alive, it said to her. Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom. Alive, alive, alive.
A hand found hers and yanked her to her feet. The crowd surrounding Bo-Katan seemed to seethe and ripple. She saw and did not see them. The sound came back in strange waxing and waning amplitude. Roaring, laughter, cheers. They were congratulating her spectacular effort: the damage she'd inflicted, the damage she'd absorbed. They loved her for her violence. And she might have loved to fight, but she was not sure that she loved them anymore.
The colours dipped and swerved. Nothing made sense. She didn't belong in Sundari. Perhaps she didn't belong here either. Perhaps she did not belong anywhere, anywhere at all, in this whole hell-damned miserable galaxy.
Bo-Katan felt a wave of nausea and the darkness rose again. She hit the floor with a thud. No one bothered to catch her.
The crowd cheered.
The Duchess Kryze struck an imposing figure stalking through the Senate hallways, her hair pulled back by her Kalevalan headdress. She had an icy glare for everyone she met, except Padme, who she greeted with a subtle smile and the offer of a neatly wrapped parcel.
"Your sensible clothes," she greeted her, in explanation.
Padme accepted the gift with a smile of her own.
"You really didn't have to. But thank you."
She tucked the parcel under her arm and appraised the monarch with a faint frown.
"What are you doing here, anyway? I'd have thought the Republican Senate was the last place you'd want to be, with all the action recently."
"Indeed it is," Satine sighed generously. "But duty compels me here."
Padme quirked an inquisitive brow.
"I'm here to cause trouble," Satine summarised primly. "By which I mean recruiting for the Council of Neutral Systems and liberating my army."
Padme couldn't help but laugh at the contradiction.
"Your army?"
"The clones are Mando'ade," Satine clarified brusquely.
"Ah," Padme sympathised. "A difficult battle to fight."
"Indeed," Satine agreed, with a coy smile. "As I understand it, your efforts to that end earned you a fair few assassination attempts and a handsome young Jedi guard to match."
Padme rolled her eyes at Satine's teasing.
"My condolences on the foul play surrounding the Military Creation Act, by the way," the Duchess went on, sobering. "You did brilliantly to oppose it as far as you did. It is difficult to enact diplomacy when one's Chancellor declares himself a dictator."
Padme cursed under her breath.
"It's concerning," she admitted.
Satine snorted.
"Forgive me, I'll be a little more strongly-worded in my speech to the Senate."
Padme nodded and sighed. The Duchess had never been one to mince her words. But dissent would not be tolerated in wartime.
"Please don't look so worried for me, Padme," Satine went on, reading Padme's thoughts. "I know that I'll make enemies. Some causes, as you well know, are worth that."
Padme reached for a smile, her anxieties unallayed.
"Will Jedi still be permitted on a neutral Mandalore?" she teased.
Satine rolled her eyes but could not help but laugh.
"Those with peaceful intent."
Senator Merrik appeared at Satine's shoulder, his arms laden with folders of flimsi.
"It's time, Duchess."
"Thank you, Tal," Satine replied, before turning back to Padme. "All the best, Senator, with your attempts to fix the Republic. Should the task become too great, Naboo will always be welcome in the Council of Neutral Systems."
Padme nodded grimly.
"Give him hell for me, Duchess."
"The Grand Clone Army of the Republic, Chancellor, has been sourced not only through suspicious means that reek of dangerous third party involvement," Satine opened, "but in a manner that is completely unethical and illegal as per the Galactic Court of Justice's Charter of Sentient Rights."
Satine was no Jedi but she could feel the sneering disdain from the pods surrounding her already. The Galactic Court, lamentably, had little muscle with which to enforce its Charter; it depended upon the economic sanctions applied by its member states, of which a growing proportion were corrupt and self-interested.
"I should not be surprised by such developments," Satine pressed on, "given the Republic's frankly pathetic efforts to rid its territories of slavery thus far. But it is another matter entirely to profess to fight for democracy with an army of manufactured slaves."
There was jeering now amidst shouts of support and calls for order.
"It seems unusual, does it not, that the Grand Army of the Republic was produced on a secretive planet far beyond the Republic's jurisdiction?" Satine challenged. "It is illegal in the Republic to own another human being and therefore we can conclude that it is abundantly illegal to manufacture thousands of sentients for the express purpose of war. The Republic has purchased an army-"
"Please ensure that your statements are factually accurate, Duchess Kryze," the Chancellor interrupted, voice calm and patronising. "The army was commissioned and paid for many years ago by a Master of the Jedi Order-"
"That's conjecture, Chancellor!"
If the bastard could interrupt her, she could interrupt him too.
"We don't know who commissioned this army! A detail that I should think the Republic would find extremely disturbing, whether it is a proponent of slavery or not."
"You must be misinformed, Duchess," the Chancellor countered with a shake of his head. "I don't know who your sources are, but the research conducted by my own office – because of course, my fellow Republicans, we must know the origin of our Army – has left us with no doubt that the Grand Army of the Republic was commissioned by the Jedi Order."
Satine bit back a snarl.
"Jango Vhett, Chancellor, the Mandalorian who gave his DNA for these clones, knows of no Jedi involvement."
The Chancellor tutted.
"Again, Duchess, the veracity of your sources… I must call it into question. The Clan Kryze and Vhett are not famous for their good relations."
And her source was Obi Wan, blast it.
"Perhaps not," Satine acquiesced, recognising a dead end when she saw one. "But these clones are of the Mando'ade nonetheless, and it is my intention to rectify the illegal manufacture and purchase of this army by the granting of Mandalorian citizenship, and through citizenship granting them freedom and sentient rights. It is a crime to rob a sentient of their freedom and a more heinous crime still to force them to war. This is a grievance that I will take to the Galactic Court of Justice, if resolution cannot be achieved in direct negotiations with the Republic."
There was an almost respectful silence, at this. Of course there was. What she said made kriffing sense, didn't it? Surely even the idiots in the Republic could understand that.
"The DNA of the Mandalorian Jango Fett was given willingly for this scheme," the Chancellor countered mildly. "His genetic material belonged to him alone and he freely chose its fate. I fail to understand your claims to ownership of these-"
"Not ownership, Chancellor, citizenship."
"-and I suspect that the Galactic Court of Justice will fail to see your reasoning also. But by all means, the issue can be contended there."
The Chancellor took a sip of water, and fixed Satine with a sickening smile.
"I am afraid that in the meantime, the Republican Senate is not an appropriate forum for the Duchess of a Neutral System to air her idealism. There are more relevant matters to discuss today."
Satine's hands shook with fury. She held pages upon pages of flimsi with the legal precedents that disproved everything he had said to her. And this lying dictator, this cesspit of idiots who could be persuaded to agree to anything, even industrialised slavery, if it meant favourable economic deals… She could prove nothing to them.
"I understand that you are deaf to all reason, Chancellor," the Duchess acknowledged, voice curt and restrained. "I'll waste no further time in this forum. History shall not look favourably upon a Republic that sacrificed peace and freedom in its pursuit of wealth and power."
She snapped shut her folder and looked defiantly out at the sea of pods. There were trade deals that she would lose, because of today. But it mattered not. She had her Council of Neutral Systems. She had her pride and integrity. Across the room, Padme gave her a subtle nod of approval.
"Let's go, Tal," Satine sighed.
Her Senator withdrew the pod meekly.
"You spoke well, Duchess."
"It is no good, speaking well to that dikut crowd," Satine cursed. "Let's go find Korkie and take him to lunch. I need to speak to someone with a brain."
Korkie knew that the first rule of undercover missions was to not cover your face. This might seem counterintuitive to the undercover novice, but Korkie was of excellent sleuthing stock and therefore knew better. His mother had walked into Keldabe with her face uncovered, her white-blonde hair gleaming in the winter sunlight, and made it safely through the weekend market with no more attention than a compliment on her braids. It was important that you didn't look like you were hiding. And it helped if you had a helping hand from the Force – his mother had travelled into Keldabe with his father by her side. Fortunately, Korkie had inherited the family boldness and Force sensitivity both. It would be a piece of cake.
Like all good undercover agents, Korkie had done his research, befriending several boys in the streets of Coruscant whose life stories he could haphazardly mash together to make his own. His mother worked as a caff vendor, his father did maintenance for the droids at the Republican Senate – his team maintained over four thousand intelligent droids in total! Korkie had gone shopping and bought clothes made from flimsy fabrics that would never be found in the wardrobe of a prince. He dressed like a worker dressing to impress. Classless, his mother would say of his fast-fashion outfit. Which was why it was perfect.
To top off his preparation, he stole several bouquets worth of flowers from the Chancellor's garden, principally because there were very few locations on Coruscant where one could find any flowers, and secondarily because the power-hungry slave-owning Chancellor did not deserve to have such pretty flowers in his garden. The sentry droids, distracted by a pin-wheeling trick-droid Anakin had gifted Korkie for his eighth life-day, did not notice anything amiss. All in a day's work for the Jetii Prince of Mandalore.
Korkie's bronze-gold hair shone in the artificial Coruscant sunlight as his mother's had shone in Keldabe so many years ago as he crossed over the enormous threshold into the Jedi Temple. He'd prepared a line for the waiting security but there didn't seem to be any – not the Jedi way, he supposed. Between the whole kriffing Temple of Force-sensitives they presumably expected to detect any intruders with ease. Korkie's Force-shielding had never been put to the test like this. His experience thus far, admittedly, had been largely unsuccessful attempts to sneak up on his father.
But his father was the best Jedi ever, to be fair.
A duo of Jedi, Master and Padawan, were approaching down the hallway. His first test. Korkie doubled down on his shields and they passed him by with barely a glance. Korkie felt rather pleased with himself, until it happened again three, or maybe four times in a row. He was not evading the Jedi through any merit of his own. The Jedi weren't seeing him because they weren't looking. Korkie began to find words for the uncomfortable feeling in the Force around him. The Jedi were distracted. They were grieving, worrying, asking What if I had-
Everything they weren't meant to do, insofar as his father had taught him. Korkie remembered, then, that over a hundred Jedi had died on Geonosis. He'd heard the statistic already but it was suddenly real before him.
Over a hundred Jedi dead. The Order in grief. And by some miracle, his father, alive.
Korkie increased his pace through the hallways and flagged the attention of the next passing Jedi, a slim Tholothian female. He gave her a white flower from the Chancellor's garden and thanked her for her service to the Republic, then asked from directions to the Halls of Healing.
"I want to thank all of the wounded," he explained.
She pointed him on his way with a smile full of sadness.
Navigating the Halls of Healing, too, was easier than it should have been. The Healers were busy with sick patients. The droids rolled ceaselessly from task to task. Korkie gave out his flowers and thanked the Jedi for their courage. There were more wounded that he'd accounted for. It might take him a long time to find his father.
His gifts were received with mixed emotion. All of them were polite enough to thank him. Many murmured explanations that a Jedi did not seek praise or recognition. In particular, the words "service to the Republic" seemed to conjure grimaces in the Force. Korkie supposed it made sense. His dad had always said that he went on his missions in the name of compassion, to serve the will of the Force. Never the Republic.
Korkie stumbled upon Skywalker, Anakin's room but it was empty. Anakin was probably having his surgery. Because he'd lost his arm. His vod had lost his kriffing arm.
He couldn't help it. He was starting to panic a little now. The Force felt turbulent around him. If he wasn't careful, someone would-
"Can I help you with anything, young man?"
It was a female voice, gentle, amused perhaps. Korkie turned to see a Mon Calamari dressed in Healer's white.
"I'm saying thank you. For the service to the Republic."
"I know," she told him, with a smile. "It is very kind of you. Obi Wan's in cubicle forty-nine, if you were wondering."
Korkie stared at her, agape.
"Your shielding's very good, youngling. But I know a Kenobi when I see one. Cubicle forty-nine."
Korkie managed a hurried bow.
"Thank you, Master."
The Healer smiled.
"Master Eerin. But you can call me Bant."
Some strange light brought Obi Wan from his sleep. Perhaps the sun…
But there was no sun in his cubicle. He'd moaned to Bant endlessly about being designated a cubicle without a window. Apparently his cubicle loaned itself to frequent neurological observations, which of course he didn't need. So where was the sun coming from?
Obi Wan opened his eyes with great effort. He'd been sleeping far too much since this stupid head injury. His weary eyes saw no sun. So the light was… in the Force, perhaps. He struggled further against his somnolence. Someone was here, someone important, someone bright…
"Korkie!" he croaked.
The child jumped to his feet and leapt onto the bed to lie beside his father as he had when he was young.
"Bant said not to wake you! But you're awake now so we can-"
"I didn't think you were serious when you said you would…"
Speaking was too difficult. He looped an arm around his son and kissed him on the head.
"I'm so glad to see you, Korkie'ad."
"I'm so glad to see you too, Dad," Korkie murmured, leaning into his father's chest. "I let you down. I knew you shouldn't have gone on that mission. I felt it. And I can't believe I let you go and then you got hurt and-"
"I'm not so hurt, Korkie. And you didn't let me down."
"You are hurt," Korkie corrected him. "I thought you'd have broken out of the Halls of Healing by now. But you're too sick for that."
Obi Wan made a non-committal noise of assent.
"Don't tell your mother, alright?"
"I won't," Korkie promised. "She's too busy, she needs to focus. She's going to liberate the army and end the war."
It was like something in Obi Wan's chest gave way, then. He squeezed his son tight and tried to breathe through the pain of this realisation.
Korkie was a child. A child of golden sunlight and optimism. And Satine would not liberate the army and the war would not end and his son would very soon grow up.
"I love you so much, Korkie'ad," he murmured, his throat suddenly hoarse and trembling. "I need you to know that. No matter what happens."
Korkie looked up at him, his eyes full of worry.
"Is everything going to be okay?"
Obi Wan feared very much in that moment that it would not be. That Anakin would never forgive him the arm he had lost. That Satine would lose everything in the fight against this war. That they would lose each other. That he would lose his son. Behind his eyes Obi Wan saw flashes of fire and the black and red face of the Sith.
"Dad?"
Obi Wan breathed in the scent of his son's hair and found the anchor he needed. Radiant light. He held Korkie tightly and breathed until he could see clearly once more. His son had brought him safely out of his first panic attack in over a decade.
"I think my brain's been rather rattled, Korkie," he mumbled in apology, and found a steady voice, squeezing Korkie's hand. "I think everything will be very difficult, my dear one. But I know that in the end..."
Korkie was surely the most wonderful child to ever be born in this galaxy. Obi Wan's heart swelled with love.
"In the end, I know that everything will be okay."
Everyone who came into Anakin's room – an endless barrage of Healers and well-wishing Masters and friends from his early Padawan days – complimented Anakin on his new arm. He went through the same conversation a hundred times: yes, it gleamed magnificently, and yes, it was stronger than his real arm had been, and yes, it performed delicate, fine movements with ease. Yes, it was a wondrous invention of science, that this horrible piece of metal should fuse with his nerves and become a part of him.
The prosthetics technician had laughed at him when he'd asked if it could be taken off.
"But then you'd only have one arm!"
He'd stared at her speechless with tears in his eyes and she'd hastily backtracked.
"With a brief operation, yes. But we'd advise you minimise detachment and reattachment procedures. The neural connections wear out if we tweak with them too much and performance will be compromised."
"Okay. Thanks."
It was a small relief. But it didn't make him feel much better.
Padme had offered to visit him but he'd told her no; it would be too suspicious, he said. Not here in the Jedi Temple, he said. But truly he'd have endured any amount of speculation to see her if it weren't for the arm. He wasn't ready for her to see it yet.
Obi Wan came in during the lunch hour on the day after his surgery – presumably because the ward was the least staffed at this time, and he'd found his opportunity to escape. He did not look at the arm but straight at Anakin and bent to embrace him.
"I'm so sorry, Anakin. It was all my fault."
"It wasn't. It was mine."
The argument ended there; perhaps because they were both right, in a way.
"Please don't ignore the arm."
Obi Wan frowned in faint surprise. The blood from the swollen lump on his head had tracked downwards and given him a black eye. He looked like he'd been in a street fight, not a duel with a Sith Lord.
"I thought you might be tired of talking about it."
Anakin forced himself to look down at it.
"I've got to come around to it, I guess."
Obi Wan squeezed his hand. His good hand. His only hand. Whatever.
"It will take time, Padawan."
"I know," Anakin managed. "I just need you to… make it normal."
Obi Wan nodded and reached over the bed to examine the new limb, pulling the sheet gently away.
"It's a lovely design."
"Yes."
"And if it ever malfunctions you needn't go back to the technicians – knowing you, you'll be able to fix it yourself."
Anakin chewed his lip thoughtfully.
"I'll have to use my left arm, though. I can't undo the screws like that."
"You can instruct me as your assistant," Obi Wan suggested, with a small smile. "Although I can't promise I won't be hopeless at following your instructions."
Anakin laughed as though by default; there was no real joy in this routine humour, the eternal joke of Obi Wan's relative mechanical ineptitude, but there was at least a comforting familiarity.
"I imagine it's strong?"
Anakin lifted the hand and squeezed Obi Wan's arm in demonstration. He watched carefully for the grimace, the shuddering horror of being touched by this hand of cold metal where there should have been flesh. But there was none.
"Ouch," Obi Wan conceded with a chuckle, yanking his arm from Anakin's grip. "Alright."
"It's good for writing and everything, the technician made me try," Anakin reported blandly, summoning over the piece of flimsi on which he'd practised. "And it has this switch so it can be heated to body temperature, so it feels more natural, but that drains a little energy from me so they've not let me switch it on yet, while I'm recovering."
Obi Wan nodded, impressed.
"I think you and the arm will get along very well, Anakin, with time. I'm a little afraid, in fact," he added, with a quirking smile, "that it might confer you some advantage in the dojo. You'll be stronger than me, and presumably your arm won't fatigue."
"Now I know you're just being nice to me," Anakin grumbled, with a grudging smile. "You'd never admit dojo inferiority in your right mind."
Obi Wan's eyes twinkled.
"Must be the concussion."
Anakin laid back against the pillow.
"I just hate it," he confessed.
Obi Wan sighed and gave a sombre nod.
"It is very natural to feel that way, Anakin."
"It's just… I don't mind… not for me…"
He was tearing up again, damn it. Obi Wan was looking at him with that fatherly look in his eyes, the way he looked at Korkie when they had to fly back to Coruscant and the child cried at their goodbye.
"You wouldn't touch Satine with this hand, would you?" he blurted.
He worried that Obi Wan might laugh at him, might tell him that this was the least of his problems. But he did not. He took Anakin's metal hand and intertwined it with his own fingers, frowning faintly with concentration as he did when he read a mission briefing. He held the hand in this position in silence for a few moments, then placed the hand next on his shoulder. Then on his chest. He was experimenting, thinking. He placed the hand finally on his cheek and mirrored the posture with his own hand upon Anakin's face. A teardrop spilled from Anakin's eye and ran onto Obi Wan's hand but he did not say anything of it.
"It still feels like you, Anakin," Obi Wan decided eventually, voice calm and measured and final. "It still feels right."
Anakin opened his mouth to say something but could not find the words.
"I still love you, Anakin," Obi Wan went on, with the faintest smile. "And Padme will too."
Time to weep. They're so beautiful - Obi Wan, Korkie, Anakin. And Satine striving so hard for what is right! They don't deserve these hard times ahead.
I hope all the talk of corruption in the Republic isn't too real for you all - we're in an election season here in Australia and I'll confess I've taken inspiration for the way that no one powerful seems to care about anything but money. But maybe I'm in a cynical mood.
Next chapter: Anakin is Knighted. Questions are asked of Obi Wan.
Let me know your thoughts!
Much love,
S.