Chapter Seven
"I can't believe you talked me into this. It's completely insane. And you're insane. And I'm insane. All of it, fucking insane."
"Uh-huh, it's an insane-a-thon…" Buffy muttered distractedly.
The grumbling from Bal had been constant since they'd left Coruscant and had become dull background noise to Buffy, who was too busy being awed by her first real trip into space to pay attention to Bal's whining. After she'd gotten done gripping her seat so hard she'd left permanent indentations and saying prayers to every deity she'd ever heard of, she'd noticed how breathtakingly beautiful it was out there and been ignoring Bal's chatter since.
"Are you listening?! We're probably going to die!"
And apparently he'd finally noticed.
Unpeeling her face from the window, she sighed and gave Bal her attention.
"There was no 'talking you into it'. I paid you into it," she reminded him. "If you didn't want the money you could've said no and I'd have just found another pilot. I was being nice by giving you first dibs."
"Nice? NICE?" He gaped at her, his usually shifty eyes wide as he stared at her. "Do I need to repeat the part where we're going to die?"
"Then why'd you agree to come?" She snapped. "If I'd know I wasn't paying for you to shut the hell up with the omens of death then I wouldn't have hired you."
They both glared daggers at each other before turning away at the same time. Both of them knew perfectly well that Bal wasn't going to turn down the amount of money she'd offered (thank you Sabacc tables at the Oasis) and also that he had a weird possessive thing where he hated her giving jobs to other pilots. She also knew this trip wasn't going to be a cakewalk, but had no doubt that Bal had the survival skills of a spider roach. She was sure that despite his whining he had fifteen escape plans laid out in that devious little brain of his. Now whether those escape plans included her being on the ship when it left, she couldn't be sure of…
"We'll be landing on the water, so you'll have a swim to the island," he said after a while with poorly concealed glee.
"Wha- Why?!"
"It's the Black Sun headquarters. You think we can just fly up to the front door? The place is guarded and monitored, I can only get so close undetected."
Ugh, that was going to suck. Not that she'd thought it would be all fun and games- okay, maybe a little fun and gamey. Dahl hadn't known anything about Mr. Red and Black, but had given her the directions to the head honcho's fortress of doom and promised that if anyone knew anything about the guy it would be him – Alexi Something. From his description (and Bal's freakout), "Fortress of Doom" was a pretty apt description. Apparently Bal had known about this Alexi guy all along, and just hadn't mentioned him.
"He's the leader of the Black Sun, for fuck's sake. I thought you wanted information, not a war. You can't just go pay him a visit and demand a member list. And your way of getting information isn't going to work on a man that has his own elite guards and a fortress. I've heard his personal bodyguard is some kind of messed up Jedi."
Buffy rolled her eyes at the memory. She'd like to meet a freaking Jedi, even a messed up one, just to see what the big deal was. And maybe give a little speech about the weight of power and how you were supposed to use it.
She'd been training more since her fight with Mr. Red and Black didn't go so well, so she shouldn't have a problem sneaking into a heavily armed fortress and forcing the leader of an evil intergalactic syndicate to tell her what she wanted to know, despite Bal's doubts.
Yeah, sure, no big.
"There it is," Bals said, interrupting her internal pep talk.
Looking away from the expanse of black to the side, she looked ahead to see the incredible sight of a fast approaching cluster of planets.
"Wow… that's amazing…" She said softly, leaning forward slightly. "Which one are we going to?"
"The one in the middle is Ralltiir, the rest are just its moons."
Fascinating as the different colored moons were, she focused at the planet at the center. It seemed to be covered mostly in water, with land spread out like some God had rolled out long strips and just swirled them around it. As they descended into the atmosphere and she got a closer look at the beautiful waters and green land she wasn't any less awed.
"Why didn't you bring Alec here?"
"Too expensive," he said with a shrug. "Have to have a lot of money to own property here. And you'd be hard pressed to find someone to take in some random orphan here if you didn't have the credits to go with him. If I'd just dropped him here they'd have just shipped him off to some other planet on the next transport. Or sold him as a slave."
Buffy's mouth dropped open. "You honestly think they'd do that?"
"Do you honestly think everyone that's filthy rich got that way by being charitable? The head of the Black Sun lives here, right?"
She closed her mouth, knowing he was right. But she was just as sure that not everyone on the planet was like that. She knew there was bad everywhere, in every form, but she also knew there was good.
They passed over a mountain range and dropped low to skim the sea on the other side. The further they went the darker and more turbulent the water got. Soon it was an angry, frothing mess with huge jagged black rocks randomly poking up everywhere. When she felt the ship start to slow, she turned on Bal with disbelieving eyes.
"You want me to swim in that?! You can't be serious!"
But Bal was looking at something on his controls, his brow furrowed.
"Something's not right…"
"Yeah, you, you sadist."
"No, something else…"
He crept forward, so low to the water that Buffy could hear the sound of it splashing the ship.
"Is that… smoke?" She asked, squinting and trying to make out what was going on in the distance. It definitely looked like a big, pointy, smoking rock. As they got closer though, she could see that it was actually an odd spiraled building spread out on top of a large rocky outcropping.
"Yeah, sure is," Bal said, poking his controls again. "Looks like someone might've beat you to causing some mayhem…"
"Well, that's no fair, taking away my mayhem like that. But on the up side that means they're probably too busy to be watching out for us, so I don't have to go swimming. Take me straight to the building."
"We don't know that, it could mean they're even more on guard than before."
"Well, do a pass by and if anyone shoots at us we'll know for sure."
He gave her a flat, unimpressed look, but kept going forward anyway. Bal liked to play like he was a reasonable adult but she knew he was even more crazy than she was.
"Well, we're not in little bits at the bottom of the ocean so I'm going to say we're good to go with a little infiltration."
"Could've just been a lucky pass. Maybe you should still jump in the- OW!"
He rubbed his arm where she'd punched him as she headed to the door, ignoring his whining. The door dropped as requested though as they passed over one of the turrets. Taking a running leap to the walkway between two spires she landed with a roll into a crouch, ready for action.
There was no action though. No one yelled the typical, "Hey, what are you doing over there," or "Attack" or anything at all. Slightly disappointed she straightened up and looked around. She could see definite signs of a fight – blood splatters, scuffs, gouges, even what looked like burn marks barely visible on the dark stone that made up the building. Peering over the edge of a low wall, she could see a few bodies on the levels below her, but nothing was moving or making any sound…
"If I came all the way here for nothing…" She grumbled, poking her way through the occasional debris and down a staircase as she lamented the loss of all those credits to Bal.
When she reached the first room below the turret she'd descended, she finally heard the sound of distant fighting. But more important than that, her Slayer senses were tingling. That was something she'd only felt in this dimension so far when she came across Mr. Red and Black.
Maybe this wasn't a wasted trip, after all. She'd been hoping on getting some information on him so she could hunt him down and repay him for what he'd done in the Factory District, but maybe there was a chance she'd lucked out and he was actually there.
Before she could go toward the sound of the fighting, a man came running into the room. Dressed in a sweeping yellow coat and a look of fear, he slid to a stop in the doorway when he spotted Buffy. He'd be pretty handsome if he wasn't sweating like crazy and pointing a blaster at her.
"Who are you? You're working with him?"
"Uh, don't know who 'him' is, so I'm going to say no to that one," she said, hands held out to the side. "I'm just here looking for a guy named Alexi."
"Another assassin?" He sighed, looking very put out by the idea. "This is not my day."
She barely missed the blaster discharge by diving to her right behind the stairwell wall that led back where she'd come from. She hadn't been shot by a blaster yet and she was trying to keep it that way - her curiosity about things in this dimension only went so far.
"I'm not here to assassinate you!" She yelled. "I'm just here to ask about a red and black horny guy that works for you! Wait- 'y' doesn't work on the end of that one like I meant it to…"
When the blaster didn't go off again, she peeked up over the edge of the wall to see the guy, apparently Alexi, looking at her strangely before he burst out laughing.
"You're looking for the Zabrack assassin? Well, you're in luck because he's just back that way killing off the rest of my men," he said, his voice harsh and blasé until he added with a touch of regret, "And probably my personal bodyguard as well by now."
"Wait! Assassin?" Buffy yelled as he turned to leave the room. "He's killing your men? I thought he worked for you? He was with your Black Sun guys in the Factory District!"
"Well, aren't you well informed," he said, glancing back at her and then back toward the way he'd come from. "You'll have to run with me if you want your questions answered. I'm not going to waste Mighella's sacrifice."
Muttering a curse, Buffy sprinted after him, reaching him as he stepped into a turbo lift.
"So, what's the what on Mr. Red and Black," Buffy asked, determined to get her information above all else as she felt the lift descend. "If he doesn't work for you why was he in the Factory district?"
"From what I can piece together, he joined them there claiming to be support for their raid on the area. The idiots just accepted that as the truth and after all of Greely's operations and men were wiped out he turned on them and killed all the Black Sun members as well."
"But why?"
"Whomever hired him is trying to get rid of the competition would be my guess," he said, rushing through the lift doors as soon as they opened and through another set of doors that led back outside to another walkway over the water. "An impossible task had they not found that monster Maul."
"Maul?" She said, shouting to be heard over the sound of the crashing waves feet below them.
"The assassin. If that's what he is. It's certainly not all he is. Migella seemed to think he was much more…"
He stopped so suddenly that Buffy almost ran into his back – spinning on her with an intense look and grabbing her by the shoulders.
"Come with me," he said, nodding toward the end of the walkway where a huge boat was waiting. "He's taken out all of my men. I don't know why you're looking for him but only death waits here."
She stepped back out of his grasp, shaking her head.
"As much as I've daydreamed about a rich, handsome man whisking me away on his yacht, I'm not going anywhere. You're right, death does wait here, but not mine. I owe that-"
She felt tingling at her back before she heard the light thump of something, or someone landing behind her. That was as far as she got before history repeated itself in the most annoying way - her falling and looking up to see that red and black face watching her.
The surface of the water felt like hitting concrete. Cold, dark concrete. The shock of it cause her to gasp and suck in a lungful of water as she plunged below the raging surface. After a frantic moment of disorientation and a cough that caused her to inhale more water she found the surface, sputtering and gagging as the waves batted her around like a cat with a bug.
Alexi joined her half a second later.
Well, half of Alexi, anyway.
Tearing her eyes away from the sinking head, chest and arms of the man she'd been speaking with seconds earlier, she looked up to see Mr. Red and Black - Maul, her mind supplied. Alexi said his name was Maul - staring down at her. She wondered for a moment if he was going to jump down and try to finish her off. A fight with him in the water wasn't something she was looking forward to…
But then he was speaking into a communicator and, after one more intense look, striding away in a swirl of black cloak. Buffy opened her mouth to yell something, anything, at him but was cut off by another wave crashing into her, leaving her gasping and coughing along with furious and embarrassed.
She'd failed. Again.
Bobbing there in the water she felt the weight of defeat trying to drag her below the surface. Was she that far out of her league here? She'd started her training again, been searching endlessly and then, when she's finally faced with him again, she gets punted off a bridge thing like she's nothing more than a Nerf football.
When she heard the whir of an engine approaching she closed her eyes with a bitter laugh. Of course, why would he jump in the water to finish her off when he could just blow her up from the sky. It'd be like shooting fish in a barrel.
But when she turned to face whatever was coming for her, instead of death she saw Bal's ship flying low with a ladder skimming the water toward her. She grabbed it as he passed over and began pulling herself out of the dark water. She just hoped he was watching out for the rocks…
Once inside, she flopped down on her back on the open hatch door – giving nothing more than a grunt of annoyance followed by a cough when the door closed, causing her to slide down onto the cargo floor like a useless lump of jelly.
Jelly of Uselessness, yep that was her. The Slayer was now The Slayed. Just a-
"You going to lay there and groan much longer?" Bal called from the front.
With a sigh, she flopped over onto her stomach then pulled herself to her knees. Waiting to see if she was going to cough or barf up any more water, she rolled her shoulders to loosen the knot where Maul's boot had connected with her back. Ugh, did that seriously just happen like that?
Semi-confident that she had most of the ocean water out of her system, she trudged to the front and fell bonelessly into the seat next to Bal, not looking at him.
"How much of that did you catch?" She asked sullenly.
"Not much. Just the part where you got kicked into the water."
Buffy closed her eyes in embarrassment.
"Was that the guy? The red and black guy?"
It was then that Buffy realized that Bal wasn't teasing or ridiculing like she expected (or like would be normal for him). Instead, his voice was low and quiet and his eyes were focused on the control panel instead of sneering at her.
"Yeah," she admitted quietly. "All that time spent looking for him and then I finally find him and…"
She shook her head again in disappointment with herself. She'd been distracted with the info Alexi had been giving her. She'd known Maul was there. Just because he dropped down behind her from somewhere far above didn't excuse not sensing him until it was too late. But how had he dropped from that far? And he was so quick. She hadn't even had time to turn…
"You up for another shot at him?"
Buffy's head snapped to look at Bal, but he was still staring at the array of buttons and levers and screens in front of him, guiding the ship back into the darkness of space and leaving the rolling seas of Ralltiir behind.
"You're damn right I am," she growled out, the embarrassment and disappointment in herself sharpening into fury.
"Good, because I'm tracking his ship."
Buffy looked forward, trying to find a ship in the mass of black and twinkling stars as they flew between two of the moons.
"You won't see him," Bal said. "He's pretty far ahead of us and, as much as I hate to admit it, his ship is faster."
"Don't lose him," Buffy said, gripping the arms of her seat hard. "I can't let him get away again…"
"He won't," Bal said.
When Buffy looked over at him and saw the set of his shoulders and the look on his face as he stared forward stonily, she realized something.
Bal actually cared.
He'd cared about those people that died in The Factory District. He cared about Alec. And he cared about her.
And she was putting him in danger by having her chase this guy down.
She couldn't afford to lose again.
Closing her eyes, she tried to find her center, as Giles had taught her – to focus all those things she was feeling into something useful. Replaying the meetings with Maul in her mind, she tried to commit the way he moved and the feeling of his presence to memory.
She wasn't sure how much time had passed when Bal spoke again.
"Um, you're not going to like this…"
"Did you lose him?" She asked, open her eyes and scowling.
"No, no, I've still got him. But… I can tell where he's going now…"
"Why the 'but'? Isn't that a good thing?"
Bal looked over at her with serious eyes.
"He's headed for Naboo."
Obi Wan quickened his steps until he was on the verge of running. He didn't have time for this… this exercise in futility. Did he honestly think Buffy would have the answers he was looking for?
Part of him, maybe foolishly, thought yes, she would have the answers. She was the one that made him question so much so she should have the answers after all.
He shook his head, quickly cutting down a back alley to shorten the trip. There was blame in that thought. That wasn't fair. It wasn't her fault that she had possibly irrevocably altered his future as a Jedi. Yes, he was having doubts about his future because of his interactions with her, but there was no fault there to be placed on her. Nor was it her fault that he was rushing off to see her in the middle of a mission. The fact she should be the last thing on his mind but instead was the first could be blamed on no one but himself.
Listen to the Force.
Was this what Qui Gon had meant? Would he have given that same advice if he knew his Padawan could be guided off the path of a Jedi Knight? Well, it was no secret now. Not after that last meeting with the Council…
Master was so sure they'd take Anakin in for training, so when they said no, the shock was clear. As was the prickle of defiance Obi Wan felt from his Master a moment later as he stepped forward and placed his hands on Anakin's shoulders. He knew what was about to be said, but he still felt shocked himself when the words came out of Qui Gon's mouth. And if he were to admit it, maybe even slightly betrayed…
"I will train him then."
As they went on about how it was against the Code to have two Padawans, Obi Wan knew where this conversation was headed. Was he ready to become a Knight? Qui Gon had taught him a great deal. And as a Knight he'd have more freedom…
"Obi Wan is ready."
Obi Wan stepped forward, garnering the sole focus of the Council. But despite the seriousness of the situation, when he met Master Windu's eyes he couldn't help the sudden mental image of the weapon called a "mace" Buffy had described from her own world. Then had to bite back a laugh when he saw Master Yoda's eyes drift to Master Windu's bald head with a look of confusion. A sharp look from Qui Gon had him clearing his throat and straightening up though.
"I am ready to face the trials," he said, his thoughts spinning back to the matter at hand. As a Knight he would have more freedom - but he'd still have to go on the missions dictated by the Council…
"Padawan Kenobi is NOT ready for the trials, Qui Gon," Master Windu said. "At the moment his future is just as clouded as the boy's."
"And if see this you cannot, then question your ability of as a Master, I must," Yoda added quietly.
Shock and guilt sizzled through him. This had not been his intention – to have Qui Gon's abilities questioned. How could they think that there was fault there? It was like he was a tool incorrectly sharpened rather than a being that could make his own choices, decide his own path-
And suddenly, the answer was clear.
"We can discuss this later," Qui Gon said, glancing at Obi Wan with a furrowed brow and alarmed eyes.
Obi Wan found himself biting back a bitter smile. As if everyone in this room couldn't read each other's intentions…
"Agreed, Young Skywalker's fate will be decided later."
And although Obi Wan's name wasn't mentioned, he knew he'd be a topic of discussion as well.
They went on to take orders to return to Naboo, but there was only one place Obi Wan felt he needed to immediately return to.
He'd felt a moment of peace in that room when he realized what he needed to do. But back out in the hall, faced with Qui Gon's speechless stare and Anakin's confusion he felt doubts creep in. Was he sure about this? Would he regret it when it was all said and done?
That was when he found himself rushing to Crimson Corridor. Queen Amidala's ship would be leaving shortly and he had to be on it. But…
Suddenly he found himself in front of Buffy's door, not even consciously aware of having arrived. He had to get it together. Shaking his head, trying to clear it, he pressed the button and waited. After a moment he drooped and leaned his forehead against the door. Even though he couldn't ever sense Buffy, he could tell no one was inside.
Why was it that he felt he needed to see her so badly? Was he really so naïve to think that simply seeing her again would tell him if he'd made the right decision or not? But no, he realized, it wasn't just that. He wanted to know what she thought of his choice, what she thought of Qui Gon, what she thought of Anikan, what she thought of… everything.
But as he made the realization how important her opinion had become to him – how important she had become to him – new worries set in. Not just what these feelings could mean, but also what it meant that these feelings were for such a person as herself. She was always doing something dangerous. On her own. He'd said she wasn't alone the last time he was here, but she was out there fighting the Black Sun by herself. Where was she? Was she okay?
His communicator beckoned.
Clenching a hand over it, he took a deep breath and then said calmly, "On my way" before Qui Gon could question his whereabouts. He'd go and see this mission out to its conclusion. Then he'd come back here and see Buffy, tell her everything. He hoped she would forgive him for being a Jedi, for not being there in the Factory District when she needed him.
And he hoped she'd agree with his decision to leave the Order.
