Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. This story is purely a work of fan fiction, and I am not making any profit from it.
Author's note: a short chapter that points toward (hopefully) greater things. I would love to get your feedback!
CHAPTER EIGHT
Something is happening. The Force doesn't give him any specifics, muddy and dark at the edge of his perceptions, but that he can feel it at all is a change. Anakin's presence is still out of reach, but if Obi-Wan can feel the Force now, then maybe his apprentice's stronger connection will be able to find him. It is a tenuous hope, but it is better than nothing. In the meantime, all he can do is wait.
Slowly he becomes aware of a presence beside his own, unlike Omega, whom he couldn't sense anyway, his void in the Force. Unlike, also, the overpowering dark entity that controls this place, whose will permeates everything he can touch. It takes him a long time - minutes, hours, more; he doesn't know - before he begins to sense something, a nagging familiarity, about this new presence. He can't quite place it: something at once young and old, the strength of defeat without surrender. Resistance without hope.
Ryn? he queries, reaching out, but it isn't Ryn, and the presence flinches away from him in surprise.
The voice comes in his dreams: help me. Please help me.
Obi-Wan reaches for the voice, but he finds only darkness. Who are you?
Sobbing. Please help me. The empty one, he lies. The darkness ... shifts, a cascade of controlled power ... and he sees a figure coalesce in the center of his field of vision, trailing curling edges of dark mist. The face is familiar, though the eyes are gray and remote. Ryn? Tears track their way down her young face, ageless now.
Help me, young one. You are my only hope.
The vision melts away, and he is lying facedown on cold stone. It isn't, can't be, but he can't help asking: Ryn?
The darkness does not answer. You are my only hope.
Ryn woke up, carefully assessed her situation, and concluded almost immediately that consciousness had been a very bad idea. She tried to sit up anyway and got a sickening headache for her efforts.
"Ahhh..."
"Easy," said a voice she knew in her bones, and suddenly Ryn felt a warm arm around her shoulders, supporting her.
Anakin. She turned her head cautiously to the left and twitched feebly as a skinny golden braid fell across her face. "...n'kin?" she croaked, voice cracking painfully.
"I'm here, Ryn." He held her tighter. "You're going to be okay."
That sounded doubtful, but Ryn let it go for now. "Where are we?"
"You're asking me?" Anakin shrugged, shifting her against his shoulder. His body heat felt ridiculously good in the cold and damp, but Ryn gave her best effort to ignoring that. "Somewhere northeast of where we were attacked by the dhraghol. Maybe fifteen kilometers, and I'm not sure how many of your leagues."
"Not enough." Ryn pulled away from him, with a pang of regret for his warmth, to sit gingerly upright. "We have to make better time than this. Something is happening."
"Something is happening?" Anakin repeated, and with a few extra inches of distance his features resolved into an anxious frown. "To Obi-Wan?"
"To Loreth," Ryn replied. I think. "The hills are afraid."
"What?"
"I don't know how to explain," Ryn said, struggling to get her feet under her. "But we have to move again, tonight."
"You need rest -"
"Rest won't help me if we don't take care of this." The conviction of urgency that had awakened her ran stronger now, burning in her bones. She squinted into Anakin's face as she steadied herself, watching the shadows of a camp fire some distance away throw his familiar features into relief; the sun had set while she had been unconscious. "It's important, Anakin. I can feel it."
He nodded reluctantly. "You almost died."
"I'll be all right," Ryn said. "But we have to move, right away."
His signature felt ... uncertain. "Okay," he said slowly. "But ... stay here, okay? I'm going to get Evinne."
Ryn wasn't sure she could have gone anywhere under her own power if her life had depended on it, so she just nodded. "Don't waste time."
But Anakin hesitated. "Ryn, I ..."
"What?"
He swallowed audibly. "Nothing. I just ... I'm glad you're all right."
Bits and pieces of their last conversation floated back to her, wrapped in their drug-induced haze. I told you I wanted to have your babies. Force help me. Ryn managed a smile, hoping it didn't look quite as sick as she felt. "Yeah," she rasped. "Thanks."
He could feel it now, resolving from a nebulous stir in the Force to a definite center of dark energy, building rotation.
Navigating by currents in the Force is a difficult and hazardous procedure. Few people had ever managed it successfully, and even the slightest miscalculation would almost certainly mean death. Dooku, Lord Tyranus, drew on the surety of his own mastery - your focus determines your reality - and imposed his will on the fabric of the universe itself, demanding its complaisance.
In the space between heartbeats, he engaged the hyperdrive.
The blue-green energy nexus of a planet hung suspended in his viewscreen, surrounded by its three pale moons like a bridal necklace. Kirhiah'nuruodo checked his readouts again and hit the intercom. "Sir? You asked to be updated of any unusual activity on the planet of the godlings?"
"Is that a question or a statement, Lieutenant?"
"Er. A ... statement, sir."
"Then why are you telling me my own orders?"
"Sir! Because I have something to report, sir."
"Then kindly report it and go back to your duties."
"Sir, yes sir!" Kirhiah'nuruodo took a deep breath. "I'm reading an energy spike, sir. Storms building over the planet's surface - the whole planet, sir - and an elevated level of tectonic activity within the crust."
"How elevated?" The commander's voice was sharp.
"Sir, if my calculations are correct ... the planet is going to tear itself apart."
There was a brief silence, and then: "How long, Lieutenant?"
"Hard to say, sir. At the current rate four, maybe five of the planet's own rotations."
"Thank you, Lieutenant. That will be all."
"Sir - yes, sir." Kirhiah'nuruodo deactivated the intership comm and looked back at his small viewscreen, at the beautiful planet that was trying to destroy itself.
Nerowe, may your goddess protect you.