Fallout
Chapter 23
Anakin Skywalker was a mechanical genius. He could fix anything. He could feel the inside of a ship, the intricate puzzle of its inner workings, the warp and weft of welded parts and cybernetic interfaces. There was nothing he could not take apart and put together again.
His breath came in loud rasps, a bellows fanning the dying embers of hope. There was no way Obi Wan had survived. And yet he could not surrender, he could not give up and turn away. He had to stay close. Even Yoda had burdened him with the task of savior. It was who he was; he was born to help people.
"I'm sorry, mom," he whimpered, though she could not hear, was buried herself, beneath Tatooine' s harsh sand. "I wasn't strong enough."
But he was strong enough now. Dooku had made him stronger when he cut off Anakin's arm. Geonosis had made him stronger. The war had made him stronger. Every loss was a gain, because the gaps left in his soul by loss were filled with power, with an overflowing void.
He sank to his knees, the lazy clouds of dust settling on his shoulders in a sticky mantle. The dark places in his spirit extended tendrils of emptiness to the hollow places beneath and between the massive stones, feeling them out, uniting with them. The mighty barrow piled before him was a delicate balance of solidity and nothingness, weight and vacant space. And Anakin was supposed to bring balance. He could bring imbalance too; he could overbalance the decree of fate. He could destroy the balance of life and death, because he was its master.
He began to lift the stones, carefully, in the right order, the Force surging forward at his beck and call. To shift the balance, to move without moving, to undo what destruction had wrought here… he used patience and anger, love and fear in equal measure, balancing them. The stone sculpture groaned, shifted, rumbled. He pushed slabs aside, rolled jutting masses of rock away, lifted delicately steepled shards, felt with his mind for the safe places, the little hollows and caves between the crushing walls of this labyrinth.
And at last he found the bottommost cellar, a little round hovel of space beneath the final stones, a miraculous protective sphere untouched by the millions of tons of despair piled atop it. And there, crumpled in a heap, lay Obi Wan- not flattened to a pulp of blood and bone, but still and unmoving. Beside him were a length of golden cloth and an old lightsaber, nothing more.
A heartbeat later, Anakin was there, dragging his master out of the gritty tomb, a hand hooked under either armpit. Light poured down from the distant surface, through the now gaping hole in the cave roof, the wide maw thirstily gulping in acid rain, dust drenched light, radiation. Obi Wan's helmet had been knocked off or lost… but there wasn't time to worry about that.
"Master. C'mon, Obi Wan. You're missing all the fun."
He watched his friend's eyelids flicker, watched color slowly return to his face. A random cannon blast streaked through the cave opening high overhead , slammed into a boulder, sent splinters of rock spraying down. Anakin shielded them both with the Force.
Obi Wan sucked in an abrupt choking breath, like a newborn gasping its first. The Force blazed to renewed vibrancy, that familiar white corona faintly dancing around the filthy, bedraggled Jedi master. He squinted up at the jagged outline of the broken cave roof, at the cascades of rain and dust, the lurid flashes of gunfire above. "Anakin!" he exclaimed. "What in the blazes are you doing down here?" And in the next instant he was scrambling to his feet, ash-coated hair standing up in wild tufts, eyes flashing with something close to protective fear.
"I'm rescuing you – again!" he shouted back.
They gazed up at the battle raging outside, the circle of fire fretted sky visible through the shattered roof. "You're incorrigible, Anakin." Obi Wan dropped his eyes for a moment, and then looked him full in the face, without the armor of irony and wit. "...But I am glad you came." They exchanged an almost shy smile, a rare moment of unveiled feeling.
Anakin's chest swelled with emotion. Then two shadows blocked the entry, descended upon them in a thrilling consonance of high-powered microdrives. The dark triangles descended, that familiar song of the Delta's thrusters like glorious music to their ears.
"Artoo!" Anakin yelled, leaping exultantly onto his fighter's wing and sliding into the cockpit behind his trusty astromech. "You found us – and Arfour, too! Good rescue!"
Obi Wan followed suit, snugging himself down in the second Delta's cockpit as the droid pilots lifted them up again, straight through the ragged ceiling and into the battle-scarred skies. The sound of clones' ferocious cheers echoed over the ship-to-ship comm. as the Jedi led the gunships up and away, racing for the cruiser which hovered just beyond the first cloud-layers.
The droid transports and their angry swarms were left far behind.
"It's not over yet," Obi Wan warned.
"'Course not," Anakin beamed. Vultures and hyenas dropped below the bilious clouds, like hard droplets of rain, a new threat regrouping and driving toward them in long lines, hunting formations. The fleeing Republic ships, with their cargo of frightened Pau and Ichth'chtxl, laid on speed. The Separatist fleet gained steadily, drawing closer, closer, almost within firing distance…
..and exploded into a hail of sparking comets. The air shuddered with the impact of heavy cannon. Plasma ripped the skies to shreds, pounded into distant mountaintops, chewed through the oncoming ranks of fighters like lightning striking a mosquito swarm. And the curved belly of O'cheo's cruiser darkened the sky, eclipsing the very sun as it descended well into the turgid lower atmosphere, drives shredding clouds to frantic rain, its vast silhouette casting a visible shadow on the land beneath. Either the gunners were drunk or the radiation had fried their sensors; but the sheer power of the warship's cannon made up for its lack of accuracy. The bay doors slowly opened, in slow and majestic invitation.
"General Skywalker," the captain's tart voice snapped over the comm., "I suggest you make haste. I'm not waiting for you another minute."
"Copy that," Anakin grunted, leading the way into the cruiser's belly. His squadrons followed, an armada of heavily laden gunships settling like roosting birds behind the shelter of the magcon barriers. Obi Wan slipped between the closing panels at the last minute, scooting his Delta in close beside Anakin's at the far end of the starboard hangar.
The decks rumbled beneath them as the cruiser powered up through atmosphere, turbulence clawing idly aginst the hull, the last death spasm of Rhelis Massa, clutching at them as they fled.
Obi Wan sat beside the loquacious B'chthkl as the Ichth'chtxl child prattled away about his new surroundings. He could not understand a word of the young insectoid's peculiar language, but he had the distinct impression – conveyed to him through the Force- that the young Friend still believed Obi Wan to be a human child of approximately the same equivalent age, and was glad for the companionship. The hangar bays had been converted to emergency refugee camps, cots and blankets and foodstuffs dug up from the ship's stores. Once the cruiser was safe from immediate threat, O'cheo proved to be a helpful and efficient organizer of the relief effort. Now, clones moved up and down the aisles of shivering, despondent Friends, scanning each and every one of them for radiation exposure and treating those who registered in the unacceptable range.
It had taken hours of tedious rhetoric and explanation, and a sustained use of Force suggestion, to calm the panicking Friends. Plucked from the only world they knew, imprisoned in the ship's bowels, and now transported to a destination beyond the scope of their imagining, they clustered together, wide-eyed, muttering, a pall of unease still lingering among them, a dark veil shadowing the Force. They had reluctantly accepted him as surrogate Jedi leader, a role he adopted with reluctance – for it must be shed within days, if not sooner. But while he could still help ease their struggle into a broader world, he remained, his mere presence some impalpable comfort to their stunned minds.
B'chthkl shrieked high in consternation when the clones reached their tucked-away corner of the decks.
"Ah, General Kenobi, with respect, we need to scan everyone for rad exposure."
He stood, urging his diminutive companion to do the same. B'chthkl's antennae jerked backward as the clone passed a bioscanner over his thorax.
"He's negligible," the clone grunted. "Built in armor, see?"
Obi Wan stroked his beard. Yes, the insectoid anatomy had its advantages. Not that he would personally fancy being permanently outfitted in hard overlapping plates. The chestplate that Anakin had designed did look a bit like a an abdominal carapace... fire-beetle-ish, even. He shuddered.
"Ah..General…you've got some worrisome readings here…you'll need a detox."
What? Oh, Force. "Thank you Sergeant, but I should be able to manage without any –"
"Just shut up and let 'em do their job," a familiar voice chided him.
"Anakin. I don't' think-"
"Go ahead, Sergeant, I'll put him in a headlock if need be," Anakin smirked. The poor clone officer cast an appalled glance at his tech assistant, who merely shrugged and hesitantly broke the steriseal on a new detox kit.
Obi Wan folded his arms and glowered at the other Jedi. "You may as well say it, " he groused. "I know you want to."
Anakin's mouth twitched. "Looks like Soresu doesn't work against degrading particulate radiation, master."
"Here, General, you need to swallow this- all of it, mind you."
"No, Anakin, it does not – but your armor will not save you from the just retribution coming your way as soon as we can reserve an empty salle."
"This is how you thank me for saving your life? By the way, the score is down to forty-one now."
Obi Wan almost gagged on the viscous phosphoperimoxytin." Grimacing, he shook one upraised finger in Anakin's vague direction. "Forty-two," he gasped out.
"You know it's gonna stand in my favor by the end of the war, right?"
Obi Wan had the back of one hand pressed against his mouth, which spared Anakin from any sarcastic retort.
"Okay, then this," the clone muttered, pressing a hypo into his victim's neck. "You might wanna lie down for a bit, general. That's powerful business, but it works pretty damn good. Bonds with stray particles in yer bloodstream, neutralizes and purges. About two hours standard and we can let you outta this quarantine zone."
"Thank you," the Jedi master wheezed, shooting another fulminating look at Anakin from under his tightly beetled brows.
Anakin bowed to the curious B'chthktl as the young Friend scuttled away to rejoin his chittering clanmates, and chivvied his former master over to a cot in a secluded corner, partially screened by the two Deltas. "I'll come back to check on you when you're not so pathetic," the young Jedi promised, practically bouncing on his heels as he strode away, his pride in victory and their near escape buoying him with a rare luminous cheer.
Obi Wan rolled onto his side and released a long grumbling breath. Pathetic? He was going to have to kick Anakin's impudent armor-clad arse next time they sparred. The vile detox treatment cut off his fond imaginary explication of this event with racking cramps, and then nausea, and then what felt like a full-blown fever, replete with delirium. Soon enough even the muffled sounds of the Friends and the attendant clones faded to inconsequence. He pulled his cloak closer around his shoulders and folded into a ball of taut vexation, reflecting that this was not -strictly speaking - pathetic. Not technically.
But I have always had a soft spot for pathetic life forms, the voice said.
He cracked open one baleful eye, and then the other. But he was not to be graced with another apparition. Just the voice this time.
And then a touch, calloused fingers brushing over his forehead, soothing. Master Xerxes wishes to express his gratitude. And I concur. It was well done, Padawan.
The touch faded. "Wait," he muttered, reaching groggily through the Force, grasping at nothing. "I need to ask you – I need to know-"
Not yet. You aren't yet ready…but be patient. The time will come.
"But!"
I think, for now, it would be best if you forgot. Just for a little while longer.
"Wait… master…" But already he could not quite formulate what it was that so concerned him, what strange blend of longing and dread it was that had so seized him, shaken his certitudes, pierced his heart with new, unspeakable horizons of yearning. It was fading… like the voice itself.. like the memory of the voice…
A last touch, no more than a breath of Light on his face. And wearing armor might not be a bad idea, either, Obi Wan.
Oh. Well, then. "Yes, master," he slurred, and slid away into the beckoning light.
When Anakin returned two hours later, he discovered his friend still blissfully asleep, curled in fetal position beneath his cloak, with a remarkably peaceful expression on his grimy face. He really didn't have the heart to disturb him.