Crash Landing
Anakin's fingers skipped over the controls of their tiny shuttle, brows drawn together in a frown of concentration, a thin sheen of perspiration coating his face as he gritted his teeth, not risking a backwards glance over his shoulder.
"How's it looking back there?" he called out, slapping the unresponsive controls in a desperate attempt to slow their descent.
"I'm afraid the engines were completely destroyed by the droid attack ship," came the calm response, "even the manoeuvring thrusters are offline... you'll just have to do the best you can..."
"With what?" despite his best efforts, some of Anakin's frustration bled into his voice, lending a hint of bitterness, "we're caught in the gravitational pull of the planet now – there's no way to slow us down!"
"I have faith in you, Anakin," Obi-Wan replied, gently, even as he resumed his seat in the co-pilot's chair and fastened his safety restraints, "and you need to have more faith in the Force."
"Right now the only forces I'm concerned about are gravity, and the force with which we are about to collide with the planet below," Anakin shot back, even as he continued to fight the controls, desperately trying to keep the nose of the craft at least vaguely level.
"I'm sending a distress signal to our fleet," Obi-Wan tapped the console in front of him quickly, "at least the communications system is still working; hopefully there's someone within range."
"They could be one solar system away and still be too late," Anakin replied, with a minute shake of his head, "we're about to breach the lower atmosphere – impact on the surface in less than 3 minutes!"
"You must calm yourself, Anakin," Obi-Wan reminded him, gently, "let go of your fear. Trust in the Force."
Anakin was about to snap back a sharp retort; he had been knighted only a few weeks previously, and it seemed Obi-Wan still insisted on speaking to him as if he were a Junior Padawan. However, he felt a ripple in the Force, and glanced across at his mentor in surprise. Obi-Wan's eyes were closed, his right hand stretched out in front of him, just hovering over the controls. He felt the small craft around them hitch and shudder, and realised what Obi-Wan was trying to do.
"It won't work," he shook his head, turning back to the controls, "we're falling too fast – we need to keep the nose up, and if I can just deploy the flaps... why in the name of the Force don't they fit these shuttles with life pods or ejector seats...?"
"Calm, Anakin," Obi-Wan reminded, him, still concentrating, "Focus your mind. Feel the Force..."
Anakin sighed, took a deep breath, and released the tumult of his emotions into the Force. Attempting to centre himself, he closed his eyes briefly, trying to focus as instructed. He could sense Obi-Wan beside him, a bright white light, a beacon in the swirl of the Force around them, and Anakin could feel the sheer amount of power Obi-Wan was summoning in an effort to slow the descent of the small craft. It felt like a desperate attempt to halt the inevitable, but there was no sense of desperation from the Jedi Master, only a sense of calm and focus.
Anakin tried not to grit his teeth. He had always secretly envied the other Jedi's ability to be so relaxed and unflappable in a crisis; it was a skill Anakin had yet to master and he doubted he ever would. He was constantly chided for the strength of his emotions, but where the other Jedi saw weakness Anakin felt only strength. Until moments like this, when he wished desperately for the emotionless calm he always sensed from the Masters – hell, even the Junior Padawans were better at controlling their feelings than he was.
He stamped down on his train of thought, trying to bring his mind into focus, as he, too, stretched out his hand. Let Obi-Wan focus on the craft; Anakin drew his attention to the landscape that was still hurtling towards them at break-neck speeds, hoping to cushion the inevitable crash landing at least in some small way.
"Brace for impact," Anakin tried to project the same calm he felt from Obi-Wan; mirroring it as best he could, "less than one minute..."
"Feel the Force, Anakin," Obi-Wan breathed, "let it guide you..."
Anakin took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders, closing his eyes against the ground rushing towards them, stretching out both his hands. He tried to summon the Force, commanding it to slow their descent, pushing back against the pull of gravity, but his mind reeled in tumult and it felt as if Obi-Wan was channelling all of the Force energy available, concentrating it into levelling off and slowing their descent, and Anakin's eyes snapped open. He shot a surprised look across at the other man and was momentarily impressed; he had never seen such a display of raw power from his Master in all of their years of training together.
Then, the tree canopy was no longer a distant, green blur; but a discernible, tangible, dense barrier immediately in front of them. He couldn't help it. He closed his eyes. He felt, rather than saw, the impact as it slammed through their tiny ship, which skipped like a stone on a lake across the thick canopy of trees. The craft bounced again; three, four times, before breaching the canopy in a cacophony of snapping branches and screaming metal.
The battered craft skidded along the ground, smashing through trunks and leaving a wake of devastation in its path; strewn trees and chunks of metal torn from the hull, until it came to rest, nestled at the base of a huge tree. The only sounds then were the hiss of escaping steam, the ticking of cooling metal and the crackle of electrical fires. Smoke drifted upwards in the still air, and in the eerie stillness, a lone animal called out in an undulating howl.
Anakin let out a low groan. His head was throbbing and he did not dare open his eyes, knowing that would only intensify the pain. He coughed, tasting acrid smoke that tickled the back of his throat. He could hear the buzzing and sparking of damaged electrical circuits. Something was digging into his shoulders; he realised, distantly, that his safety restraints were the only thing that had kept him from smashing face first into the console in front of him. He raised his flesh-and-blood hand to his face, feeling a damp trickle from his forehead; wiping it away, he finally managed to force his eyes open, fuzzily noting that his fingers were stained red with blood. Some debris must have clipped him during the crash, which would explain the headache and confusion. With a few experimental shuffles and stretches, he established nothing else was broken or seriously injured, only a few scrapes and bruises. All in all he had been lucky...
No. Not lucky... saved.
"Obi-Wan?" he whispered, remembering his Master's efforts to control their descent, "Obi-Wan? Are you with me?"
His neck ached with the effort, but he managed to turn his head to the side, and what he saw immediately banished his own pains as he scrambled to release his restraints, bolting to his co-pilot's side, eyes wide with unmasked horror.
"Obi-Wan!"
The Jedi Master slumped back in his seat, head lolling over one shoulder, looking as if he were simply taking a nap during a long hyperspace cruise. This was not the cause of Anakin's horrified concern; what had caught his attention was the red stain around Obi-Wan's right shoulder. His cream robes were soaked with blood, the source of which was a long, thin piece of durasteel impaled through the tough fabric and into his flesh. Anakin swallowed his horror at the sight of the wound and tried to release his emotions into the Force, even as he reached out to gently probe the injury with his fingers. Despite his gentleness, he heard Obi-Wan's hiss of pain, and immediately snapped his hand back.
"Master?" he enquired, hesitantly.
"An...Anakin?" Obi-Wan's voice was little more than a breathy whisper, laced with pain, "are... are you... hurt?"
"Hah, no, Master, you saved that honour all for yourself," Anakin allowed himself a moment of relief; they were both alive, at least, thanks mostly to the man before him.
"What's... what's our situation?"
"Well," Anakin cast a cursory glance around the devastated cockpit, "the ship's destroyed, the mission's a bust, and unless your distress call was picked up there's not much hope of a rescue any time soon... at least the air's breathable on this planet and it doesn't look like the droids tried to follow us down here. Probably think we burned up in the atmosphere... nice work, by the way."
"Th...thanks," Obi-Wan gasped out, trying to get a look at the piece of metal strut protruding from his shoulder, "ah... Anakin... there's... uh... there seems to be... it's... um... it's in my shoulder, Anakin."
"Yeah," Anakin was on his feet now, tearing open the storage units that hadn't already been destroyed, scattering their contents over the deck plates, until he found some medical supplies, "we're gonna have to do something about it..."
Clutching his prize, he crossed back to the cockpit, his concern ramping up a notch as he saw the pallor of Obi-Wan's face in the half-light coming through the shattered viewport; blood marred the side of his neck and matted his beard, and the stain on his robes seemed to be spreading. Anakin laid out the contents of his kit on the dark control panel, eyeing the wound critically.
"I'm going to need to take that out," he said, after a long pause.
"Are... are you sure?" Obi-Wan gasped, breathless with pain and dizzy from blood loss, his left hand fluttering weakly towards his wounded shoulder, in a pained attempt to stem the blood flow, "it should... stay in... stopping the bleeding..."
"It's not doing a very good job," Anakin plucked at the bloodied fabric of Obi-Wan's tunic, as if to emphasise his point, "normally, I'd agree with you, but then, normally, there's a field medic within shouting distance... so I'm going to have to take this out, cauterize the wound, and then patch you up as best I can. Hopefully there's a rescue ship on the way..."
"Cau... cauterize?"
"Don't worry, Master," Anakin tried to smile, hoping to comfort his wounded brother, "you're pretty much Force-exhausted – don't even try to argue, I can feel it. Your shields are down, otherwise I wouldn't get away with this at all...
"Anakin – no, don't you dare..."
"Sleep," Anakin commanded, pushing the suggestion past Obi-Wan's conscious mind; something he would never have been able to accomplish if the other man hadn't completely drained himself in his efforts to mitigate their disastrous landing.
Lacking the strength or ability to resist, Obi-Wan's eyes flickered closed and he slumped back in the chair, succumbing immediately. Anakin waited only a moment, before lining up what he needed. Quickly, he tore open the robes a little, revealing the horrific reality of the wound. Grasping the durasteel pole with his mechanical hand, he ignited his lightsabre with the other.
Taking a deep breath, in one fluid motion, he yanked on the durasteel, pulling it free, and snapping up his lightsabre, biting back on the bile that rose in his throat at the scent of burning flesh as the plasma blade cauterized the puncture in his shoulder. Obi-Wan groaned and arched his back, but did not fully awaken from Anakin's Force-induced sleep state. Anakin quickly placed a healing bacta patch over the wound, satisfied that the bleeding had stopped. He undid Obi-Wan's safety restraints, leaning him forward a little, confirming that the pole had not run through the shoulder blade. He was grateful he did not have to repeat the grisly procedure again.
Carefully lifting Obi-Wan in his arms, calling on the strength of the Force, Anakin walked towards the back of their shuttle, relieved to find the rear hull mostly intact. With a simple Force command, he activated a button and a small shelf obediently slid out of the wall, a pillow and blanket already in place on the narrow bed. Anakin waved his fingers and the blanket moved back, allowing him to deposit the Jedi Master on the thin but serviceable mattress. Anakin drew the blanket back over his closest friend, one hand lingering briefly on the other man's chest, feeling the fluttering of his heartbeat beneath his touch, and his throat closed slightly as he choked back another tidal wave of emotions. He could feel Obi-Wan's physical pain and weakness shivering through him, his strength fading away slowly, even in unconsciousness, and tears stung at Anakin's eyes.
"Stay with me, Master," he murmured, softly, pleadingly, "I can't lose you..."
Hesitantly, Anakin reached out and rested his fingertips against Obi-Wan's forehead; just as he had seen the Master Healers do in the Halls of Healing at the Jedi Temple. Anakin had little interest in lessons that hadn't involved fighting, or piloting, or using the Force, or fixing things – those were his strengths. But he had still been required to learn the basics of healing with the Force. At the time he had struggled, being told time and again he lacked the proper calm and focus, and oh, how tired he had become of hearing that from virtually every Master he crossed paths with.
But now, he had reason to focus. He had a need to be calm. And so, he took in a deep breath, releasing it slowly, sinking into the welcoming embrace of the Force. Obi-Wan's normally bright glow had faded so much, dulled to almost extinguishment, but Anakin found it, and held onto it, feeding it with his own energy, sending waves of comfort and reassurance to his wounded friend. He remained like that, perched on the edge of the bunk, losing all track of time and awareness.
Hours passed, and day bled into night, until Anakin was startled from his trance by a gentle presence on the edge of his awareness, and a hand on his shoulder. He turned, ready to lash out, and found himself gazing into the masked face of Master Plo Koon.
"It is alright, Young Skywalker," the older Jedi reassured him, a smile evident in his tone, even if his expression was hidden, "we heard your distress call. We have come. We will take it from here. Master Obi-Wan will receive the very best of care; I am sure he will make a full recovery."
"Thank you, Master," Anakin stood slowly, and bowed low, before allowing himself to be led away to the waiting rescue shuttle.
Perhaps there really was something to be said for being calm and focussed, he reflected, as he walked up the ramp, a pair of clones bearing Obi-Wan on a stretcher only a few paces behind him. He resolved to work on it a little more, when Obi-Wan was fully recovered.