A/N: Haha! Hope you all like the latest installation!
Chapter Sixteen
Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi master, and caretaker of what could be considered the most powerful Padawan in history, sighed as he fingered the controls of his beloved ship. Coruscant was still many light-years away, and by the looks of the thin white finger hovering between full, and empty, he calculated that they would run out of fuel before they even moved past Dagobah.
Obi-Wan looked over his shoulder, and beheld the sleeping form of his apprentice. It was so hard to believe that a child so innocent, and young would become the Chosen One; the Jedi, who wasn't even into his teens, that would surpass even Master Yoda. The Jedi who was supposed to have been trained by Qui-Gon Jinn...
Immediately, his anger was piqued, and he felt the arm of his seat bend somewhat.
Qui-Gon had not deserved to die. He was supposed to live, and train Anakin to his full potential, not Obi-Wan. He could barely control his emotions, let alone teach a child how to do so. He wasn't ready for such an awesome responsibility.
Obi-Wan had prayed for weeks after his master's funeral. He had prayed to whatever deity there was in the lonely void of space that for just one day, he could be with his master once more. Just speak, and hear his voice, and feel the comforting aura that wove around his being. But no...
He had been dumped with the murderer. Darth Maul, Kalaskein, whoever the hell he was; he wasn't worthy of an honorable Jedi's help. He wasn't worthy of a girl as sweet, and naive as Anamaria. He wasn't even worthy to lick the soles of Obi-Wan's shoes.
'Perhaps...' came a rebellious voice in the back of his head, 'it is YOU who is unworthy...'
Obi-Wan felt his grip on the steering controls relax slightly, and his shoulders go slack. His blue eyes darkened, then glistened as he felt that familiar pressure in the back of his throat, but he didn't cry. He was done crying for all of those lives that had been lost- Qui-Gon, Vespasian, and too close to Anamaria for his liking.
Vespasian would have wanted me to forgive him... He thought shamefully, Qui-Gon would have told me that no creature in the entire universe is born of pure evil. It is guidance that makes a man who he is, and unfortunately, not all men are guided toward the light.
Anakin groaned behind him, and turned on his side.
Obi-Wan placed his hand on his forehead, and leaned heavily into his limb. He was thinkingPondering. Speculating the pros and cons.
It takes great strength to sacrifice your own well-being for that of your enemy's.
He sighed, and closed his eyes. Qui-Gon had told that to him last year, when Naboo's gungan army had joined forces with the city, and defended their enemies at great cost. Vespasian had said that Darth Maul had nearly given his own life to save Anamaria's. And he paid for it. Even if they did manage to save his life, would he ever be able to fight on that leg again?
Obi-Wan outwardly cringed. Even he could not withstand that much pain. A broken leg was one thing, but daily torture, and gruesome interrogations were not his ideal scenarios of a vacation in Dantooine. In that facet, and ONLY in that facet, did he respect Maul.
And then there was Anamaria... She obviously saw in that horrible monster what Vespasian and Qui-Gon had tried to teach him. In fact, she was probably in there right now, doing what she did best. Obi-Wan smiled a bit. She was so gentle, and caring. A friend to every one of her fellow Padawans, and not a second too late to help another in need. It probably had a lot to do with her own childhood, raised with a cruel man who ran a prostitution ringand wouldn't have waited a beat to start her up in the business. She was lucky to have been found before he did.
Obi-Wan massaged his brow with the tips of his fingers, and his eyes moved to the small pack that lay adjacent to Anakin. He thought about compassionate Anamaria, trying her best to heal that cold, unfeeling monster of a Sith, with barely any medical knowledge aside from the obvious. He had more cognition than she...
But he wanted Darth Maul to die.
Wasn't Vespasian's last wish for you to take care of him?
He was being surrounded by a mob of cat-people...
He may be evil, but he's still human.
A vegetable. A drone for his master's wishes.
He saved Anamaria's life.
But he also nearly ended it.
He saved Anakin's, and yours as well.
And killed another in the process.
You know that Raphael would have been executed anyway.
His eyes opened. It was true. Darth Maul didn't deserve a free life, but he did deserve to live.
At least for the time being...
Obi-Wan set the steering for autopilot, and stood on numb legs. Anakin had barely stirred since last, and he quietly moved past the small boy to retrieve his own personal stash of emergency medicine. There was little he could do without professional equipment, but at least he could clean up after the foreseeable mess that was to come. He walked down the hall.
The moment he placed his hand on the door, he could sense that something was wrong. The force was weak, and slow to appease his wishes. Something was pushing it down; creating a barrier. Obi-Wan pushed open the airtight vessel, and a strange, almost toxic odor met his nostrils. It was like musk, only richer, and difficult to describe. Anamaria sat in a high-backed seat at the side of a bloodstained bed, her eyes red, and a similarly bloodied cloth in her hand. She rocketed up like a flash as her higher entered the room, and almost burst out into tears again.
"He just started bleeding, and his fever shot up so high I can barely touch him, oh God Obi-Wan, please help him!" She pleaded in one breath. The Jedi was at her side in a flash, his tools at ready, and senses on full alert. Darth Maul, though he had thought was haggard when they had fought on Naboo, was now completely devoid of anything other than flesh, and bone. His auld eyes were half-lidded, dull from the sheer intensity of what sickness had plagued him, and a small stream of broken blood trickled from the corner of his dark lip. His breathing was frightening- a speeding up down pattern which barely gave enough oxygen to suffice for his lungs.
Obi-Wan cursed beneath his breath, and felt the multi-colored face which had haunted his dreams since last year. Indeed, the flesh was blistering hot, and the Sith groaned weakly at the intrusion of a cool touch. Obi-Wan immediately retracted his hand, not out of repulsion, but because it had nearly burned him.
"Anamaria," He turned to the girl, "Quickly, go to our ice stores, and fill a half-pound bag." At want to help, the padawan immediately raced out of the room. Kenobi tore through his pack like a madman, so caught up in the panic of the situation that he forgot who he was even healing. A thermometer lay in his bag somewhere, made of ultulium- an extremely rare metal, but equally accurate, and it would help him to determine what kind of a situation he was dealing with. He already had some sort of idea- poison, no doubt- of what was plaguing the Sith.
Grasping the trembling jaw with one hand, he pried open Darth Maul's mouth, and stuffed the thermometer underneath his tongue, shoving it closed in a matter of moments. His patient lay very still, barely breathing as blood began to trickle from the corners of his eyes. That was not good.
In thirty seconds, Obi-Wan pried open the reluctant jaw once more, and stared in horror at the completely accurate object in his hand.
It read 109.7.
Only poison could accomplish something like this, and there were only three that caused such dire symptoms, all of which (without the antidote) were fatal within a week's time
One: Tramica. A fine powder that could easily have been spiked into the Sith's food or drink.
Two: Hycathia Root. Liquid. Easy to detect, but devoid of cure. If this was what Maul was suffering, he would be dead in a few hours.
Three: Essence of Yorbitoc. Possibly the worst of the three. It caused spasmodic twitching, and hallucinations, but could only be absorbed through an open wound. If this was the case, then the Sith would die by literally burning from the inside out.
Obi-Wan immediately checked his body for any sort of discolored injuries; any kind of strange, or out-of-place bruise. Yorbitoc speeded the healing process by tenfold, so by now, the wound could have been a tiny scar, or a huge gash, depending on when it had been consumed.
Suddenly, Anamaria hurled herself through the threshold, and shoved the ice toward her friend, panting like a sweat-soaked horse. "Ice... half-pound... sorry took... so long..." She gasped between words. The Jedi nodded, and quickly placed the bag directly beside his patient's neck.
His neck...
He only now seemed to notice it. The long scar that ran from ear to ear, across his collar, signifying that at some point in time...
His throat had been slit...
No one survived a slit throat...
Unless Yorbitoc was involved.
Obi-Wan's eyes slanted in anger as realization took its full effect. Of course... Gattaca had been a supplier of Yorbic bulbs for centuries... Why didn't he notice it before?! Coruscant was still five days' going, and they had no antidote for such a horrendous poison. The Innuendo was running low on fuel... There was a dying Sith in his murdered friend's bedroom... Anamaria was close to a breakdown...
The Jedi stood, palm in forehead, as he tried to think of the best way to tell the young Padawan, who had just lost the only one she ver truly trusted, that Darth Maul was going to die in less than seventy-two hours.
"Marie..." He began, a waver in his voice, "I..."
Her eyes were hopeful. Bright with desperate innocence, wanting, needing... He couldn't.
"There is..." He hesitated, running three fingers across his face, and rubbing his neck, "I can't..."
There was no way to tell her. Not like this. Darth Maul was laying below him, suffocating in his own feverish heat, dying the worst death possible. He desperately thought of anything that they could use to stall the poison, but there was nothing. Nothing within help, and every planet they were passing could hardly be accountable for proper medical assistance.
"Marie..." He told her carefully, and quietly, "there is Yorbitoc in his body..."
She was silent, staring in puzzled hope, perhaps believing that Yorbitoc was some sort of cell that healed quickly, or natural medicine that fought off against infection.
"A poison..."
The hopeful glitter was still in her puritanic eyes.
"He is.... very sick..."
It faded...
"It is killing him... he'll be dead in less than seventy-two hours..." He finished in nothing more than a whisper.
Anamaria's glow dissolved into blank nothingness. She stood there for a long, long moment, the smile fading from her lips, her clasped hands loosening, the hope melting away into actualization. Her eyes begged Obi-Wan to tell her that he was wrong. A mistake. He was going to live. The Jedi answered with an icy stare. Gattaca's poison...
"No..." She whispered. Her eyes widened as realization took its full effect. But he will not die...
"No..." Her jaw trembled in shock. She saw Darth maul in that reeking pit with all of the others, with Raphael. She refused to believe it.
"No... He's strong... you... you don't know..." Her hands fell to her sides, and clenched sporadically. Obi-Wan shook his head in a barely distinguishable movement. "I'm sorry..." He mouthed.
"No! Please, you have to have something! Something, please! HELP HIM!!!" She was becoming hysterical. Obi-Wan did nothing. He watched the scene play with the familiar knot in the back of his throat as she raced the Sith's side, and cupped his face in her hands.
"Kalaskein, no! Don't do this! Wake up! OPEN YOUR EYES!!! PLEASE, KALASKEIN, OPEN YOUR EYES!!!" She screamed. Maul did not reply.
"Kalaskein... I'm Anamaria..." She spoke, near hysteria, "I'm Anamaria, remember? The Jedi... I owe you a life debt, don't you leave me here you ass! I'M RIGHT HERE, DON'T YOU DIE ON ME!!!" She gently slapped his cheek. The Sith made no movement. Tears welled up in the girl's eyes as she stood there, the realization of death fully upon her. The one she had come so close to knowing... he saved her life... he was dying...
"No..." Again, the word left her lips. She clutched Darth Maul's shoulders tightly, and pulled him into her arms. He was as limp as a rag doll, and made no resistance as she buried her head in his, and wept hysterically.
"NOOO!!!" She howled, muffling the words against his clean bedshirt.
Obi-Wan spared a few moments, standing where he had last, and watching them with calm apathy. He mused a little space, and turned on heel, shutting the door behind him as he retraced his steps to the cockpit. He could hear Anamaria's desperate wails behind him as each porthole revealed a little more of the black galaxy, and one more new star to look upon.
Anakin had not moved since the ordeal. He was still sound asleep, oblivious to the activity that had commenced only a few minutes ago. Obi-Wan lowered himself into his seat, memorizing every squeak, and groan it made as it supported his bulk, and sat there very stilly, staring at the many buttons that adorned his ship. One tear leaked from the corner of his eye, and had not left his cheek before it was heedlessly swept away.
Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi master, and caretaker of what could be considered the most powerful Padawan in history, grasped the manual controls for his beloved ship, and set them on the path for Coruscant.
A/N: Eh...