I categorically refuse to cut this chapter a second time, hence this behemoth which is part 2.
Obi-Wan and Asajj landed on Maraviine, a drab world with no known Imperial presence as of the most recent Alliance intel—from three years prior. The planet boasted wide expanses of scrubland and rocky hills, dotted with deciduous copses in some areas, and sparsely forested in others. As soon as the ship landed, Obi-Wan and Asajj began to search for a tracker. It wasn't long until the former found it.
"But," he added, "it appears to be attached to a line running to another device on one of the sublight engines. I suspect removing the tracker, cutting the line, or disturbing the secondary device will cause some sort of explosion or pulse that will damage the engine." He tried not to wonder if that was Anakin's innovation. It seemed like something he might have come up with. "I suppose we'll have to find someplace to either acquire a new ship or hide from the inevitable Imperial entourage until someone from the Alliance can come rescue us."
"You still wish I had left one of those Imps alive?" Asajj asked. "So we could be dragging a prisoner around with us?"
When Obi-Wan maintained an aloof and uncharacteristic silence, she poked him in the shoulder.
"Aha. See? I'm right, and you know I'm right."
"Only given the benefit of hindsight," he retorted.
They changed into the Imperial uniforms taken from their late escort. With the dark markings on her face covered, Asajj could pass for a human—albeit an extraordinarily pale one with hair that wasn't quite regulation—as long as they didn't have to go through any biometric scanners.
The nearest settlement their scans picked up was more than a day's journey away by foot. They made good progress during the remainder of the afternoon and evening, then set up camp in a clearing at the center of a copse. A fire was in order, the evening being chill, but they kept it small to avoid being seen by any soul who might chance to cross the desolate landscape.
Obi-Wan tried not to think frequently of the year he had spent on the run with Satine Kryze. He tried to preserve those memories like fragile relics, seldom brought forth from their cask lest they should deteriorate before the harsh light of day. They were closer to the surface tonight, though. It must be this isolation in the Maraviine wilderness, with only Asajj and the low fire for company, that called them out to hover about like marsh wisps.
"So, kyber." Asajj stretched, dug a ration bar out of her pocket, and settled down beside the fire.
The marsh wisps retreated, memories of Satine's sharp wit and keen eyes tucking back into their shimmersilk shroud.
"The Empire must be mining Ilum, if they possesss such a massive amount of crystal," said Obi-Wan.
There was a quiet devastation behind the realisation. Even if the Rebellion prevailed, and he and Ahsoka were able to rebuild the Jedi, things would never be as they had been. The scars of the Empire would be felt on Ilum, in the stories the new Order would tell, and in the histories that would become legends because their sources had been in the sacking of the Temple.
"What do you think they're doing with it?" Asajj asked.
"I wish I knew. Some kind of bomb, possibly, small but powerful—more efficient than star destroyers for orbital bombardment." He considered a moment, then shook his head. "Or perhaps not. The Empire seems often to prefer ostentatious power over efficiency."
"And what about the mysterious entity? Could it be involved?"
"I don't know. It was so faint—I could not tell whether it was a sentient presence, or merely a shift in the Force, an effect or a warning—I can't even say why it felt familiar. I suppose that must be why it nagged at me so—that feeling that you ought to be able to place a thing, you know?"
Asajj made a noncommittal sound and took a bite from her ration bar.
"I wish I'd paid better attention to the Separatist weapons development projects," she said, reverting to the previous topic. "They certainly liked their superweapons, and Dooku had direct dealings with the Geonosians. Sidious would have access to any designs they produced. Whatever this kyber thing is, it could have come from the CIS. But superweapons weren't exactly my thing. And who'd ever have guessed that could be useful knowledge someday?"
"Who, indeed. Asajj Ventress, Sith Separatist turned Rebel Ally to Restore the Republic."
She rolled her eyes. "Turned Rebel Ally to Assassinate Sidious, more like. I don't give a kark whether you're restoring the Republic or the Rakata Empire, as long as he's gone and I get to help him go."
"The Rakata Empire?" Obi-Wan arched a skeptical brow.
"Fine—that might be a slight exaggeration."
"And is assassinating Sidious really the only reason you're with us?"
Asajj's pale eyes narrowed till they resembled shards of ice. "Isn't revenge a good enough reason for you, Jedi master?"
"I'll admit I don't like it, but that's not what I mean. You mentored Ahsoka. For that matter—you ended up sharing a suite with her and Rex. And you went along to fetch her back from Daiyu."
"It pays to keep allies."
"And friends?"
She poked the fire, sending up a spray of sparks.
"Allies are enough for me. And before you ask, no, I'm not feeling a return to my Jedi past, either."
"I didn't think you were."
"Good." Then, for some reason Asajj didn't much care to examine, she found herself adding, "I've thought about it—what would have happened if my master hadn't been killed."
Obi-Wan looked up in surprise from the ration bar he had begun to open. "You have?"
"Don't you think about how things would have gone, if something had been different?" She didn't wait for a reply before forging onward. "I'm glad I never became a proper Jedi. I'm not glad I turned to the dark side, or proud of what I did during the war. I suppose the lot of you have rubbed off that much on me. But I wonder if it wasn't for the best. If my master—if Ky hadn't died, maybe the need for generals would have finally made someone go looking for him. We'd have been recalled to the Temple, and then he would have died on some battlefield anyway. Maybe I'd have been one of the unlucky survivors who fell. I could be an Inquisitor right now. If the dark side was always in my cards, I'm glad I got it out of the way when I did. I'd rather be whatever I am now, than be an Inquisitor for the rest of my days."
"And what are you now?" asked Obi-Wan.
"Hell if I know."
Sometimes it felt like she was defined more by what she was not than by what she was.
Not a Jedi. Not a Sith.
Not a good person. Not a terrible one, either—anymore.
Not a Separatist. Not a Rebel burning for justice.
Mostly, she thought, she was rather like a weed. Tough and determined to live because she knew no other choice. Ripped out again and again, yet she always came back, not out of any keen desire to thrive, but merely because surviving was what she did. But she was her own weed, and no one else's.
Unconsciously, she put her hand over one of the lightsabers tucked beneath her jacket. If she listened, she would hear them in the Force, a song of light and darkness as rich as the yellow-golden glow of their blades. Not Jedi. Not Sith. She was her own.
"I didn't know Knight Narec," Obi-Wan said, "but I think anyone who had been your master must be proud of you, if they could see you now."
Luminous was not a word which typically described Asajj Ventress. Hard, cool, squinched, abrasive, caustic—yes. But for a moment, she felt as if she might be glowing like a night-blooming flower under a full moon. And then the light was shuttered, the delicate thing hidden away behind high walls of cynicism.
"I don't see that there's anything much to be proud of."
"You found your way—"
"If you say I found my way back to the light, I'll strangle you."
"Please, Ventress, I haven't had that much optimism since the creche. I was going to say that you found your way back to your humanity. And that is no small thing."
Asajj was silent, uncertain how to respond. At last, she settled for the cryptic declaration, "He's an idiot," excused herself without elaboration, and went to walk around the rocky scrubland outside the copse, alone with her thoughts.
Skywalker really was an idiot. Kenobi had looked at Asajj, former Sith assassin, and told her that Ky, or any other master, would be proud of her for being cast aside and deciding, initially through the sheer lack of other options, to take her fate into her own hands. And he really believed what he said, because that was how he would feel if Skywalker did as she had done. She couldn't imagine a love like that—one willing to put aside all the hurt and the wrongs if given half a chance, able to witness all that had been and look beyond it for the sake of what might yet be. Anyone would be an idiot to throw away that kind of love.
When she returned to the copse, Obi-Wan emerged from a brown study to say, "Tell me about the dark side, Ventress."
"What?"
"The way you use the Force is completely outside of what I was taught as a Jedi. I want to understand—that is, at least to try."
Asajj felt a funny little flush of gratification. It was pleasing to have someone seek her knowledge, not merely for what she happened to know about the Sith or about old Separatist tactics, but for her own thoughts and observations and conclusions.
Naturally, she thus assumed a rather standoffish attitude.
"Why the Jedi would think they know everything there is to know about the Force is beyond me. The Jedi think they know. The Sith think they know. But they're both extremes, and there's a world's worth of middle ground that neither have even considered."
"But you consider it?" Obi-Wan prodded.
"Somewhat," she said. "I'm no philosopher, but I know the dark side isn't the answer to everything, like the Sith think, and it isn't the root of evil, like the Jedi do."
"But the dark side is a corruption of the Force, and it corrupts in its turn."
Asajj shook her head. "The Force exists outside of morality. It just is. It isn't good, it isn't evil. Just think, what if there weren't sentient beings around to use it? Would it be able to cause intentional harm?"
"I suppose not?"
"But it would still exist, wouldn't it?" Asajj prompted.
"Of course."
"Evil requires intent. The dark side is like fire or spice—a dangerous tool that can be incredibly destructive if used carelessly or abused. It lends itself well to evil, and easily. But it isn't evil in and of itself."
She stared into the campfire as if mesmerized, and her voice took on a distant quality.
"The dark side has an emptiness. At least, that's how it feels to me. It's a tool, it feels powerful, it lets you use it and feel like you're powerful, like the hatred and the anger that overwhelm you are right. It lets you use them instead of feeling powerless. But that's all it will ever do. It won't fix whatever made you feel that way to begin with. The old hurt is still there, or the old fear. It never goes away, like a wound being torn open again and again. And you keep calling on the darkness, chasing the power because if you could just get enough, just lose yourself completely, it would all stop. But you can never get enough, because the darkness is empty. It will never fill the emptiness in you. And no matter how hard you try to disappear into its emptiness, the one thing you can never escape is yourself. But you keep on trying."
"But you still use the dark side."
"Exactly. I use it. I don't throw myself headlong into it. I don't want to lose myself. I know my limits, and when I'm not enough in control to keep from slipping. You know the person I've been. I'm not at home in the light. I'm no Jedi, as Tano used to say." She snorted, but a subtle softness in her expression gave the lie to disdain. "Silly kid. I think she was trying to convince herself more than anything. She never stopped being a Jedi. I'm glad she finally admitted it."
"So am I," Obi-Wan agreed, "but don't change the subject. How did you break the influence of the dark side?"
"How? I don't really know. It just… happened. All the hatred and the power didn't stop Dooku from betraying me, or stop Grievous from killing my clan. Didn't bring anyone back who was gone. Didn't make me… anyway. I got tired of being the dark side's slave—tired of being controlled by someone else. I wanted to just be. Just me. I didn't start on purpose. It just happened." Softening a little, she added, "That's not what you wanted to hear, is it?"
"I suppose it's more or less what I expected," replied Obi-Wan.
Of course, it wasn't what he had wanted. It wasn't a solution. It wasn't a universal answer that could be learned from Asajj and applied to Anakin. The paths back from the dark side must be as varied as the paths into it. Each person's path was different, and each person had to find their path for themself. All Obi-Wan could do was wait, and watch, and hope that one day his padawan might make it across and break free of the dark side's thorny thicket, and that he might be there to catch him if he did.
"Why did you ask me about the dark side, Jedi?" Asajj asked. "Because I don't believe for a moment that you've suddenly developed an openminded curiosity about different understandings of the Force."
Obi-Wan met her gaze over the fire with a rueful expression.
"That obvious, is it?"
"Oh, I'm sure you could fool a stranger. But me? Not a chance. So?"
When he failed to reply, she crossed her arms and reclined against the rock at her back.
"They say talking about things is good for you, you know."
"Have you ever considered following your own advice?"
"I'm the exception." Had Asajj been a tooka, her hackles would have gone up. As it was, she merely assumed what Obi-Wan considered to be an unduly hostile countenance.
He huffed and tried to tuck his hands into the opposite sleeves. The Imperial uniform jacket refusing to accommodate his Jedi habit, however, he ended up crossing his arms to mirror Asajj with a second dissatisfied huff.
"You have ever been irritatingly persistent."
"And you've ever been irritatingly evasive, darling. Come on—out with it. Why the sudden interest in philosophies of the Force? We both know it's something to do with Skywalker, and look how much good keeping that stuffed away inside has done you."
"Relentless harpy." He dragged both hands down his face and stared blearily at his smug companion. "You're going to hound me mercilessly, aren't you."
"Yes."
With a sigh—it verged on another huff, really—he gave in. Asajj, to her credit, listened intently.
"I suppose it's to create the illusion of doing something useful," Obi-Wan began. "If I accept Ahsoka's view that my padawan is not irredeemable, which certain events have inclined me to do—then—I must also accept my own inability to do anything to further that outcome." Force, how cold and sterile those words sounded. "My inability to help my own padawan. And so, I suppose, if I seek to understand, it feels as though I am, in some small measure, at least attempting to rectify errors of the past. Even if it is too late. And—"
"And?"
"And… and in the hope…"
Obi-Wan Kenobi was not a superstitious man. He did not believe in luck, either good or bad. And yet, it seemed some part of him had failed to get the message, for it was now vociferously protesting that to give voice to frail hopes was to guarantee they would be dashed.
"In the hope?" prompted Asajj, who evidently entertained no such traitorous superstitious streak.
"In the hope—that—that I might, one day, have reason to put such understanding to use."
For dancing around the point, Asajj thought, she had never heard Kenobi's like. He possessed a marvelous knack for positively mummifying his feelings in layer upon layer of verbiage and technicality. But she didn't try to drag more out of him, just as he hadn't kept trying to drag a confession of softer feelings toward their little coterie out of her. They snarked and pushed each other, but they both knew where to draw the line.
"I'll take first watch," she said. "Go to sleep before I have to knock you out so I can have some peace and quiet."
"You couldn't if you tried, Ventress," Obi-Wan replied with a half-smile, flattening his Imperial cap to serve as a diminutive pillow.
"Don't test me."
Next morning, Obi-Wan and Asajj breakfasted on ration bars, shook the wrinkles from their uniforms, and set off again for the nearest city. They maintained a companionable silence until, climbing a hill, they heard a grinding, grating rumble, as of heavy machinery coming out of retirement.
"What is that?" Obi-Wan asked.
"I don't know," said Asajj. "Maybe there's a mine or a factory over there. They might have a ship we could borrow."
"Perhaps…." He rubbed at his beard. "Although I can't sense any sentient lifeforms, can you?"
"No…."
They made their way cautiously up the hill. As they neared the top, the sound of metal-on-metal reached their ears. Clanking. Eight years hadn't banished that sound from Obi-Wan's memory. Instinctively, he dropped to take cover behind a rock outcropping.
Frowning, Asajj cocked her head. "Funny. That almost sounds like—"
"Droids."
"That rumbling we heard, then—a bunker opening?"
"The Separatists must have placed sensors or tripwires around the area. I suppose no one ever deactivated them after the war."
"Well," said Asajj, "since they haven't seen us yet, I suggest we—what are you doing?!" she hissed, as Obi-Wan stood and leapt swiftly to the top of the outcropping, where he stood with lightsaber in hand, in full view of however many battle droids were clanking their way up the other side of the hill.
"We can't let them reach any cities," Obi-Wan said. "I don't remember any Separatist attacks on this planet. Those droids must have been planted here for an invasion that never happened."
It was reasonable to assume that whatever signal had woken them up would thus set them to marching on Maraviine's major governmental and economic sectors.
"Have you forgotten there are probably Imps hunting us down as we speak?" Asajj demanded. "This isn't the time to save a city! Now, get down, before—"
Too late.
"Hey, do you see that?" inquired the nasally voice of a droid from the other side of the hill.
"See what?" another droid returned.
"The lightsaber, you outdated pile of scrap!"
"A lightsaber? Jedi!"
"Blast 'em!"
Obi-Wan flew into motion as blaster bolts began to whizz toward him. Asajj, fairly crackling with irritation, leapt up beside him a moment later, her own yellow blades already flashing through the air.
It was an awful sign of the times when jumping into battle against a company of B1s felt like coming home. Fighting droids felt strangely innocent—Obi-Wan was fighting for his life, to be sure, but he wasn't taking anyone else's. He didn't have to wonder if there was a vod under the armor he was deflecting shots at. He didn't have to feel the fading of his enemies' lives in the Force. He didn't have to think about the family that would never see their sibling or their child or their parent again.
He did, however, have to keep from looking around to see how Cody and his men were faring, and An—no, best leave it at that. It was difficult, though, when Asajj was a dark shape at the edge of his vision.
The droids were soon no more than a scattering of parts across the hillside. Asajj tucked her sabers away and surveyed the wreckage.
"Well, that was easy enough. Odd that it was just B1s, though; I'd have expected to see some B2s, at the very least. And greater numbers, frankly."
"Perhaps only the B1s were able to turn on after all this time."
"Maybe," Asajj said. But Obi-Wan thought she still looked bothered.
As it turned out, Asajj had had good reason to be troubled. Approaching the city where the two of them hoped to find a ship, they saw flashes of light and heard the sound of blasterfire, with here and there a shout rising above it.
"More droids," Obi-Wan surmised. "It looks as if you were right. There must be other hidden bunkers…."
"Well, at least all the commotion should make stealing a ship easier," said Asajj. "Everyone should be busy enough with the droids that they won't even look twice at a couple of Imperial officers, let alone realise they're fugitives."
Which was indeed the case. Entering the city, they were thrown into a scene of chaos. Everywhere, there were droids. They marched through the streets, exchanging fire with Imperial Army troops and the occasional stormtrooper squad—because, of course, it turned out that there was an Imperial presence on Maraviine. Fortunately, they were quite occupied with the droids, and spared not even a passing glance for the two officers hurrying through the rubble-filled streets.
As they progressed toward the city's spaceport, Asajj noticed Obi-Wan falling more and more behind. He had started out in the lead, but now he trailed her by several paces, and she could feel his attention straying toward the fighting taking place around them—and the civilians hiding, fleeing, dying as they were caught by blaster shots, or by cannon blasts that destroyed the places where they sheltered. She could feel them, too, could feel their deaths in the Force.
She gritted her teeth and forged onward. This was no time for her companion to get caught up in his Jedi sensibilities, nor for her to start to develop—or remember she'd once had—those sensibilities herself. They needed to get to the spaceport, get a ship, and—
Obi-Wan nearly ran into her as she rounded a corner and stopped dead. The spaceport that was supposed to be a block ahead of them was nothing but a cratered, smoking expanse, littered with the twisted remains of ships.
"Well, this certainly complicates matters," Obi-Wan remarked. "I suppose our only option now is the army garrison."
At least the soldiers thereat probably would not bother to check credentials in the middle of a droid attack.
They found the garrison, which seemed to be the droid army's primary target. Droidekas and B2s had massed there, along with a number of B1s in MTTs and AATs. Several buildings already boasted ragged, gaping holes from cannon shots, and one was actively in flames. The Imperial forces, aided by a small collection of walkers and artillery, were putting up an effective resistance against the tanks, but their infantry struggled against the droidekas and armored B2s. Obi-Wan watched, calculating, as he and Asajj entered the grounds of the base and began to make their way toward what looked to be a hangar, dodging blaster fire all the while. The Imperial detachment stationed here seemed to be small—big enough to establish a presence onworld, but not so large as to suggest that they had expected to encounter much resistance, let alone an all-out attack like this. They wouldn't be enough to protect the civilian population.
Grimly, Obi-Wan pulled his lightsaber from his borrowed coat—and promptly heard a stifled squawk from Asajj.
"In case you haven't noticed, this is an enemy base, right here! And they're going to notice if we started waving lightsabers around."
"They're being overwhelmed," Obi-Wan said.
"So? They're the enemy! Let them be overwhelmed! They can get plenty of backup, anyway."
"We're here now, Ventress; we should—"
"Go jump into a three-way brawl with some droids and some Imps?"
"That isn't exactly how I would put it. This city is full of civilians with limited means for escape. Calling in reinforcements will take time, and how many civilian casualties could happen while they wait?"
"Jedi," Asajj scoffed.
"If that's your word for conscience."
"It's my word for kriffing nuisance who thinks it's his job to save the world and get himself killed in the process."
"Oh, you needn't worry too much, Ventress. So far, I've entirely failed to do either."
"Fine. But when you get injured and Kix confines you to the infirmary for a week, don't say I didn't warn you."
As soon as Obi-Wan and Asajj's lightsabers flared to life, the droids sounded the alarm.
"Jedi!"
"Blast 'em!"
"Die, Republic dogs!"
Moments later, the Imperial forces also realised what was going on and began to train their blasters on the new apparent threat.
"Kriffing ungrateful," Asajj spat, irritably redirecting one shot to whizz right past the ear of the soldier who had fired it.
Obi-Wan agreed wholeheartedly with the sentiment, but concentrated his efforts on the droids. The sooner those were dealt with, the sooner they could find a ship and escape. The droidekas that were giving the Imperial troops so much trouble fell easily before two skilled Force users who could extinguish their weapons and reignite them inside the droids' energy shields.
The B2s, however, refused to fall to either blaster shot or to lightsaber blade.
"Didn't you go through these things like swatting flies?" Asajj hollered over the cacophony of battle.
"Yes," Obi-Wan shouted back, "except the ones the CIS produced with cortosis plating."
"Well, kriff!
"Now you know how we felt."
"Yes, all right, but maybe you can enjoy the irony later? After we've—ah—what are we going to do about them?"
"Don't you have some code to shut them down?"
"You seriously expect me to remember droid codes from ten karking years ago?"
"Well, I'd rather hoped you might."
She snorted. "You're the one who fought them, don't you have some trick to take them out?"
Obi-Wan didn't reply. His thoughts seemed parsecs away as he mechanically blocked and redirected blaster bolts. Eventually, he said, "We had one, yes. It requires getting close to the droids, though, within point-blank range, while focusing on a very specific target."
"Fun. And just how did you do that without getting shot by all the other droids?"
"It works better with two. Especially…. You need to make a precise hit. Slash from overhead, cleave through the gap in the middle of in the breastplate." Obi-Wan paused again, and she sensed a flicker of pain. She thought he must have caught a stray blaster bolt, until he added, "Djem So works well."
Skywalker's preferred form. Asajj might not remember droid codes, but she certainly hadn't forgotten dueling against the young Jedi. Of course. Skywalker and Kenobi, Djem So and Soresu, sword and shield. The Team, two warriors as one, each always knowing the other's plan and what they needed before they needed it, the stuff of legends, blah-blah-blah.
"Makashi will also do, I imagine," she said. Precision was, after all, her form's greatest strength, and she wasn't going to risk becoming a distraction to Obi-Wan by adopting his old padawan's form in the midst of a battle like this. "If you're bound and determined to do fight those droids, instead of getting out of here like a sensible person, then we're doing it together, because I am not facing Tano to tell her I let you get yourself killed."
"You certainly know how to endear yourself to a person."
Asajj didn't grace that with a reply, but followed Obi-Wan into the thick of the droid onslaught.
They were no Team, it was true; neither was consistently able to predict the other's next move, which resulted in each of them almost getting clipped by the other's blade occasionally. But they fell into a smoother rhythm as time went on, and progressed with only a few relatively minor injuries—Obi-Wan winged by a shot, and Asajj receiving a punch to the ribs from an enterprising B1. They had the added challenge, as well, of fending off sporadic Imperial fire, for while some of the garrison force had realised the wisdom of standing back to let the Jedi take care of the droid problem for them, others were still quite ready to take on both opponents at once. Nevertheless, the cortosis droids began to fall as Obi-Wan and Asajj worked their way through the horde, picking them off one by one.
Just a handful remained, when Obi-Wan's attention was suddenly pulled away from the battle by a spurt of terror in the Force. The fire he had earlier seen enveloping one of the base's buildings had spread and found new prey: the barracks was now ablaze, and Obi-Wan could trace the fear he sensed to a single, fearful presence within.
Anyone in the Rebellion—barring perhaps Padmé, Ahsoka, and some of the clones—would have told him to leave it. They would have told him not to run into a burning building to rescue an enemy, of all people. Save the civilians and get away—that was the extent of the mission. But hell was all around him. Within his mind's eye, flames crept up dark robes, and his padawan's agonized cries rang loud in his memory.
"Fall back!" he shouted to Asajj, who stared at him in disbelief as she continued to deflect the droids' shots.
"What, now?"
"Now!"
"Why? What are you—oh, for kriff's sake!" as he wheeled away and started for the burning barracks.
Inside, smoke was thick. It stung his eyes and caught in his throat as he followed the trapped soldier's dim beacon in the Force. The ceiling gave way in the middle of a corridor and sent down a shower of sparks and smoldering debris. More than once, flames blocked his way, and he had to backtrack and use his lightsaber to cut through the walls. Sweat ran down his face and down his back in the sweltering heat, and he thought now and again that he heard the rushing rumble of Mustafar's magma heart behind the incessant screeching fire alarms that had not yet met their demise.
He found his target in a smoke-filled 'fresher on the second floor, a dark shape huddled in one of the shower stalls, where they had evidently tried to shelter in the water. A main must have been broken in the fighting outside, however, for the only water in the 'fresher now was what had pooled on the floor.
"Come!" Obi-Wan shouted over the blare of the alarms and sounds of the fire and lingering skirmishes outside. "We need to get you out of here!"
The dark shape shifted, tried to rise, and collapsed again on the shower floor.
A single, metal hand, clawing for purchase on the steep embankment—
I hate you!
It was oddly jarring when instead of the furious, anguished cry, Obi-Wan heard a youthful voice, tight with pain but devoid of hatred, reply, "Can't, sir."
The soldier couldn't have been much more than a teenling.
"Tripped—knee's busted—" he broke off in a violent fit of coughing, and just managed to add, "Leg got burned—pretty bad, too, sir."
"Very well." Obi-Wan took off his coat and wetted it in the shallow water on the 'fresher floor, then draped it over the boy. "I'll help you up. Hold on to me."
As gently as he could, he hauled the boy to his feet and slung his arm over his shoulder. They only made it a few steps before the boy swayed, his fingers digging deep into Obi-Wan's arm as he bit his lip to keep from groaning.
"Sorry—sir—I don't think—can't—"
"Hush."
Carefully, so as not to jostle the injured leg more than necessary, Obi-Wan scooped the boy up—he was smallish, fortunately—and left the 'fresher. He hurried back through the flaming barracks, sinking into the Force to find his way out, and tried not to let himself succumb to distracting thoughts. Tried not to feel a stab of guilt and remorse every time he glanced down to check on his passenger and saw a stranger's face instead of his padawan's. Tried not to wish that he could go back, do it all over again, smother the flames and never leave his padawan again—wished he could go back farther, and prevent the whole damned thing.
But the only way was forward, and so forward he went, under showers of sparks that stung his face and spattered his clothes and singed his beard—narrowly avoiding a patch of floor that caved in, at one point—forward, and forward, until he broke free from the inferno, out into the open space outside the barracks that was undergoing a mopping-up of the last scattered droids.
He carried the boy toward a group of evacuated soldiers who had congregated a safe distance from the fire, calling, "Medic!"
The soldiers let him approach, not recognising the Imperial officer carrying one of their own as the same whom some of them had seen wielding a lightsaber just ten minutes ago. A soldier with a red marking on his shoulder pushed through the crowd.
Obi-Wan laid the boy gently on the ground. He knew he should leave, before the soldiers realised he was the Jedi they had been shooting at, but he lingered as the medic looked his patient over. The boy's face tightened as the medic eased away the burnt remains of his trouser leg to inspect the damage. Without thinking, Obi-Wan reached out and passed his hand over his hair, as he sometimes had—with Anakin—long ago. Perhaps it was a Jedi's compassion; perhaps it was a foolish old man's pining after an illusion. He projected a feeling of peace through the Force; the boy's face relaxed, and his eyes drifted shut.
The medic looked up sharply.
"You're the Jedi," he murmured.
Obi-Wan tensed, ready to repel him with the Force or reach for the lightsaber under his jacket, but the medic just continued applying bacta to his injured comrade's leg. A moment later, he addressed Obi-Wan in the same quiet voice.
"No one else's realised yet. I've got to report you, but I'm a little busy here, and no one'll blame me for not recognising you at once. No one'll notice if you and your friend just slip away and get on that lambda over by the hangar."
"Why—"
"You fought off the droids, and you went into a burning building to save my squadmate's life. I guess maybe Jedi aren't all bad." He fished in his medkit and pulled out a handful of bacta patches. "Looks like you'll be needing those, Captain," he said, louder. "Go look after yourself; I've got things handled here."
Thanking the medic, Obi-Wan pocketed the patches and rose to return to Asajj and the droids, only to find the ground around the base littered with fallen droids, some of their breastplates still glowing from lightsaber strikes. Asajj was nowhere to be seen, but he tracked her Force signature to a half-destroyed utility shed. She was leaning against the wall on the far side of the shed, one hand pressed to her hip.
"Took your time, didn't you, darling?" she asked as he rounded the corner.
Ignoring the jab, he gestured toward the ship the medic had pointed out. "We should be able to take that shuttle in the landing area."
She pushed away from the wall with a wince and only made it a couple steps before she was limping.
"You shouldn't have dealt with them all on your own," Obi-Wan chided. He held out his arm for her to take. "What happened?"
"Just a few shots to the leg," she said. With an air of haughty resignation, she slung her arm over his shoulders and allowed him to carry some of her weight. "But eventually I managed to remember a shutdown code that worked, and that was the end of that. And don't lecture me, Kenobi. We both know you would have done the same. Besides, I wouldn't have had to deal with them on my own if someone hadn't gone running off to fish a single enemy soldier out of a burning building!"
"I did tell you to fall back, and am not responsible for your actions after that."
Oh, stars—that sounded like something he would have said to his padawan, once upon a time.
"Anyway," Asasjj continued, electing to ignore the scolding, "I know you're a Jedi and all, but really, that's taking things a bit too far."
Obi-Wan was silent for a moment, as they made their way toward the shuttle in the landing area, overlooked by the officers shouting orders and the troopers hurrying here and there, still trying to put out the blaze that was devouring more and more of their base.
"I had to, Asajj," he said, at length. "The fire, the boy trapped inside—I couldn't just leave him."
She grunted. "It won't change what's done, Obi-Wan. It won't give you a second chance."
"I know. But… I watched a boy burning once." His voice was ragged as the edge of an old blanket—only partially from the smoke of the barracks. "I cannot stand by again, and I will not. Dread remorse, Ventress, and never let a moment, no matter how terrible, blind you to all that may come after."
"I'll keep that in mind," she said, removing herself from his arm as they entered the lambda. "And next time I'm in the throes of shock and mental agony, I'll just think to myself, Now, Asajj, let's examine all the angles of the situation, and think of all the ways every action could affect the future, and then we'll wisely choose the path that will incur the least remorse in ten years' time."
She made her way forward and lowered herself stiffly into the copilot's seat. Obi-Wan handed her the bacta patches the medic had given him.
"I know what you are trying to say," he said, taking the pilot's seat, "but it won't fadge."
As the shuttle began to rise, he added, "There is nothing I can tell myself that will excuse what I did. It was completely inexcusable, for a Jedi, for a master, and for a…"
"For a parent?" Asajj asked, dryly yet without sarcasm.
Obi-Wan opened his mouth instinctively to deny it, but subsided with a hoarse, "Perhaps. And that makes it all the worse."
For what kind of parent maimed and left their child for the fire and the Sith?
"You wouldn't expect durasteel to withstand the center of a star." Ventress leaned over to grip his shoulder with steely fingers, in what was for her an unusual display of warmth. "Take it from the Sith witch—anything will break, with sufficient pressure. Now—get us out of here before those Imps figure out that we've got their ship."
Stars glittered in the void of space beyond the bridge viewport. Space was cold; it had always been. The Jedi had never liked the cold. That was yet one more tie which Vader, in the Jedi's desert-born body, had never been able to destroy.
Space was cold, but today the edge of the chill was dulled, both by the warmth of the knowledge that somewhere, across the stars, Padmé was alive and well (and with the insurgents—but Vader tried not to dwell overmuch on that irritating fact), and by the spark that had been burning since Errece and his one small act of rebellion. Following Piett's triumph, Sidious had seethed with displeasure at the derailing of the scheme to humiliate his apprentice. Vader prized that victory as a child might an illicit pocket-blade. It was a forbidden thing; it put power into his hand, and choice. A small power, an insignificant choice—as yet—but it was his, and his Master did not know. And this was the nearest to alive he had felt since Sidious had rebuilt him.
"My lord." Piett's voice interrupted his reverie.
"Yes, Admiral?"
"Two flagged reports just in," Piett said. "Both Kenobi."
Vader accepted the datapad he offered.
Bounty hunter using the name Vin Xelyss intercepted with Imperial bounty in Geonosis system, claiming fuel shortage. Bounty was identified as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi and former general in the Grand Army of the Republic. Xelyss and Kenobi released with guard to rendezvous with Death Squadron. Guard failed to deliver periodic reports, presumed captured or dead.
A plight which Vader found entirely unsurprising, and for which he had no sympathy. If the officers overseeing perimeter security at Geonosis were so glory-blinded that their first thought upon intercepting Kenobi and an unknown bounty hunter was to form an inept entourage so they could say they had aided in his capture and thereby earn recognition from the Emperor's Fist—well, such toadying fools deserved their fate.
Ship tracked to Maraviine. Local garrison tasked with apprehending fugitives. Xelyss later identified as Asajj Ventress, former assassin and CIS commander. Kenobi's known insurgent activity suggests he and Ventress entered the Geonosis system for the purpose of espionage. Their information may have been acquired from an insurgent mole in the Geonosis facility or the ISB.
Thus posited the Ordinance's head of security. Vader, however, was uncomfortably aware of another possibility. Padmé had had access to his TIE fighter. She had known Skywalker never wiped a drive if he could help it. She would not have forgotten. [Would she?] Vader's own habits were unfortunately similar, and she might have guessed as much. But—let the ISB believe they had a mole. It would keep attention off of Vader and off of the rebel who had stolen his fighter.
He opened the second report, written by the commander of an Imperial outpost on Maraviine.
2000 hours standard, city came under attack from unknown number of Clone Wars-era battle droids. Local garrison successfully quelled the attack. 1100 hours standard next day, second wave of droids attacked. Some droids noted to be resistant to blasterfire; later analysis indicated cortosis alloy armor. Troopers reported two individuals in Imperial uniform employing lightsabers against the droids less than an hour after attack commenced. Presumed to be Asajj Ventress and Obi-Wan Kenobi, due to known presence on Maraviine. The Jedi appeared to have a method for disabling cortosis-armored droids. Imperial response was uncoordinated as several officers ordered troops to target Jedi while others stood down to allow Jedi to quell droid attack. Droids targeted fuel tanks improperly stored near barracks and other structures and fire broke out. Kenobi disappeared; Ventress continued to disable droids. One medic reports treating injuries on a soldier carried out of the burning barracks by an Imperial officer, male; retrospectively identified as Kenobi. Reason for Kenobi's apparent rescue unkn…
Vader's hand seized. The datapad flickered wildly and went dark, its screen shattering with an audible crunch.
"Inform the ISB," he growled to Piett, "that the second report is to be suppressed."
"Yes, sir," and Piett hastily removed himself from Vader's immediate vicinity.
Rage was insufficient, agony too trivial a term, to describe the firestorm which the report ignited. Far from the cold, directed fury that made Vader a terror on the battlefield, this was hot, all-encompassing, and the only lucid thought lay at its very heart. A single question which had no right to exist, nor had it reason, yet which obstinately persisted.
Was I worth less to you than a stranger, Master?
There was a strange tightness in his throat; his eyes burned; his hands clenched so tightly that warning messages came up on his helmet's lens display.
It was all too much for mere mortal flesh to contain, or mortal will—if Vader's will had been at all disposed in that direction, which it was not. The turmoil cracked Devastator's viewports and sent fissures sprinting across her decking. Startled shouts rose up from the Pit. Piett shoved two junior officers back so he stood between them and Vader, a fearful but resolute shield for his men.
Through his fear, however, were scattered threads of concern—for his ship, yes, but also for his commander. Something in Vader stretched toward that concern, ravening, as when Starkiller had clung to his hand. Then rage rose up to chase the thing back, and Vader ploughed toward the bridge doors. He needed to move; he wanted to destroy something—Kenobi—[never Kenobi]—always Kenobi—
The last thing he heard before the doors shut behind him was Piett, already setting about restoring order to his bridge.
"Ensign Ammot, take that ankle to the medbay. Lieutenant Hyvane, call for a repair crew. Viewport and decking compromised. Possible damage to support structures, and some consoles may need replacing. No, no need to notify the morgue."
Destroying a cohort of training droids provided minimal satisfaction. It was too familiar an occupation, which evoked more recollections than it dispelled and left Vader battling old ghosts along with the droids. [The Master, always at his back or by his side, until he wasn't. The Apprentice, sabers as bright as her eyes and as quick as her tongue. The Captain, ready at a moment's notice and more dependable than the dawn.] By the time the droids were smoking piles of scrap on the floor, he had gained nothing save a vague emptiness that he strenuously denied, and an aching, stinging pain where the remains of his organic limbs connected to durasteel. Still far too agitated to attempt even dark side meditation, he resorted to pacing his quarters like a caged krayt dragon in a Mos Espa market—seething useless rage, possessed of a mad desire to rend something—anything—limb from limb, but consigned instead to tread endlessly a path that led nowhere.
Some time later, once he had paced away sufficient discomposure to prevent further damage to Devastator, Vader headed back toward the bridge. Seized by a whim, he detoured on the way to watch CC-1119 run his troops through drills in an empty hangar. If the commander noticed the shadow watching him from the mezzanine, he gave no sign, nor did his men. They were sharp and professional, of course. The 501st were the best there were. They always had been, though they were more serious now than in the Jedi's memory. Age and experience had sobered them.
Or had they? Vader could not remember the minutiae of daily life in the early days. Looking back, the first year or two—three—four—were all a morass of grief and fury. He must have watched the 501st develop from the hellions they had been under the Jedi into the austere Fist he now commanded. Yet he could not say for certain, and that bothered him to an unpleasant degree.
What if they had been this serious all the time? What if the Apprentice was right? What if these men had less control over their lives than slaves on Tatooine?
The questions would not stop. They whirled round and round like shadowmoths, eluding every attempt to dispel them.
"Appo."
He did not realise he was about to say the name until it was said—and then he cursed the ease with which it had come. Try as he might to forget, those names were graven deep as trenches, all of them.
Below, CC-1119 carried on with the drill.
"Commander."
CC-1119 paused abruptly and faced Vader with a sharp salute.
"My lord."
Coincidence, surely. Perhaps the clone commander had not heard, the first time.
And the troopers with the Jedi on Errece?
Two had shown history of cranial trauma, which might suggest chip damage. One, however, had not—and he told himself that was enough to prove the Apprentice wrong. The clones' chips were not responsible for their loyalty to the Empire. Still—any engineer knew no mass-manufacturing process turned out flawless products one hundred percent of the time…
Coincidence. He insisted it was coincidence. Because if it was not coincidence, then the clones of the 501st were slaves—worse than slaves, for they did not even control their own minds. And if it was not coincidence, then his loyal soldiers might turn against him as Padmé had, as Kenobi and the Apprentice had, if he freed them.
"Sir?"
Vader realised, with some irritation, that he had been standing on the mezzanine for an unknown duration, and CC-1119 was still awaiting orders below.
"As you were, Commander," he snapped, and spun in a whirl of armorweave to return to the bridge, his mind made up.
To prove that this was all coincidence and foolish conjecture, Vader would have the chips removed. He already knew what would happen, after all. He would no longer be plagued by inane and unfounded doubts, and the clones would go on as before, with the same unswerving loyalty they had always shown, because loyalty was everything to them.
The things you learn when doing research for a fic! Apparently, stormtroopers are not the rank and file of the Imperial Army, but rather the elite forces? I'd previously assumed the entire army was made up of stormtroopers, with the exception of the officers like Veers, et al.—like how the clones made up the brunt of the GAR, except for Jedi generals/padawan commanders and officers like Yularen.
I feel as though Obi-Wan may have been running slightly amuck in this chapter. Unfortunately for him, he has the triple whammy of being a Jedi in general, being Obi-Wan Kenobi in particular (aka The Jedi Who Jumped Out a High-Rise Window After an Assassin Droid), and having seen his padawan become rather crispy on Mustafar. Oof. Methinks Ventress is probably going to have so much sympathy for Cody after this chapter. Frankly, I'm not sure whether Obi-Wan or Ventress had it worse here, because he got put through the ringer a bit, but she had to deal with him dealing with his issues.
Also, I'm guessing that hiding in a shower if you can't get out of a burning building is not necessarily a good idea, and is in fact quite possibly a bad one, because… smoke… steam… yeah. But I'm also guessing the young Imperial soldier wasn't exactly thinking that far in the literal heat of the moment.
In other news, I've discovered that while writing emotional angst is a grand old time, writing physical pain really, really, really-really-really makes me uncomfortable. Which is interesting, albeit inconvenient. Hopefully it's the sort of thing that one gets over with practice.
"Dread remorse, Ventress…"—borrowed from Jane Eyre, where Rochester says, "Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life."