Chapter 10

Obi-Wan slowly awoke. Or did he? One had to sleep before awaking and he had surely not slept because sleep meant rest and regeneration and he felt neither of them. Just the sorry state his body was in, and something different that bugged him which he couldn't figure out yet.

He opened his eyes and stretched his mental senses. Yes, there was the offspring of his unease – and he should earn a medal for the biggest understatement ever for this denotation – Anakin. He laid on his back two meters away from him, unmoving.

How in the nine Corellian Hells did Anakin even get here? Obi-Wan could have very well abdicated another rescue attempt of abysmal proportion like that on Geonosis.

Obi-Wan asked himself - not for the first time in his life – if Anakin purposefully tried to make his life harder. He really exceeded himself with that one.

But his chagrin quickly vanished when he saw Anakin's chest. It showed a burn, one that Obi-Wan had to see too often in the last few years. It matched the one on his arm and was clearly a lightsaber-burn.

"Anakin? Wake up." He winced at the raw sound of his own voice, but he was not rewarded with a response. So he settled on approaching his former padawan. That was not as easy as it sounded either. The first thing he felt was that his muscles burned like fire when he tried to move them. Maybe an after effect of the lightning. But the more he concentrated, the better he could move.

And then he realized that his hands were clamped together by binders again. This time, his arms were at least tied before him, but a thick durasteel-wire connected him to a spot two meters up the wall. The door was not in his range but that didn't matter in the moment, because Anakin was.

His hand slid over Anakin's face, wiping away both dirt and blood. There was a nasty cut hidden under the dust on his forehead, just under the hairline. Obi-Wan softly tapped him on the cheek. "Anakin, wake up."

He stirred, mumbled something and tried to turn around, but the chain – by the way the same make that held Obi-Wan – wouldn't let him, and he jerked awake in a split-second and sat up so quick that he nearly hit Obi-Wan with his head.

"What? Obi-Wan! Where..." Anakin was totally confused, he looked around him like a paranoiac.

"Anakin, it's okay, I'm with you," Obi-Wan told him calmly, "Unfortunately we are prisoners of Darth Maul and Savage Opress... by the way, I expect all future rescue attempts of you to be more successful than this one."

Anakin blinked several times, trying to process the given information in his still wary mind. Then he shook his head and displayed – of all emotions possible - a wry smile.

"I'm just happy that you are alright - I mean considering the circumstances alright. You were with the Sith for quite a while and we were really worried. I mean Maul does really hate you and... I knew you were not dead but..."

Obi-Wan saved his former padawan from the stammering as he laid his hands on his shoulder.

"I'm alright for now, but I fear that won't last long," he locked his stare with Anakin, trying to make the severity of the following clear to him. "Maul has brought you here as leverage. I'm not sure what exactly he will do, but I think he wants to hurt you to get to me. And he will succeed."

A crease formed between Anakin's brows.

"He won't succeed. I will bear it until Ahsoka and the reinforcements arrive."

Obi-Wan wanted to make his last point clear again, because he was not sure if Anakin understood what it implied, but then Anakin's words arrived at his brain.

"What? You took Ahsoka with you into that mess?" he scolded.

"Yes, I took her into that mess. The mess that you created, so we are both responsible. But don't worry, she's not in danger, Ahsoka is waiting in orbit."

Obi-Wan's head began to hurt again. "Stop...I think we are both making false assumptions in the moment. Maul brought you here from another planet, the one Ahsoka is presumably still at. There is-"

"Wait, I wasn't unconscious for that long..." his eyes were only slits now and a small tremor was rippling the Force, "Oh, that Sithspawn gave me something. It is nearly consumed now, but I can still feel it. Fierfek! I guess you have to fill me in a bit, I don't want to be the totally uninformed idiot when the Sith come back."

"Oh don't worry, they will think that of you either way and you'll only be the second most hated person in the room, I can assure you. But now that you say it, there are some things I'd like to know, too..."


Ahsoka felt more than uncomfortable. And that was not just because she was floating in the void, somewhere far away from any civilization. No, the main problem were the people she had to answer to, namely the whole Jedi council which chose to do a conference right now.

A part of her was also relieved to share the burden, but she hated to admit defeat, and in the situation that she lost her master, it was nearly unbearable. She had never reported to the council without him before and she was frightened, even if she hated to admit it.

"Master told me to wait until he made contact, but he never did, and so I contacted him, but it didn't work and I realized that the signal was jammed. I guess by some drones on the planet. And when I wanted to come and look, I saw Maul's freighter fly off the planet. It didn't contact me, so Maul had to be on board. And then it readied for hyperspace and I tried to follow. I managed four jumps but then I lost them."

"Them? Somebody else on board there was, hmm?"

Yoda looked at her gently, easing her nerves. He definitely knew that she was under enormous stress in the moments, and he always had it in for the younger ones.

"I think that Master is on the ship. I know that he is."

"Do you say that because you really know it or because the other possibility would be that Skywalker was killed by the Sith?"

Ahsoka had to restrain herself from glaring angrily at Ki-Adi Mundi.

"It's what I feel. I would know it if he was dead. And he isn't, I am absolutely sure about that. But we have to find him soon, because Force knows what these Sith will do to him."

"Master Koon is already on his way, he and his clone squad should arrive in about a standard hour," Master Windu now spoke, casting a side-way glance at the empty seat to his right. "He will locate you and then search the surroundings. Since the standard protocol are five hyperspace jumps, the Sith might be relatively near. You can begin with a scan of the neighboring systems."

"Yes, Master." She did not show her frustration but displayed a blank face. What if the Sith changed the settings on the ship? They could be half a galaxy away by now. At least, they sent Master Plo, he would understand her and do everything to find Anakin.

"Trust in the Force to guide you, you must. In the Force, there is no distance." Yoda told her with a knowing nod, as if he read her thoughts. She responded with a nod and the hologram before her disappeared.


They sat in silence now, both kneeling on the floor, facing each other. Every important information was shared and their thoughts alternated between what was to come and how they could escape. Or at least Obi-Wan thought that Anakin's went into that direction, too.

"You know, the council considered leaving you there, as a good deed for all the younglings to listen to your lectures."

"Anakin, I'm not in the mood."

"Then why are you amused? I know that expression, you always do it when you don't want to show your amusement."
Force, Anakin really knew him too well by now. But living together for over ten years did that to somebody.

"True, but I think it's more important to find a way out of here, and since I already did it once and then had to surrender because your unconscious form showed up, it is now your turn."

That quickly silenced him and Obi-Wan wanted to take the last comment back when he saw the flash of hurt ghost over Anakin's face for a second, but he didn't. Let Anakin be productive for a while.

Meanwhile, he surveyed the Force for the two Sith. Maul was difficult to identify and nothing of the incredible amount of anger that he displayed before was visible. His brother was easier to find, he was right beside Maul and soft branches of pain seeped into the Force around him.

The Sith were weakened, but Anakin and Obi-Wan could not benefit from it in their current situation. There had to be a flaw somewhere, and he would find it, he had to, because Anakin's and his fate depended on it.