Chapter 15
As soon as Anakin was safely behind the closed cell door, Obi-Wan exhaled deeply, shortly before realizing that a deep breath hurt like dozens of knives twisting in his back. Nonetheless, his biggest concern was gone with Anakin. Thankfully he had once done what he was told. Although he would most likely curse the day and his master afterwards. Because Obi-Wan hadn't told him the whole truth earlier. Sure, he wanted Anakin away to no longer be extorted, but Obi-Wan had no illusions about what would happen as soon as Anakin -Wan would die. The question was only how long it would take, but without Anakin as pledge, Maul would finish him off rather soon.
It had been nearly too painful to see Anakin's last glaze, his immovable determination that he would come back for his old master and rescue him. Obi-Wan would disappoint him one last time, and his friend would be all alone with his grief and his need for emotional closeness within the Jedi Order.
But Obi-Wan was not dead yet, and in moments like these, he felt the strength of the living Force like a cocoon of warmth around him.
Focus on the moment.
He knew exactly what he had to do. Prevent Maul from chasing after his eluded prey.
The Sith had already recovered from the unexpected attack, and he swiftly typed into the controller at his wrist. He would be able to open the door with it, Obi-Wan was sure. But what could he do? He was still suspended a meter above the floor.
Use the Force, idiot!
He must really be a mess if he couldn't think of the Force first. So he tried to quickly decommission the controller.
Well, easier said than done. Here, a simple step in the Force seemed to equal the ascent on an ice-crusted mountain. He had to go deeper into the Force, while accepting that he wouldn't be able to perceive anything else. But it was the Force, and so he descended. Deeper and deeper.
How did Obi-Wan do that? He got himself into the most awful situations, while he always managed to get Anakin out. And somehow, he had persuaded Anakin into promising him to take the chance of fleeing without him. But his clever plan of self-sacrifice had a twist. Obi-Wan hadn't told him precisely when to flee, and he, Anakin Skywalker, wouldn't give up on his master that quickly.
He continued his work on the door's controller. Which son-of-a-bantha-and-a-hutt kind of engineer did install the power circuits in their cell? Everyone with even the slightest crumb of knowledge knew that the switches in one room had to be aligned towards the room's center, where the power collector was. But this dumb piece of poodoo engineer had him come free, while Obi-Wan was now hanging from the ceiling because the switch had been installed in the wrong direction.
At least did he get the time to turn the switch on Obi-Wan's side of the room into the right direction before he left. Now he just had to reactivate the door, and Obi-Wan would be in a better position to fight. He looked down at the shock whip in his other hand. And they had a weapon, while Maul hadn't. They were able to defeat him now.
At least the money which was saved on the engineers had obviously not been invested in good programmers either. The security code was easy to override and Anakin quickly pressed the button to open the door. First, he heard something hit the ground. Presumably Obi-Wan. Then an angry growl. Maul – or Obi-Wan, if he had already sensed who stood before the door.
Finally the metal slid into the wall and revealed a confused Obi-Wan who laid a bit addled on the bottom while collecting his senses, and Maul, hand at a controller on his wrist, and his frown quickly changing into a smile – if a contortion of the mouth devoid of any happiness could be called a smile.
"Skywalker," he intoned in his calmest voice. "How nice of you to join us again. I already feared that you took your mentor's advice, but I'm glad that you proved me wrong."
Anakin listened to the words only randomly. He was more focused on watching Obi-Wan without being caught. Because his mentor was already back up to the mark, and although he wasn't able to keep the affronted you-disobeyed-me-again-stare to himself, he was ready for action.
Anakin looked Maul in the eyes while laying his splayed left hand on his hip, their secret signal for "wait". There had to be a way to distract Maul further. Regrettably, the room was empty, and he couldn't find anything to use. Unfortunate, but not a too big set-back. He preferred the direct approach anyway.
He activated his newly acquired shock whip and flung it with the swiftness of the Force at Maul's head. Unfortunately, Maul did also posses the swiftness of the Force, and he managed to evade the blow. But Anakin had already used this weapon once, and he knew that as soon as he got a hit on Maul, he would win, for Maul didn't have any weapon he could parry the whip with.
So Anakin delivered a wide blow, and Maul had to use his arm to intercept it, and as anticipated, the flashing cord of the whip wrapped around the Sith's arm. Perfect. Obi-Wan was on his feet in an instant and kicked against Maul's metal claws to further destabilize him.
But they both underestimated the Sith. Instead of writhing in pain from the electricity, he took it without any motion, just an impalpable brightening of his eyes. Obi-Wan bounced off the Sith, probably more hurting his foot than hurting the Sith. Maul didn't even care to recognize it. He was focused on Anakin.
"Do you really think you can best me with my own weapons?", he spat, the electricity still flowing through him, while grabbing the cord of the whip with his hand. Some muscles in his arm and shoulder began to spasm.
"It takes more pain than you can comprehend to form a Sith. There's nothing you can do to me that hasn't already been done."
Anakin was bewildered. He knew how much the whip hurt, but Maul didn't respond to it at all. The spasms were spreading to other muscles, but Maul blatantly ignored them and yanked at the whip hard, while Anakin could only watch his only weapon fly away into the Sith's grip.
Fierfek! What should he do? But before he could lunge at Maul, Obi-Wan beat him to it. He came at the Sith from behind and used the cable of his binders, which he had formed into a loop, to strangle Maul. He would not succeed, he was too weakened, and his hold slackened gravely as Maul ran backwards into the wall and Obi-Wan was struck at his already wounded back.
Obi-Wan desperately held on to the wire and sent Anakin a look. This time, he didn't look like his friend or brother at all, he just looked like the general, the commander-in-chief, austere as never before. Because otherwise, Anakin wouldn't have followed his next command. He wouldn't leave a friend for the second time, but he couldn't disobey his maybe last order either. And when Obi-Wan finally snapped: "Go. Now.", he obeyed. He couldn't help, he didn't have a weapon, it was now back in Maul's possession, and he already tried to lash it towards Anakin, because Obi-Wan was no longer able to constrict his airways. Anakin made the best of the situation, leaped to the door and quickly pressed the button to close it. Again. At least he was free and could call for help if he made it off the planet. He quickly considered if he should destroy the door's locking mechanism completely, but decided that he liked Maul better on his heels than totally mad and alone in a cell with Obi-Wan.
AN: Sorry for the long wait... I hope you like this new chapter, I was very reluctant with posting it, because it doesn't really drive the story forward. But I couldn't bring myself to deleting it either, so I hope that it was the right decision. A big thanks to all the people who reviewed, you do motivate me a lot!
