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Chapter 8

Stagger

Miler scoured the garage in search of a vehicle. Most were too small. Anger over Leona animated the pilot. "C'mon!" he growled, smacking the speeds roofs. "There's got to be one!"

"There!" said Eisley.

It was a family airspeeder: beat up but sturdy. Miler climbed in, leaning under the console. He pried open the panel and tore out some wires. He sparked the copper from two green and red ligatures. The speeder came to life. The computer lit blue.

"How about that," The Man smirked.

"Picked it up—"

"On the mean streets?"

"The academy."

"Imagine that."

Obi-Wan screamed as they lifted him inside. Padme pushed some hair from his face, touching their foreheads. Even sweaty and bloody, his scent was comforting. Seldom had the two shared such closeness.

When everyone was in place, Miler told Padme: "Brave heart, ma'am. We'll be all right."

"That's a hell of a claim, Lieutenant."

Miler forced a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "It's like the Gen'ral says: fortune isn't random." He took the controls. The speeder lifted before lurching back. Then spinning around, it shot through the garage.

Things had quieted on the ground. The civilian slaughter was in its last throes. The survivors had taken refuge; save a few stragglers, only the dead filled the streets.

The air was chaotic. Speeders soared drunkenly to unchosen points. They swiped and collided, falling from the sky. Screams echoed from plummeting fireballs. Miler cut through the madness expertly.

Each dive and jerk heightened Obi-Wan's pain. Jagged breaths spilled from his mouth. His mind wandered as he tried to stay awake. He pictured the dead, here and on other worlds, now and tomorrow and millennia past. He was a cog in the machine, like trillions before him.

"Hold on!" Miler shouted.

The Man's eyes cracked open. All around was the stench of death: burnt flesh coupled with super-heated metal.

A blurred figure appeared over him wielding a blaster. The Man rolled his head to find rubble and wreckage. He hissed as a boot pressed on his chest.

"Answer the question!" the trooper snarled. The Man grunted, seeing Eisley and Padme in a motionless heap. "Which one of you is Kenobi? Tell me now!"

The Man would've answered, but he saw motion behind the trooper. He grinned, rasping, "I am. Wanna see a trick?"

Obi-Wan grabbed the trooper. Spinning him around, he smashed his face with a blaster. The trooper crumpled at his feet.

The barely lucid Jedi tossed the blaster aside. He mumbled "uncivilized" before dropping to his knees.

Miler began to stir, looking at the speeder. It was a swirl of smoke and fire, lodged between two concrete slabs that had formed the post of an archway.

A grim whine drifted to his ears. At first, it sounded like the air raid sirens. But as he peered into the distance, he found a wall of bright orange swallowing the sky.

Obi-Wan forced himself up. He looked at Eisley, finding her head badly swollen. Behind her was R2, circuits protruding from every orifice. The Jedi faced the inferno as it blasted out in every direction.

"I could've been a farmer," Obi-Wan mumbled.