The Grandson: Has it got any sports in it?
Grandpa: Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles...
Chapter 4 Monsters, Chases, Escapes
A hand to the shoulder startled her awake, but it was the hand against her mouth that had her grasping for her vibro-shiv.
"Padme!" A voice hissed. "Padme! Calm down."
She recognized that voice….
"It's me, Obi-Wan."
…but what was it doing here? And why was there a hand against her mouth? But she trusted Obi-Wan and forced herself to relax. The hand disappeared.
"I am sorry about that." In the darkness, Padme could just see him wiping his hand off on his pant leg. "I did not know how easy it would be to wake you up and I didn't want you to accidentally wake the others." In the silence, his voice was a soft hiss.
And indeed, her handmaidens were still fast asleep around her. They had all bedded down at the center of the ship in the mini-throne room—big enough to train in, private enough to discuss sensitive topics, and quiet enough to sleep in.
Padme rubbed at her eyes and sat up.
"Why are you here?" she asked, a trail of suspicion entering into her voice.
"I thought you might want to go into town again today," he whispered.
"Why are you here?" she repeated, not to be put off.
He was quiet for a moment and his lips pursed. "Something tells me that it is important that you come with me to pick up Anakin and his mother."
Padme eyed the young man speculatively, studying his face, and trying to see what he was getting at—there was a terrifying seriousness, a kind of knowingness in his voice that scared her. But, for some reason, she trusted him.
She nodded. "I'll meet you in the galley in fifteen minutes."
The corner of Obi-Wan's mouth quirked up. He nodded and withdrew from the room with only a whisper of cloth, making Padme very glad that he was on her side. Not one of her highly trained handmaidens stirred throughout the encounter.
That fact changed when she began to creep out of the room herself. Most of them shifted a she tip-toed by, kept asleep only because she didn't step on Tane's hand and didn't fall on Sabe's head when she tripped. But still, she made it out of the room without waking anyone up, heading down the short corridor to the Royal Wardrobe. Despite the vast array of clothing, only the outfit she had donned four days before was non-descript and comfortable enough for Tatooine.
Armed with something to wear, Padme made her way to the fresher—fortunately it was still early and there was no line—and showered, performing her morning ablutions in plenty of time to meet Obi-Wan. She took the time to coil her hair up neatly and to secure it with her throwing dart. Then she headed to the galley. The young man in question was waiting at a table, a small pile of food in front of him, with no sign of the disquiet that he had shown earlier. He gestured to the seat opposite himself and pushed a plate in her direction.
"Thanks," was all Padme said before diving into her own breakfast. It wasn't long before the two were done.
"Ready?" Obi-Wan asked as he put a hand to his belt and double checked his comm unit and lightsabre.
Padme nodded, her own hand checking her blaster and patting the blade in her hair. "Ready."
"Let's go then," Obi-Wan replied, gesturing towards the door.
Padme preceded him out, pausing in the cockpit to let the pilot on duty know that they were leaving the ship to finish their errands in town. They slipped out, into the Tatooine pre-dawn light. It was still early enough that the air was breathable and the ground was still cool from the night before.
Together, the two set off for town. Conversation wound from topic to topic, skittering from favorite movies to favorite books and back again (via a few complaints of the food supplies aboard the cruiser and a short discussion of the merits of carbonated caffeine versus caf), but silence fell between the two friends as they reached the outskirts of the settlement. Inconspicuous in the pre-dawn light, the two made their way to the slave quarters. No one saw them. When they reached the Skywalker residence, the door hissed open moments before they reached it, revealing a tall, worn woman, burned brown in a harsh environment. Her worried eyes slipped behind them, checking for threats, making sure no one had followed. Without a word, Obi-Wan and Padme stepped inside.
The moment the door shut behind them, the tension in Ms. Skywalker relaxed enough to smile, though it was nervous.
"Obi-Wan, it is good to see you again." The two greeted each other politely. "And you must be Padme?" The two women shook hands. "Anakin speaks well of you."
"I'm pleased to meet you, Ms. Skywalker," Padme responded with a smile.
"You as well, Padme. Now, if you two will give me a moment, I'll wake Ani." Shmi bustled around the corner. The young Queen heard the sounds of Ms. Skywalker easing her young son awake. Childish grumbles about getting up early quickly shifted into excitement, and before long, Anakin had launched into the small entry-way where Padme was waiting with Obi-Wan.
"Padme!" Despite the limited space, the child somehow managed to skid to a halt in front of them. His grin was brighter than the pale sunlight peaking through the tiny windows. "Obi-Wan! Are you ready? Mom and I, we're ready. We packed last night." He hefted his bag higher on his shoulders as his mom appeared behind him. "And the scanner? I finished it just like you said I could!"
Excitedly, he led the way into the tiny kitchen. Padme followed behind, feeling awkward in the small space, almost embarrassed. She was the queen of an entire planet, with a palace and guards, space-ships and subjects. These people had nothing. Padme's closet was twice the size of their entire kitchen. It gave her a terrible feeling of inadequacy—she hadn't done nearly enough to help those around her, not just on Naboo, but in the rest of the galaxy. She would fight to ensure that her people would not be subject to this fate under the insatiable claws of the Trade Federation.
"Look! I finished the scanner!" Padme watched distantly as Obi-Wan took the scanner from Anakin's eager hands and studied the device for a few minutes, fiddling around with it. His eyes narrowed in concentration and he tugged the long braid that hung behind his ear. Then he nodded.
"Looks to be in order." Obi-Wan shifted his gaze to Ms. Skywalker. "If we get the generator ready to go, we'll find your transmitters and get them out. Then we'll get out of here as fast as we can. A straight shot back to our ship and then into hyperspace."
Vague superstition pricked at Padme. Uncomfortable, she shifted, patting the blade in her hair and scanning the tiny room for anything out of the ordinary.
Ms. Skywalker took a deep, steeling breath before nodding decisively, meeting Obi-Wan's eyes. Padme read the stubbornness and courage in her gaze. "We are ready."
They went to work on Ms. Skywalker first. Anakin had tested the scanner the night before and so knew basically where the implant was. This morning they pinpointed it, hidden sub-dermally on Ms. Skywalker's left shoulder blade. With a paring knife sterilized just for this purpose, Obi-Wan carefully cut out the device, using the Force to prevent it from exploding while it was removed.
The room breathed a sigh of relief when the first surgery was done. Padme carefully placed a bacta patch on the incision, while Obi-Wan carefully bashed in the tiny device, using a judicious combination of the Force and his lightsabre hilt.
Anakin picked up the disabled device, letting it rest on the tip of his pinky. "This is what was going to blow us up?"
Obi-Wan quirked an eyebrow dryly, "It's not about size; its about precision. Tiny or not, a mechanism like that can pack quite a punch."
"You're turn now, Anakin," Padme broke in, nudging Anakin towards Obi-Wan, who pinpointed Anakin's implant. It was just to the side of his left kneecap. Propping his leg on the kitchen table, Mrs. Skywalker cut the transmitter out of her son's knee. He had barely flinched before the explosive was out of his leg and Padme was setting a bacta patch in place. Obi-Wan destroyed the device while the Skywalkers looked on with excitement.
There a was a moment of stunned quiet, before Padme broke it, "You're free now."
Mrs. Skywalker grinned, and Anakin let out a wild whoop of joy. Mother and son hugged and Padme and Obi-Wan shared a smile, caught up in the Skywalker's excitement. But the moment couldn't last for long.
Obi-Wan broke the moment. "We aren't off planet, yet. We need to get you two to the ship."
In a flurry of movement, the Skywalkers gathered everything up and the small group left out the back door, trailing the semi-stolen hovercart with its semi-stolen goods.
Neither Skywalker looked back.
Anakin and Padme pulled ahead, generator floating between then. Obi-Wan hung behind with Ms. Skywalker as she paused to lock the door behind her. Together, they made their way down the narrow back steps leading from the ex-Skywalker residence, but when they reached the bottom, she suddenly spoke quietly, "Obi-Wan."
She stopped walking. Puzzled, Obi-Wan stopped too and turned to face her. The stare that met his eyes surprised him; if Obi-Wan hadn't been used to Master Yoda's penetrating gaze, he might have even taken a step back under the sheer force of Ms. Skywalker's stare.
"My son…" she stopped herself, and began again, grabbing Obi-Wan's arm. "If something happens to me, will you make sure he is safe? That he is cared for, somewhere far, far away from here?" Shmi Skywalker, mother of Anakin, tightened her grip on the Jedi Padawan's arm.
Eyes wide, Obi-Wan answered, "Ms. Skywalker, we are going to get the two of you out of here, the ship is waiting just outside of town." He curled the Force around her, soothing. Not to mind-trick—Ms. Skywalker was too strong minded to mind-trick—but an attempt to refocus her on the task at hand, namely, getting off Tatooine.
"Obi-Wan. Please. Just tell me. Will you do what you can to keep my son safe?"
"I—"
But Anakin appeared at his elbow, looking at his mother and jerking his thumb over at Padme and the generator. "We need to go!" he hissed, keeping his voice low, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He tugged his mom's arm, but she kept her eyes on Obi-Wan, waiting for his answer.
"Ms. Skywalker. We are going to get you and your son off this planet." Obi-Wan kept his voice firm and confident.
She stepped back, releasing his arm. Through the Force, Obi-Wan could feel her uncertainty, but he didn't know what else to say. He couldn't promise Anakin's safety. He couldn't even promise to try to keep Anakin safe. He was a Jedi. Obi-Wan had no attachments. His life was unstable. His greatest duty was to the Republic and the Force. Obi-Wan wouldn't lie to Ms. Skywalker and say otherwise.
"But Anakin's right. We need to keep going," Obi-Wan continued, diffusing the rest of the moment with as much skill as he possessed.
With a long look, Ms. Skywalker nodded and turned to follow her son.
Obi-Wan let Anakin take point with his mother as they left the slave quarters, knowing that the two knew the area better than he did. He fell to the back, keeping his senses stretched out as far as he could. The wrongness he'd felt since landing on the droid control ship almost a week ago was only getting worse. It felt magnified, focused.
But they passed the houses on the edge of town without incident. His skin felt nothing but the glow of early dawn light, he saw nothing except rocks and sand, he smelled nothing except dust and hot metal, he heard nothing but Anakin's voice as he regaled the two women with some anecdote. And yet, every part of Obi-Wan screamed that something was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
His fingers flexed restlessly at his sides. He ran a hand through his spiky hair. Scanning the brightening horizon, he didn't see anything wrong, but the ridge to his right limited visibility. The paranoid part of his brain pointed out that it would make a decent ambush site.
Then it clicked. The paranoid part of his brain wasn't so paranoid after all: his shoulders tensed. It was here. The source of his disquiet, his nerves, his constant discomfort, like a wave the Darkness slammed into him.
It was here. It had found them.
"Everybody down!" Obi-Wan cried out. He dropped to the sand and pushed the hovering generator away from the threat. The hot sand burned through his clothing and grated his sunburn.
But there was no time to think about it—he had to get himself up and protect his friends from the Darkness that had just, quite literally, dropped over the ridge. Surrounding himself with the Force and focusing his five Human senses, he reached out and took stock of the situation.
The world slowed.
As he levered himself up off his stomach, Obi-Wan saw that Padme was safe off to his right, ducking behind a rock, while Anakin was protected by his mother, who had apparently pushed him down. The generator had come to a rest against a large boulder. As Obi-Wan got to his knees, he saw that dear Force, Ms. Skywalker was dead and the thing that killed her was on a speeder and that it was a black, black blur and what was going to happen to Anakin? And as Obi-Wan placed one foot solidly on the ground, he saw that the speeder was coming back and that Anakin was trying to get up, and that Padme was reaching for her blaster. And as Obi-Wan stood up completely and pulled out his lightsabre and ignited it, the Dark Thing was on top of him again and it had a lightsabre too.
All in all? Not good.
But the Force told him to duck, so Obi-Wan ducked again. The air of the speeder whooshed by, stirring up sand and making it hard to see again. He could feel the red lightsabre as it swished by. But, he'd stuck his own blade out, just in time, and hit the speeder with a glancing blow that knocked it off kilter enough to send the Darksider flying. The force of the blow made Obi-Wan spin and it wrenched brutally at his shoulder, jerking his elbow and pulling the tendons.
The being took control of his fall and spun himself around to land safely on his feet a few meters away, though he stumbled and had to regain his balance. He wore a long cloak that twirled around him in the heat-wind and his face was a zigzagging mess of tattoos. His tunic, his pants, his cloak, all were black—a meager reflection of the Darkness oozing out of him. His eyes were blood-shot gold, vibrant and deadly even from so many feet away.
The black speeder skidded to a halt a short distance away, grinding harshly against the rocks.
Obi-Wan straightened up. Taking advantage of the creature's stumble—it was a Zabrak, Obi-Wan noted, almost absently, filing it away in his brain. Obi-Wan rolled his shoulder, forcing it into mobility, calling on the Force to dull the pain and to lend him strength enough to use it despite the injury. The motion jarred his injured shoulder cruelly. It took effort not to wince and show the weakness.
The Padawan spared a moment to hope Padme would keep her head and comm the ship for backup. The being was immensely strong in the Force, strong in the Dark side, and Obi-Wan was too aware of his own limitations to think he could possibly defeat the being on his own. Worse, his now bum shoulder would just make this fight shorter than it would've been otherwise.
The Darksider's gaze snapped to Padme, to the Skywalkers, to the hovering hyperdrive generator, assessing the risk. But Obi-Wan would not let that thing near his friends. Determination grounded him and sent strength into his limbs.
Obi-Wan dashed forward to distract the Darksider from Padme and Anakin, vaulting upwards into a showy flip that was designed to draw attention.
It worked. The Zabrak was there to meet Obi-Wan when he landed, slashing brutally with his red blade. Obi-Wan blocked, using the creature's momentum to spin himself around to attack its other side. The Darksider slipped under Obi-Wan's blade, but Obi-Wan had already shifted, spinning himself between Padme and Anakin and the creature.
They blasted away at each other in a sharp, lengthy series of slashes and stabs, each matching the other blow for vicious blow, even with Obi-Wan's injury. Breaking the pattern, the Darksider feinted to the side, and taking advantage of Obi-Wan's weak shoulder, slashed again, this time skiving a burning line along Obi-Wan's left bicep. Obi-Wan faltered and the being used the opportunity to slash at his head. Obi-Wan ducked and spun to the side, stabbing at the Darksider's rib cage, blowing the pain in his arm out and into the Force. The being parried and Obi-Wan's blade skidded along the end of the Darksider's and nicked the Zabrak's leg through the layers of black cloth.
Again and again, they sliced and hacked at each other, blades zipping through the air like so much lightening.
Slashing again, the sabres connected with a hiss, putting strain on Obi-Wan's injuries. Blades locked, Obi-Wan's clear blue-grey eyes met sickly, red-yellow eyes. Feeling sick at the sight (eyes shouldn't look like that), Obi-Wan disengaged and flipped over the Darksider's head, slashing as he did so. The being spun around, parried the blow, and used the force of it to turn Obi-Wan aside. Seeing an opening, he kicked Obi-Wan and sent him flying.
Winded and unable to control his landing, the apprentice landed heavily on a sharp rock. It dug deep into his side sending sharp pains flying from the epicenter in his lower ribcage up into his head. He sensed the Darksider's mocking approach, heard the red lightsabre twang through the hot air.
Blaster fire rang out, slicing towards the creature in black. Without turning around, the Darksider flipped his lightsabre up and caught the bolts, sending them harmlessly into the desert. Unable to breath, barely able to think, Obi-Wan struggled to his feet. The being continued to advance. Planting himself firmly in Force, Obi-Wan stabilized his stance and rubbed his thumb along the hilt of his blade, ignoring the burn in his shoulder and the thrum in his ribs, the scream in his shoulder. He blinked sweat out of his eyes and focused them on the creature that had clearly decided to toy with him.
More blaster shots. They were easily flicked off into space, though this time the Darksider sent a glare in Padme's direction. Adamant that the Darksider would not attack his companions, Obi-Wan again attacked, feinting towards the creature's injured leg, before slashing at the opposite shoulder, trying to take advantage of his preoccupation with Padme. The being barely stopped the blow from singeing his collar bone.
The Darksider spun down and away from Obi-Wan's blade, slashing at the apprentice's feet. Obi-Wan leapt over the red blur, cringing painfully in the face of his injured ribs and shoulder. By this point, he was breathing heavily—he'd damaged something important when he'd gone flying. Controlling himself, Obi-Wan brought his blade up to strike at the being's neck. Again, the Zabrak dodged, forcing Obi-Wan to correct his momentum and send the creature back upwards, which again, strained his ribs. The Darksider met his lightsabre, danced around it, and then flicked his red blade downwards, forcing Obi-Wan to bend a little to meet it. When the red sabre jumped back upwards, Obi-Wan managed to parry the blade, but not the vicious kick to his injured side.
Again, knocked to the floor, Obi-Wan forced himself to leap up, despite the fact that it made his vision flicker and he couldn't breathe. However, he was unable to block the next double blow—a two part slash that burned the right side of his chest and his left shoulder—followed up immediately by a harsh hit to the head with a lightsabre hilt.
The suns winked out.
Oh, shit.
Darkness.
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