Star Wars: The Force Wills (SW SI)
- Thread starter Keiran Halcyon
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Chapter 117
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A/N: The next layer of Deception... Grateful I am, to Patrons and Super Patrons. Helping to make this story happen, they are.
Chapter 117
The sound of a bionic right fist slamming and denting mild durasteel echoed through the Jedi Temple communication center.
Anakin glared into the giant holotank that currently showed the entire Coruscant system and a visual representation of every ship that had left in the last twenty four hours. Naturally, it was a daunting number and was like looking into a sea of points with coordinates, ship transponder numbers and even their names. All of it was gravitating towards the various hyperpoints of the system. The expression needle in a haystack, didn't do it justice when you were looking at thousands of needles in a haystack the size of a solar system or if you didn't even know if that needle was off Coruscant yet.
We could only assume that Moralo Eval's timetable meant he needed to leave as soon as possible. Therefore they would try to steal a ship.
Eval was not stupid though and knew that it would be reported soon enough, at which point the description of the ship would be sent to every likely port and waypoint along the hyperspace route.
Wait…
"We can't rely or wait on stolen ship reports, master," I shook my head, staring into the datapad in my hands, swiping across the CSF reports in question. Stealing a hyperspace capable ship was generally not something that occurred much on the surface city and it required a specific skill set to undermine the aerospace traffic regulation systems and transponder every ship was built with. It was a skill set we had to assume Moralo had.
"What? Why?" Anakin folded his arms and glanced at me with a frown.
I gestured to the datapad with dozens of police reports from across the planet regarding stolen starships. The sheer number of people on Coruscant made it a statistical certainty that even though something happened rarely, it still meant you were dealing with a large number of cases.
"Moralo definitely had help from within the prison in his escape and I don't mean the prisoners."
"You're telling me even the clone guards helped him?" Anakin scowled at the thought.
"Not all of them, naturally. It would take just a few and remember that not all the prison staff are clones and any droids could further be subverted. No, the more I look at the big picture of Eval's original capture and the surveillance footage from the prison escape… this was all planned, master."
"He planned to be captured?"
"Yes, especially in light of reading his classified psychological evaluations and history. He delights in elaborate planning and has an ego the size of a star."
"And Hardeen? Did he plan that too? You think Eval hired him to kill Obi-Wan?"
"It's… a possibility. Master Kenobi was one of the primary Jedi investigating the kidnapping plot. It could be that Eval realized that Master Kenobi was too dangerous and risked compromising the grander scheme. The point I was getting to, is that if this had been planned so elaborately, then Eval already had hyperspace transport waiting for him after his escape. One that would not be reported stolen."
He nodded in agreement, tapping the controls - the holo cleared until it only showed the various hyperspace points in Coruscant, before it zoomed out to show the entire galaxy and the major hyper lanes. Serenno was highlighted in the north-east and Naboo in the south-east.
"Let's say that Dooku is giving them the best and fastest ship that also has a cloaking device, so there's no way to interdict or delay their movement across the galaxy," Anakin mused.
"We don't even know if they're going to Serenno first," I argued in turn, stepping up to the control panel. The hyperspace courses in question were drawn and calculated. "Their staging point might be closer to Naboo. Coruscant to Serenno, the least time course is 6 days, Serenno to Naboo is 14 days minimum."
"Festival of Light is in 26 days, theoretically giving them six days of preparation time on Serenno."
"Possibly, but 14 days is a long time to remain under cloak. The chances of something going wrong with it increases over time. The ship might also not have the endurance for such a long trip and needs a refuel along the way."
"Remember who we're dealing with, Ahsoka," Anakin gave me a severe look. "Dooku will want to personally supervise this mission's preparation due to its importance. He won't accept doing this remotely at the other end of the holo transmission."
I nodded, "If we're going to be deployed on Naboo for the festival-"
"We will," Anakin said with a grim certainty.
"The Omen can make the trip in 5 days, allow for a day of security prep there-"
"Two days of prep," he interjected.
"Fine," I huffed in annoyance. "We'll have plenty of time then, assuming nothing else happens in the war that might call us away."
"Snips, we'll face that problem if we have to, but whatever happens I'm not losing any chance to catch up to Hardeen."
I gave him a long look, "Have you thought about what you'll do when that day comes, master?"
Anakin merely shook his head, "Not specifically, but I'll admit to hoping that he puts up a strong fight in the end."
My chrono beeped for attention, "If you'll excuse me, master. I have an appointment with Master Agnook."
"What does the CFK want with you now?" he asked with annoyance.
"He wants an interview regarding our little feat of sealing the cortosis mine on Mokivj."
Anakin raised a single eyebrow incredulously, "Seriously?"
"I don't understand it either, master. We did nothing 'new'," I sighed wearily. "It seems they either have little to do or they've been keeping a close eye on our reports, as we have such a wonderful run of luck." My tone and sarcastic face was a bit exaggerated.
"All right, off you go," he shooed me away and with a few commands on the controls, replaced the galactic map with a readout of Hardeen's intelligence file.
I gave him an idle wave and left through the main doors.
Down the first corridor and through a few more security checkpoints that required not just biometrics, but also the use of the Force on a precision mechanism within each door, allowed me to pass into the general areas of the Temple.
In the first grand hallway with its towering arches, there was near absolute silence, except for the footsteps of passing Jedi. I sensed my current shadow and Palpatine's latest spy had appeared about fifteen meters behind me.
She had emerged from a side door and walked with purpose yet still had the typical serenity of a Jedi.
I felt no probes through the Force. Her eyes weren't intent on me but she had been appearing in my peripheral vision and Farsight just too often in the last few days throughout my day-to-day activities in the Temple. If I hadn't been as paranoid or as armed as I was in knowledge and Force abilities, I would've written it off as coincidence.
Yet, there she was again and again. Keeping herself so unsuspicious, that it made her stand out all the more.
It took me some careful doing with R3's help; who had finally returned to Coruscant with the Resolute, after being attached to Wraith Squadron for nearly a year, to help me surreptitiously find out her name and file.
It was only as I saw her face in full profile that it finally clicked a vague memory, something so fleeting from my past life. No amount of memory tricks or self-control ability would help in recalling it completely. However, her face was enough for me to do a surreptitious conventional search.
Her name was Jedi Knight Iskat Akaris, someone who would've gone on to become the Thirteenth Sister of the Galactic Empire's Inquisitorius.
A member of an extremely rare species to be seen among the stars; Pkorians.
They had sworn themselves off all advanced technology and lived in isolation on a single continent of their homeworld. The didn't use force to keep offworlders at bay, but actively discouraged anyone who was not pkori from even trying to spend the night. No merchants would sell you anything and they made sure not to harvest or mine anything that would attract offworld interest.
Just how Akaris had become a Jedi foundling was not something that was really elaborated on in her file, but I could well imagine someone in the Explorer Corps taking it upon themselves to pursue their quest for knowledge despite the opposition from the locals.
Her life growing up among the Jedi was notable in that she became a padawan at a rather young age, breezing through the Academy and being chosen by Master Sember Vey, who had been a member of the CFK. Her training was done mostly among the stars, as Master Vey had the calling to collect ancient Jedi texts and writings scattered all over the galaxy in statues, art, the archives of other species and so on.
That had all changed when the first Battle of Geonosis occurred and Master Vey became one of the fallen Jedi of that disastrous conflict in the arena.
Iskat had since then thrown herself into the war effort, after being knighted in the same ceremony Anakin had been a part of.
Her war record since then was generally good, having a number of successful deployments among clone troopers and even destroyed a droid factory on Thule. However, it was at this point that her enthusiasm for destruction and eagerness for battle against the CIS became a concern. She had been effectively benched for the past month, being advised to reflect, meditate and 'find her serenity' again.
This was the last thing anyone needed to tell someone who was on a personal crusade and I could well imagine this frustration, the practical confinement to the Jedi Temple and being reduced to teaching younglings in the Academy, being the cause of her recruitment into Palpatine's spy network.
Naturally, she had no inkling that Palpatine was a Sith or any of that. No, she just knew he was a man who had shown sympathy to her plight and had agreed to 'keep an eye on the Jedi' for him because he was 'concerned' due to the strain the war was putting on the Order.
R3 had managed to even find me the moment the two had met on one of Palpatine's visits to the Temple in the surveillance archives. The master manipulator had only needed a few minutes of conversation and he already had her bent around his little finger. Anyone else looking at the holo would just see an old grandfatherly Palpatine offering his help and guidance. I could only be disgusted by the false sympathy as the insidious snake wormed his way into her mind.
I abruptly stopped in my tracks, just as I was about to leave the grand hallway, then gave a look at my chrono again… Oh well, I'd just have to ask Master Agnook to forgive my tardiness.
My hands folded behind my back and I walked to the nearby balcony that overlooked the expansive lower floor leading towards the gigantic main entrance of the temple. The exact place where, thousands of years ago, a bounty hunter had crashed a starship through the doors to deliver a Sith Empire strike team to assault and sack the Jedi Temple - the cherry on the cake of the Sith surprise attack on Coruscant during the Old Republic.
Seeing the pristine temple, its statues, walls and everything rebuilt in the face of what had been, always felt so surreal.
Now I waited, straightening my Hapan top, smoothing out the Jedi outer robe I wore loosely around my shoulders.
It took nearly 43 minutes of me just standing here, seemingly doing a standing meditation, for Akaris to finally leave her distant hiding spot to approach me openly with intent.
Her conservative brown Jedi tunic, leggings, boots and outer robe was in stark contrast to the spirit that I was sensing within her. Her lurid red skin was quite striking and I couldn't help but think that brown was a horrible color for her to wear.
"Knight Akaris," I greeted her formally, giving her a bow then met the bright blue eyes set in a severe face. "You've been following and observing me for a few days now. Can I help you?"
She had a reasonable poker face, but I felt a tinge of alarm leaking through her emotional control.
"Padawan Tano," she politely returned the bow, quickly rallying herself. "Yes. I… I was hoping to get your advice on a few things." Her voice had an interesting timbre that played in my montrals in a fashion that felt quite exotic. It was harsh then settled down into pleasant notes.
"Oh? And what might that be?" I didn't sense a lie, it was clear that she genuinely did have questions for me, but just had been put in the awkward spot of speaking to the person she was spying on.
"How-" she stopped herself, her emotions briefly getting the better of her. Her eyes broke contact and she moved to stand at the balcony, fixing her gaze at the serene sight of the temple. "I apologize. My equilibrium has been a challenge to maintain lately."
"No need for apologies, Akaris. Take your time."
She only nodded in thanks, her hands folded in front of her. "How do you stay on the front lines, padawan? After everything you've been through and suffered. Your master just lost his old master. I understand you were also close to Master Kenobi. Yet…" She trailed off, unable to continue as emotion swelled again within her. "Yet, the Council doesn't seem to be taking you off the active duty roster."
"I take it that they have done so to you?" I asked knowingly. She only nodded, her jaw muscles slightly twitching. "I also deduce therefore that you've lost someone?"
"My master died on Geonosis at the beginning of the war."
Just saying the words seemed to tear at her spirit.
"And you've been fighting since then," I said frankly. "The turmoil of the war weighs on you, the deaths of civilians, the destruction, the clones fighting and dying around you."
Her lips pursed as I spoke, her emotions boiling up and she wrestled them down.
"Yes, it does."
"The Council pulled you away, probably stuffed you into the most dull position they could find for someone in your position."
Her eyes briefly widened and glanced my way. Good grief, she was no master of emotional control and her knighthood so far had clearly not helped matters. It would be interesting to evaluate all the Jedi who were knighted alongside Anakin on an 'emergency' basis at the beginning of the war.
"How did you-"
"It's not difficult these days for me to deduce how the Council will generally react to someone in your position, given how many times I've gone before them since the war started," I smiled mildly at her.
That mollified her somewhat. She had been really alarmed thinking at first that I somehow knew entirely about her past. It meant I had researched her. Why would I research her if this was the first time we met? Therefore, she had not been circumspect enough in her spying and I had spotted her. I neatly headed off that dangerous line of thinking.
"So… Do you have any advice?"
I had to give her this credit, pride was not a problem at least. She was a knight that was coming to a padawan for help, that showed at least a certain humility and recognition that despite our differing rank, she would go to anyone who seemingly had the experience and knowledge to help.
It was so tempting to screw with her. She was technically part of the enemy's machinations after all.
"Ask yourself the question, Akaris, why are you fighting in this war?" I gave her a pointed look with my left eye.
"Why?" she asked incredulously, as if it was the stupidest question in the galaxy.
"Yes, you don't need to. You can join the ranks of Jedi who are content to be in the rear echelon."
She blinked, almost spluttered and with a deep breath wrenched control back. "I- I can't."
"Again, I ask, why?"
She started to say something but stopped herself, as if she had been about to answer but for the first time truly looked at her words from an objective perspective. I could well guess what those words were: she was fighting for her slain master, fighting because the CIS had killed Sember Vey in the Geonosis arena. She fought out of her underlying hatred for the CIS.
In the beginning months of the war, the Jedi Order had been desperate for every knight they could get, so for a long time, they had overlooked Akari's motives. Now with the war itself settled into its own equilibrium and its second year, the Council could catch up with decisions that had been set aside, including evaluation of how certain Jedi acclimatized to the war and act accordingly.
"I- I don't think I can answer, padawan."
"Until you can give an answer that you can voice to a mere padawan, let alone a master, then perhaps it's for the best that you are not out there anymore, Akaris. You've seen what the war did to Krell, someone who despite his formidable physicality and strength in the Force, was lacking in everything else that mattered and fell to the Dark Side of his own soul. Do you want to fall?"
My words might as well have slapped her for the effect it had on her expression. "O- Of course not," she hissed.
"The council is not in a hurry to create more Krells in this war, Akaris. Most of the time, you should accept their wisdom and heed their instruction."
She raised an intrigued eyebrow at me. "Most of the time?"
"Nothing is perfect," I smirked. "As much as they want to pretend otherwise, the council is included in that. So what are they having you do besides cooling your heels and meditating?"
"I'm a teacher at the Academy, lightsaber basics and history."
"Do you not see the honor and trust they place in you? They're entrusting the next generation of Jedi to you, in terms of how they defend themselves and how they see the past."
Her shoulders sagged and she leaned with her arms on the balcony railing, almost as if she was realizing the unbearable weight she had been carrying with her all this time. "No, I suppose I didn't see it that way. It was just… a chore to keep me busy and here in the Temple and not out there… making a difference."
"You must realize you are making a difference. I can't tell you how influential my own academy teachers were, despite me disliking the majority of them. You are building in the classroom, Akaris, not destroying. That is why I rather mildly envy you." She gave me another incredulous look. "Oh yes, I would be content spending my time as a Jedi in dusty archival halls or archeological sites to delve into the mysteries of the Force, but that is not the hand I've been dealt." I stepped forward to lean a hand against the railing near her, affecting an air of friendly companionship for a fellow Jedi. "Now I'm cursed to cleave apart CIS droids and blast their starships to scrap amongst the stars as they try to carve out more and more of the galaxy for themselves. Do you want to know why?"
She nodded.
"Because ultimately, as history has shown on countless worlds across this galaxy in microcosm, that the revolution they espouse to promote is just a facade for the worst among them to indulge in their own vices and hunger for power. Name one world, when faced with Dooku's 'liberation from Republic tyranny' that successfully said 'no' to him without it devolving into a fight."
She clearly thought about it. Not that it was easy given the full breadth and scope of the war.
"None," she eventually acknowledged.
"There you have it. I have been behind enemy lines and there is peace, crime is significantly lower in the CIS, things seemingly get done much quicker as well, but it all flows from fear. If anyone says the wrong opinion or disagrees with the new status quo, that person might find themselves waking up to a knock in the middle of the night. Neighbors are then surprised to find that apartment empty the next day and when they ask questions, they're quietly advised not to ask anymore."
The reports I was getting through Fulcrum from the CIS sometimes made for disturbing reading. It was basically Sidious and Dooku prototype testing the fear tactics that I knew would become commonplace during Imperial times.
"That's… that's horrible."
"It is. That is a galaxy I would not want to live in, therefore I fight to prevent it. Do you see what I'm trying to say?"
She worried her lower lip with her teeth in a reflexive gesture. "Your fight comes from a… pure desire, goal or motivation. It sees you through even the worst parts of the war. It's a shield for your spirit."
"That's one way to look at it, Akaris. Let it not be said I don't struggle though. Every day is a battle in my heart against the darker parts of my nature."
"You? Have a dark nature?"
"All of us do, did your late master not tell you?"
She hesitated in answering, clearly thinking for a moment. "In hindsight, she did say so, but it wasn't said so plainly. I was too young and hot headed to understand."
"And there's my primary criticism for the Jedi imparting philosophy to young sentients who haven't developed the mental faculties to think beyond themselves. Many masters make that mistake and so default to telling the younglings, 'suppress', 'it's bad to think that', because it's what happened to them as younglings. It isn't until the brain has developed sufficiently that we can even begin to approach these topics."
"So until I find a true purpose that calls to my heart…" She nodded and trailed off.
"Precisely. Do you enjoy teaching at the academy?"
"It's not something I can say I enjoy, I just… do it, because I was ordered to."
"Oh boy, the students must have a fun time with you," I said with thinly veiled sarcasm. "They don't need to be Force sensitive to pick up that your heart isn't in it."
"There's been no complaints and I've met all the teaching goals," she retorted.
"On a surface level, that is true, but do you think those students will look back on your classes fondly?"
"Probably not," she admitted with a wince.
"Teaching may simply not be your calling. It's like any other profession, some are good at it, others horrible. Yet somehow we Jedi are expected to become a personal teacher to a padawan one day when we become a knight with enough experience." I scratched my right montral deliberately in a gesture of frustration, pushing away from the balcony. "Anyway, I must get going. Master Agnook will be rather irked that I missed his appointment. It was a pleasure to meet you, Knight Akaris. If you find yourself in need of a kind montral, please don't hesitate to call me."
We bowed to each other and parted ways.
I really wished my prescience could be more expansive in the Shroud, but I was sure the seeds I had planted in Akaris would take root and with a bit of care, grow.
You want more spies, Palpatine? Go ahead.
I'll just make them my own weapons against you.
Ever since the start of the war, Obi-Wan had never imagined that this would be how he would first set foot in the Serenno system.
Disguised down to nearly the cellular level into the bounty hunter that had 'killed' him. It was an idea that could only come to pass from the Jedi Council and Mace Windu, after multiple levels of sanity had been cast off. Then again, what was sane about the war?
He was now wearing the best armor that had been available at the black market arms bazaar Eval had stopped at a few days ago. That alone had been an eye opening experience on what the CIS would tolerate within their borders.
A Katarn-class chest and back armor plate in beige; he was already dreading the repercussions his report would generate in Republic Intel at the security failure that represented. Somehow armor sets usually issued to Clone commandos had found its way there. Then he found an old style Mandalorian helmet that had been in vogue a century ago - it had been refurbished and its systems updated to neatly interface with the katarn armor. For his legs, he had chosen rugged armored trousers with kneepads from the katarn set. A vacuum rated bodysuit came next and the final piece came in the form of a modular blaster system from Blastech that he knew hadn't even hit the market properly yet - a DC-21 that could switch between a sniper rifle and close-range carbine with a quick change of a barrel and receiver module, which he could keep mounted securely in a pouch on his back.
He folded his arms as he sat back in the chair on the small bridge of Eval's rusty light freighter, watching through the forward screens as Serenno grew larger and larger.
"Finally, we're here," Greedo grumbled.
The rodian had not gone crazy with Eval's stipend at the arms bazaar.
He simply wore blue flack armor, with an armless orange jacket, gray trousers, black boots and a holstered belt for a blaster pistol that was molded to work best with a rodian hand.
"I told you we would make it," Eval smirked smugly. "This ship might look like it's about to be scrapped, but that's the point. It still works where it counts."
Obi-Wan could personally admit that he had a few sleepless nights in hyperspace whilst on a ship that Anakin would generously describe as a 'rusty bucket of bolts.'
Eval didn't even have a name for it, because it could switch transponder and EM signatures with the tap of a button. They had breezed through Republic space with ease, even through military blockades into neutral space in the north-east of the galaxy. In CIS space, it was practically the same story. The ship had a transponder for 'every situation' according to the phindian.
He also had outfitted himself in dark orange contoured armor specifically designed for his physiology, which had been waiting for him at the arms market. On both vambraces he had holo emitters and expansive touch pad controls, which had extensive interlinking and slicing capabilities. Yet another demonstration of his superb contingency planning.
The ship began rumbling as it began the atmospheric interface with Serenno, the forward shields passing into the visible spectrum as it shoved aside the plasma and heat.
Eval was a decent pilot as well, as he had no problem keeping the ship steady through it and with smooth confidence he maneuvered through upper atmosphere turbulence and even a major weather system.
A mere nine minutes of flight later, Eval pulled back on the controls to flare the ship before landing thrusters popped into life and let it settle on an expansive landing pad.
"Welcome to Serenno," Eval said easily, his hands blurring through a shutdown checklist before triggering the embarkation ramp in the belly of the ship.
When the three impromptu partners in crime emerged to set foot into the cool evening of Serenno, Obi-Wan had to amend his previous thoughts.
This wasn't a mere landing pad, it looked big enough for a Munificent star frigate to touch down with room to spare.
Eval had thankfully landed close to the three main structures - which he recognized thanks to Ahsoka's intel as Dooku's personal residence; a smooth tower that stretched high into the sky, which had two curving wings stretched outward to either side. The western building was definitely military in nature, given the amount of scanners and transmitters on the roof, in addition to commando droid patrols all around it. The eastern building was definitely more civilian orientated, it was visibly older but was well cared for, with expansive windows and ten floors of space arranged in a circular dome.
From the massive landing area, a long lit walkway snaked towards the central tower and Obi-Wan hurriedly triple checked his stealth in the Force as he saw who was approaching.
In the company of four Magnaguard droids, Count Dooku walked into the light of the closest overhead light pole.
The magnification function of Obi-Wan's helmet reacted to his eyes squinting, automatically zooming in.
Well, the good count looked the same as ever, though Obi-Wan could see a few extra wrinkles around the eyes of the Sith. He bemoaned his Force Stealth's limitations as he dearly wished to get a good read on the extent of Dooku's physical corruption. Anakin and Ahsoka's memories of their last battle, showed Dooku tapping deeper and deeper into abilities that would've accelerated the deterioration of his body. Clearly the count had found a way to at least ameliorate or hide it.
"Count Dooku, apologies-" Eval greeted with an eager smile.
A smile that was wiped off his face when both Magnaguards brandished their electrostaffs into his personal space.
"Your careless delay to show off, could've ruined my plan, Eval," Dooku sneered with a deadly tone of threat underlying his voice. He narrowed his eyes at the two beings following him. "What's this? Two new recruits for the plan? I recognize Greedo, but who is the other one?"
Obi-Wan felt the brush of Dooku's general probe through the Force. He brought all of Hardeen's gathered memories to the fore and worked it into the Force stealth carefully, presenting the disciplined surface thoughts of a trained Mandalorian warrior.
The surface level scan skittered across his mind and withdrew.
"This is Rako Hardeen. A new talent that caught my eye in prison and was instrumental in letting my escape plan proceed with minimal complications. I thought he would be a good candidate for our selection trials."
"When will we get our promised payment for your escape, Eval?" Greedo snarled.
"The rodian makes a good point," Obi-Wan said flatly.
"You shall have it," Dooku interjected smoothly. "And perhaps much more. Perhaps both of you would like to enter our friendly little contest?"
"What contest?" Obi-Wan asked shortly.
"Suffice it to say I require a certain caliber of individual to undertake the plan Eval has only alluded to you thus far. Only the best and most skilled will do. Therefore, we will hold a contest to determine that."
"I'm in."
"Greedo?"
"Eval already owes me, now you'll be added to that list. It just means more money in the end," the rodian shrugged and nodded his agreement.
"If you survive the trials, I assure you the reward will be well worth it." He stood aside and gestured up the path. "My bodyguards will escort you to your accommodations for the evening."
Obi-Wan didn't hesitate in walking forward, followed quickly by Greedo as two of the magnaguards fell in step beside them to guide the way.
They turned at a fork in the path, heading towards the eastern building.
The droids stopped at an entrance that seemed to be merely a smooth expanse of transparisteel, but it parted into a door whose motivators didn't make a sound.
Beyond was an expansive lobby that seemed to define the words, opulent and luxury.
Ancient paintings of men who were probably Dooku's ancestors, in poses with hunted fauna of the world. Busts of various kinds, with yet more of Dooku's distant family members, looking severely at anyone who dared enter the space. A dark smooth floor so soft underfoot that Obi-Wan felt like his boot soles were partially sinking into it. Tapestries with dazzling patterns hung from the walls and an intricate crystal chandelier overhead produced light for the entire setting.
The droids followed inside, clearly to head off the idea of any of them getting sticky fingers for the valuable ornamentation.
They were further guided to a turbolift that, after a few seconds' ride upward, delivered them into what was a guest wing of the building.
The luxury faded here somewhat, but Obi-Wan still got the impression he was walking through an upmarket hotel.
The magnaguard stopped in front of a set of doors on either side of the long hallway, gesturing to either side with its electrostaff.
"These are your quarters," it droned monotonously. "Inside you will find amenities and sustenance for your stay. You are not to attempt to leave before a droid escort fetches you. Any attempt to deviate from these instructions will lead to instant death via commando sniper droids outside or the turrets lining this hall. There will be no warnings."
The doors hissed slightly as they opened into their recesses.
Obi-Wan decisively chose the right door, leaving Greedo to the left.
The door slammed shut barely a moment after he had crossed the threshold.
Beyond was a cosy open plan guest room with a single bed, kitchenette, en suite refresher and a living room with a large active holoscreen, currently showing a sports channel from Mandalorian space featuring bolo-ball being played.
Well, that part of my deception has held, he thought wryly.
He scanned the room thoroughly with his helmet's systems and was unsurprised to find a number of surveillance and listening devices embedded rather cunningly into bits of the furniture and lighting.
Obi-Wan lifted off the helmet, careful to restrain the sigh of relief that threatened to escape his control.
First stop, the kitchenette. There were a number of ready made trays in the preserver with decent meals on each and a number of bottles filled with water and a local Serennian milk.
He pretended to eagerly prepare a meal to satisfy a growling stomach.
When he sat down in front of the screen and began eating, he eyed the bolo-ball match being played between the Krownest Ice Devils and Concordia Mythosaurs.
Hardeen wasn't the biggest supporter of the sport, but he did watch whenever Concord Dawn was playing in the Mandalorian sector tournament. Obi-Wan therefore forced himself to keep watching and make the appropriate reactions as the two teams fought for possession, scoffed at poor decisions by match officials, held up his glass whenever a team scored and even clapped at an impressive acrobatic reverse kick resulting in the Ice Devils scoring the final point and securing victory.
"Enjoying the game?"
Ahsoka's thoughts suddenly pushing through Anakin's bond, was enough of a surprise that Obi-Wan almost swallowed the water in his cup incorrectly.
"Are you sure it's wise to make contact now?" he thought back wryly to her.
"As long as we keep it brief. Has the intel been corroborated?"
"I'll know more tomorrow for sure, but yes, it has."
"I see, good luck."
The bond went silent.
Obi-Wan dearly wanted to know how Ahsoka had managed to somehow gain a Fulcrum intelligence asset on Serenno of all places, but she had outright refused to reveal any details beyond that one existed.
This asset was the reason Obi-Wan had a full layout of Dooku's entire compound memorized, the general security systems and what military assets were immediately on hand for the Sith to call upon. Everything he'd need to know to either escape or outright sabotage the place, should things go very badly.
'Don't let things get to that level, Kenobi,' he thought to himself as he headed to bed.
Obi-Wan awoke the next morning only to find that at some point during his slumber, a starship sized, perfect cube of decorated durasteel had parked itself outside and was now hovering fifty meters off the ground. He hurriedly put on his helmet, having slept in his armor, and let the computer analyze it.
550 meters perfectly on each side and repulsorlift emissions were strong enough that Obi-Wan could well imagine the thing capable of space flight, though whether it was hyperspace capable was debatable.
The local sun was just peaking over the horizon and into the valley of Dooku's compound, which made for a breathtaking view as the sunlight played over the cuboid structure, casting a massive shadow over the area.
He barely had time to appreciate the view before the door to his quarters abruptly opened.
"It is time, come," the magnaguard droid ordered.
He met Greedo in the hallway, but for the first time he spotted new figures there who had emerged from other rooms - eleven of them, from a variety of species, all armed, armored and with the grim air in the Force of experienced killers and hunters.
There were also eight magnaguards arranged in escort formation with electrostaffs, who with curt gestures guided the collection of scum and villainy out of the guest accommodation and into the fresh early morning light.
Dooku and Eval were waiting for them at the end of the walkway that led to the massive landing area, with the giant cube hovering overhead.
"Welcome to Serenno," Dooku said genially. "You have been invited here because you have been judged to be the best bounty hunters the galaxy has to offer." He gestured to a female weequay with an EE3 carbine on her back. "Kiera Swan, two time winner of the Obsidian Sphere."
She acknowledged the praise with a nod and Obi-Wan made a mental note to watch out for this one. The Obsidian Sphere was a well known competition hosted by the largest Bounty Hunters Guild in the galaxy - you had to find and track down an extremely rare black jewel that was in the possession of someone, and you were given very little information to find the holder - who could be anywhere in the galaxy.
"Derrown, known simply as The Exterminator," Dooku gestured to the floating sentient, a parwan. They had a rare lighter than air physiology and had evolved in the upper reaches of their gas giant homeworld. Their three eyes, four leg tentacles and dome head made them rather disconcerting to look at. This one had custom ultra-light blasters holstered into the two bandoliers of power cells that were slung over its chest area.
"Sixtat, the Outlands Butcher." A tall male sakiyan, whose face was covered in a black tattoo that stood out starkly against his pink and red skin. Obi-Wan could passively sense the deaths and screams of Sixtat's victims clinging to the sakiyan in the Force. He had to suppress the shudder that threatened to work its way down his own spine.
"Embo, the most prolific bounty hunter in the galaxy currently, broke the Guild's record this year." The bowcaster armed kyuzo tipped his large brimmed armored hat in modest acknowledgement of the achievement, his segmented orange eyes sparkling with satisfaction.
Obi-Wan was familiar with this one, because he made a point of studying the top bounty hunters on the guild roster and Embo had often worked with the late Cad Bane.
"Greedo, Tatooine's own prolific bounty hunter, also known as Jabba's Blaster." The rodian didn't react to his own accolades being pronounced, his eyes focused on every fellow hunter with suspicion, his hand casually resting near his holstered blaster.
"Rako Hardeen, the Marksman of Concord Dawn."
Obi-Wan only nodded in acknowledgement, keeping his head turned towards Dooku.
"Jakoli, he has the highest kill count among the Guild, with not a single capture," Another rodian and like Sixtat was steeped in death hanging off his spirit like an awful cloak. He gleefully nodded that it was true and was occasionally glaring at Greedo.
"Onca and Bulduga, a pair of legendary bounty hunter brothers who are currently ranked second behind Embo." The two ithorians were glaring at their rival, the latter of whom didn't acknowledge the hostility at all.
"Twazzi, your acrobatic skills once earned you praise from Chancellor Valorum, which you've applied wonderfully to your profession. There is no place she can't get into and rare is the person who can outmatch her reflexes." This was the first time Obi-Wan had seen a frenk up close - they were slender reptilian humanoids with strong flexible legs, overly large black eyes and diamond shaped heads. She was also interestingly armed with a weequay blaster lance and attached bayonet, not a weapon anyone wanted to get close to.
"Sinrich, inventor of the holographic disguise matrix." Obi-Wan knew he'd seen that specific snivvian before from somewhere. Sinrich's large nostrils flared with pride and he smirked at everyone as if to say, 'yes, that was me.' His invention had become a nightmare for security forces around the galaxy and it had also facilitated the attack on the Jedi Temple last year. He was first known as a middling bounty hunter, until his technical skill allowed him to develop the holomatrix - which catapulted his effectiveness and notoriety. He especially liked to disguise himself as the most trusted person closest to his bounty targets, before he pulled out a blaster and stunned them.
"And finally, Mantu," Dooku nodded towards the infamous selkath. "Your people were once a peaceful race known throughout the galaxy as the old stewards of kolto, before its replacement by bacta. How far they have fallen." Most of the galaxy had trouble believing a selkath could kill unless provoked to extreme lengths, they were that pacifistic, but Mantu had single handedly erased that stereotype. He was a hunter who didn't care about collateral damage in pursuing his targets - once destroying an entire space station filled with thousands just to ensure his bounty was dead. Ironically, the bounty on his own head was worth quite a lot and Obi-Wan imagined that a number of hunters around them were quietly debating whether they could pull off collecting.
The problem was that Mantu's destructive tactics generally gave everyone pause and no one wanted to find out what he'd do when cornered. The selkath had a wild sadistic streak that bordered on madness that was clear to sense. Obi-Wan would almost never admit that someone deserved to just be killed, but in the name of protecting future innocents from Mantu's madness he resolved that if the opportunity arose for him to arrange that the selkath fail or have a fatal accident… he wouldn't hesitate.
"In a few moments," Dooku continued, gesturing to the massive cuboid structure. "All thirteen of you will enter what we call the Box."
"You built that entire thing just for this?" Obi-Wan asked flatly.
"It will have other uses in the future Hardeen, but its first official task is for this most important occasion. Now, some of you will not make it out alive. For those who do, we are looking for the five most skilled among you. Any additional survivors will be eliminated to preserve the integrity of the job that awaits you."
Two magnaguards approached with a repulsorlift trolley. "Place all weapons here," it said ominously.
Naturally, all the bounty hunters were rather reluctant to disarm in front of rivals, but they eventually relented with the threat of the magnaguards and Dooku himself watching on. Obi-Wan disarmed as well, attaching the sniper modules to his weapon before placing it on the trolley.
"For those we choose, you will, of course, be paid most handsomely. More than that, you will be a part of an operation remembered as a turning point in the Clone Wars. And when we succeed, we will bring the Republic to its knees."
"Listen up," Eval interjected and Obi-Wan was sure that if it had been any other situation, Dooku would've cut down the phindian in that instant, judging from the look the Sith gave his 'employee'. "The Box was designed by me, Moralo Eval, to simulate certain situations that might happen on the job. Go now and enter the Box, if you have the courage."
Obi-Wan didn't hesitate and began walking, leading the way.
Embo and Greedo fell in step beside him, whilst the others were content to follow.
Floodlights highlighted a single point on the underside of the Box and an invisible tractor beam lowered a five meter wide platform, breaking the smooth outward appearance of the Box's armored exterior.
The platform landed and Obi-Wan, easily banishing his own fear, stepped onto it.
Soon all thirteen contestants were on and Eval tapped a control on his vambrace.
"I'll be seeing you all soon," he smirked ominously as the platform was pulled into the air.
Obi-Wan looked up to get some hint of what was coming as they were buffeted by crosswinds, but only saw bright light from within the Box, streaming down and blinding them to what was beyond.
They were soon swallowed into the cold steel embrace of the structure, in the darkness he could briefly see the cross section of the outer hull - it was definitely thick enough for a starship - before it was replaced by a darkness so complete that his helmet was forced into infrared mode to see anything.
The first thing he noticed was a very familiar pattern - one which any Jedi who'd used the Temple training arenas would recognize - modular grav cubes, the multifunctional technology that allowed all forms of patterns to be encoded into them and simulate all manner of scenarios and surfaces that a Jedi could encounter in a fight. These were also clearly different, changed in ways that he couldn't guess at with a quick look. He had an idle wish for Ahsoka's technometry skills at that moment.
If someone as clever and sadistic as Eval had improved on that technology, he shuddered to think what trials would await them in the next hour.
The platform slowed down until it stopped within a cuboid room fifteen meters in height. It was lit via the grav cubes emitting light from the ceiling in a checkered pattern, whilst the floors and walls were utterly gray, all made up of yet more grav cubes.
Was the entire volume of the Box just filled with cubes? No, it had to have fuel tanks, power source, life support and repulsorlifts at least.
It was an almost stupendous concept. He imagined a starship with an entirely reconfigurable interior that could change as the situation demanded and made a note to tell Ahsoka about it.
The bounty hunters carefully spread out and curiously examined their surroundings, their mannerisms tense.
Every wall in the room came alive with a huge holoscreen, showing Eval's face massive in size and looking down on them with a delighted satisfaction.
Now Obi-Wan was really impressed, integrated compounding holo emitters, definitely an idea to improve the Jedi Temple's own grav cubes.
"Before we begin the first challenge, let me first say there is only one rule inside the Box… there are no rules," Eval's voice boomed at them from every direction.
"Yes, but what is the point of the challenge?" Embo said in his native tongue. Obi-Wan only understood the words through the intent being projected through the Force - a neat little trick that could almost always help bridge language barriers.
"The point, my friend, is to escape quickly, because only the survivors will advance to the next challenge."
The giant holo vanished from the walls.
The tension in the room ratcheted up further as the bounty hunters waited for the first challenge, their eyes scanning the near featureless room.
A cube disappeared with a hiss near Sinrich's feet, almost causing the snivvian to fall into the newly created hole.
Everyone whirled around at the sound and backed away.
Just in time for a vile looking green gas to begin pumping into the room.
Obi-Wan knew immediately what this was, as gas was one of the preferred methods to attack or incapacitate Jedi. Therefore every Jedi from the time they were padawans were trained to recognize every commonly used gas weapon in the galaxy.
"Dioxis! Don't breath it!" He snapped, jumping back immediately.
The hunters scrambled back away from the gas in every direction.
That was until the entire room came alive with pillars rising up out of the floor, one of which picked up Sixtat, causing him to lose balance in surprise and fall.
He quickly got to his feet and jumped back on the slowly rising pillar, "Everyone for themselves!"
The hunters scrambled to find a pillar and Embo decided to take Sixtat's advice, jumping into the air with extreme dexterity, flipping into a somersault whilst kicking the sakiyan off his pillar.
Naturally, there weren't enough pillars for everyone to raise themselves above the heavier-than-air gas.
Fights broke out immediately, as Twazzi easily knocked Jakoli off his pillar to claim it.
Greedo kicked Onco in the face to defend his pillar, whilst his brother struggled against Sinrich for another.
Obi-Wan on his own pillar, delivered a boot to Mantu's face to keep him away and unfortunately the mass murdering selkath didn't fall helplessly into the cloud of deadly gas pooling in the lower ends of the room.
Mantu managed to grab hold of the base of another pillar. He showed impressive strength and climbing skills, pinning his feet onto two separate pillars with only friction holding him up.
Finally, the pillars stopped and equilibrium was achieved between the hunters - the strongest standing, whilst those who couldn't had at least managed to cling to life by following Mantu's example.
"That wasn't so hard," said Sixtat from his own newly claimed pillar, nursing a black eye from fighting Balduga.
Obi-Wan had the irrational urge to Force Push the sakiyan into the gas just for saying that.
Sure enough, Sixtat's pillar rose even higher, threatening to crush him against the ceiling. It forced him to jump off and cling to its sides. Twazzi suffered a similar fate and now only seven pillars remained at a comfortable height with hunters on them. The rest clung to the sides with only Derrown being unbothered by the whole test. The parwan simply floated high in the air, with a spindly hand clutched to a pillar.
"Now what?" asked the floaty sentient.
Eval answered them by moving the entire ceiling downward, and the pillars slowly lowering.
Soon there would be nowhere to hide from the gas.
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Chapter 117
The sound of a bionic right fist slamming and denting mild durasteel echoed through the Jedi Temple communication center.
Anakin glared into the giant holotank that currently showed the entire Coruscant system and a visual representation of every ship that had left in the last twenty four hours. Naturally, it was a daunting number and was like looking into a sea of points with coordinates, ship transponder numbers and even their names. All of it was gravitating towards the various hyperpoints of the system. The expression needle in a haystack, didn't do it justice when you were looking at thousands of needles in a haystack the size of a solar system or if you didn't even know if that needle was off Coruscant yet.
We could only assume that Moralo Eval's timetable meant he needed to leave as soon as possible. Therefore they would try to steal a ship.
Eval was not stupid though and knew that it would be reported soon enough, at which point the description of the ship would be sent to every likely port and waypoint along the hyperspace route.
Wait…
"We can't rely or wait on stolen ship reports, master," I shook my head, staring into the datapad in my hands, swiping across the CSF reports in question. Stealing a hyperspace capable ship was generally not something that occurred much on the surface city and it required a specific skill set to undermine the aerospace traffic regulation systems and transponder every ship was built with. It was a skill set we had to assume Moralo had.
"What? Why?" Anakin folded his arms and glanced at me with a frown.
I gestured to the datapad with dozens of police reports from across the planet regarding stolen starships. The sheer number of people on Coruscant made it a statistical certainty that even though something happened rarely, it still meant you were dealing with a large number of cases.
"Moralo definitely had help from within the prison in his escape and I don't mean the prisoners."
"You're telling me even the clone guards helped him?" Anakin scowled at the thought.
"Not all of them, naturally. It would take just a few and remember that not all the prison staff are clones and any droids could further be subverted. No, the more I look at the big picture of Eval's original capture and the surveillance footage from the prison escape… this was all planned, master."
"He planned to be captured?"
"Yes, especially in light of reading his classified psychological evaluations and history. He delights in elaborate planning and has an ego the size of a star."
"And Hardeen? Did he plan that too? You think Eval hired him to kill Obi-Wan?"
"It's… a possibility. Master Kenobi was one of the primary Jedi investigating the kidnapping plot. It could be that Eval realized that Master Kenobi was too dangerous and risked compromising the grander scheme. The point I was getting to, is that if this had been planned so elaborately, then Eval already had hyperspace transport waiting for him after his escape. One that would not be reported stolen."
He nodded in agreement, tapping the controls - the holo cleared until it only showed the various hyperspace points in Coruscant, before it zoomed out to show the entire galaxy and the major hyper lanes. Serenno was highlighted in the north-east and Naboo in the south-east.
"Let's say that Dooku is giving them the best and fastest ship that also has a cloaking device, so there's no way to interdict or delay their movement across the galaxy," Anakin mused.
"We don't even know if they're going to Serenno first," I argued in turn, stepping up to the control panel. The hyperspace courses in question were drawn and calculated. "Their staging point might be closer to Naboo. Coruscant to Serenno, the least time course is 6 days, Serenno to Naboo is 14 days minimum."
"Festival of Light is in 26 days, theoretically giving them six days of preparation time on Serenno."
"Possibly, but 14 days is a long time to remain under cloak. The chances of something going wrong with it increases over time. The ship might also not have the endurance for such a long trip and needs a refuel along the way."
"Remember who we're dealing with, Ahsoka," Anakin gave me a severe look. "Dooku will want to personally supervise this mission's preparation due to its importance. He won't accept doing this remotely at the other end of the holo transmission."
I nodded, "If we're going to be deployed on Naboo for the festival-"
"We will," Anakin said with a grim certainty.
"The Omen can make the trip in 5 days, allow for a day of security prep there-"
"Two days of prep," he interjected.
"Fine," I huffed in annoyance. "We'll have plenty of time then, assuming nothing else happens in the war that might call us away."
"Snips, we'll face that problem if we have to, but whatever happens I'm not losing any chance to catch up to Hardeen."
I gave him a long look, "Have you thought about what you'll do when that day comes, master?"
Anakin merely shook his head, "Not specifically, but I'll admit to hoping that he puts up a strong fight in the end."
My chrono beeped for attention, "If you'll excuse me, master. I have an appointment with Master Agnook."
"What does the CFK want with you now?" he asked with annoyance.
"He wants an interview regarding our little feat of sealing the cortosis mine on Mokivj."
Anakin raised a single eyebrow incredulously, "Seriously?"
"I don't understand it either, master. We did nothing 'new'," I sighed wearily. "It seems they either have little to do or they've been keeping a close eye on our reports, as we have such a wonderful run of luck." My tone and sarcastic face was a bit exaggerated.
"All right, off you go," he shooed me away and with a few commands on the controls, replaced the galactic map with a readout of Hardeen's intelligence file.
I gave him an idle wave and left through the main doors.
Down the first corridor and through a few more security checkpoints that required not just biometrics, but also the use of the Force on a precision mechanism within each door, allowed me to pass into the general areas of the Temple.
In the first grand hallway with its towering arches, there was near absolute silence, except for the footsteps of passing Jedi. I sensed my current shadow and Palpatine's latest spy had appeared about fifteen meters behind me.
She had emerged from a side door and walked with purpose yet still had the typical serenity of a Jedi.
I felt no probes through the Force. Her eyes weren't intent on me but she had been appearing in my peripheral vision and Farsight just too often in the last few days throughout my day-to-day activities in the Temple. If I hadn't been as paranoid or as armed as I was in knowledge and Force abilities, I would've written it off as coincidence.
Yet, there she was again and again. Keeping herself so unsuspicious, that it made her stand out all the more.
It took me some careful doing with R3's help; who had finally returned to Coruscant with the Resolute, after being attached to Wraith Squadron for nearly a year, to help me surreptitiously find out her name and file.
It was only as I saw her face in full profile that it finally clicked a vague memory, something so fleeting from my past life. No amount of memory tricks or self-control ability would help in recalling it completely. However, her face was enough for me to do a surreptitious conventional search.
Her name was Jedi Knight Iskat Akaris, someone who would've gone on to become the Thirteenth Sister of the Galactic Empire's Inquisitorius.
A member of an extremely rare species to be seen among the stars; Pkorians.
They had sworn themselves off all advanced technology and lived in isolation on a single continent of their homeworld. The didn't use force to keep offworlders at bay, but actively discouraged anyone who was not pkori from even trying to spend the night. No merchants would sell you anything and they made sure not to harvest or mine anything that would attract offworld interest.
Just how Akaris had become a Jedi foundling was not something that was really elaborated on in her file, but I could well imagine someone in the Explorer Corps taking it upon themselves to pursue their quest for knowledge despite the opposition from the locals.
Her life growing up among the Jedi was notable in that she became a padawan at a rather young age, breezing through the Academy and being chosen by Master Sember Vey, who had been a member of the CFK. Her training was done mostly among the stars, as Master Vey had the calling to collect ancient Jedi texts and writings scattered all over the galaxy in statues, art, the archives of other species and so on.
That had all changed when the first Battle of Geonosis occurred and Master Vey became one of the fallen Jedi of that disastrous conflict in the arena.
Iskat had since then thrown herself into the war effort, after being knighted in the same ceremony Anakin had been a part of.
Her war record since then was generally good, having a number of successful deployments among clone troopers and even destroyed a droid factory on Thule. However, it was at this point that her enthusiasm for destruction and eagerness for battle against the CIS became a concern. She had been effectively benched for the past month, being advised to reflect, meditate and 'find her serenity' again.
This was the last thing anyone needed to tell someone who was on a personal crusade and I could well imagine this frustration, the practical confinement to the Jedi Temple and being reduced to teaching younglings in the Academy, being the cause of her recruitment into Palpatine's spy network.
Naturally, she had no inkling that Palpatine was a Sith or any of that. No, she just knew he was a man who had shown sympathy to her plight and had agreed to 'keep an eye on the Jedi' for him because he was 'concerned' due to the strain the war was putting on the Order.
R3 had managed to even find me the moment the two had met on one of Palpatine's visits to the Temple in the surveillance archives. The master manipulator had only needed a few minutes of conversation and he already had her bent around his little finger. Anyone else looking at the holo would just see an old grandfatherly Palpatine offering his help and guidance. I could only be disgusted by the false sympathy as the insidious snake wormed his way into her mind.
I abruptly stopped in my tracks, just as I was about to leave the grand hallway, then gave a look at my chrono again… Oh well, I'd just have to ask Master Agnook to forgive my tardiness.
My hands folded behind my back and I walked to the nearby balcony that overlooked the expansive lower floor leading towards the gigantic main entrance of the temple. The exact place where, thousands of years ago, a bounty hunter had crashed a starship through the doors to deliver a Sith Empire strike team to assault and sack the Jedi Temple - the cherry on the cake of the Sith surprise attack on Coruscant during the Old Republic.
Seeing the pristine temple, its statues, walls and everything rebuilt in the face of what had been, always felt so surreal.
Now I waited, straightening my Hapan top, smoothing out the Jedi outer robe I wore loosely around my shoulders.
It took nearly 43 minutes of me just standing here, seemingly doing a standing meditation, for Akaris to finally leave her distant hiding spot to approach me openly with intent.
Her conservative brown Jedi tunic, leggings, boots and outer robe was in stark contrast to the spirit that I was sensing within her. Her lurid red skin was quite striking and I couldn't help but think that brown was a horrible color for her to wear.
"Knight Akaris," I greeted her formally, giving her a bow then met the bright blue eyes set in a severe face. "You've been following and observing me for a few days now. Can I help you?"
She had a reasonable poker face, but I felt a tinge of alarm leaking through her emotional control.
"Padawan Tano," she politely returned the bow, quickly rallying herself. "Yes. I… I was hoping to get your advice on a few things." Her voice had an interesting timbre that played in my montrals in a fashion that felt quite exotic. It was harsh then settled down into pleasant notes.
"Oh? And what might that be?" I didn't sense a lie, it was clear that she genuinely did have questions for me, but just had been put in the awkward spot of speaking to the person she was spying on.
"How-" she stopped herself, her emotions briefly getting the better of her. Her eyes broke contact and she moved to stand at the balcony, fixing her gaze at the serene sight of the temple. "I apologize. My equilibrium has been a challenge to maintain lately."
"No need for apologies, Akaris. Take your time."
She only nodded in thanks, her hands folded in front of her. "How do you stay on the front lines, padawan? After everything you've been through and suffered. Your master just lost his old master. I understand you were also close to Master Kenobi. Yet…" She trailed off, unable to continue as emotion swelled again within her. "Yet, the Council doesn't seem to be taking you off the active duty roster."
"I take it that they have done so to you?" I asked knowingly. She only nodded, her jaw muscles slightly twitching. "I also deduce therefore that you've lost someone?"
"My master died on Geonosis at the beginning of the war."
Just saying the words seemed to tear at her spirit.
"And you've been fighting since then," I said frankly. "The turmoil of the war weighs on you, the deaths of civilians, the destruction, the clones fighting and dying around you."
Her lips pursed as I spoke, her emotions boiling up and she wrestled them down.
"Yes, it does."
"The Council pulled you away, probably stuffed you into the most dull position they could find for someone in your position."
Her eyes briefly widened and glanced my way. Good grief, she was no master of emotional control and her knighthood so far had clearly not helped matters. It would be interesting to evaluate all the Jedi who were knighted alongside Anakin on an 'emergency' basis at the beginning of the war.
"How did you-"
"It's not difficult these days for me to deduce how the Council will generally react to someone in your position, given how many times I've gone before them since the war started," I smiled mildly at her.
That mollified her somewhat. She had been really alarmed thinking at first that I somehow knew entirely about her past. It meant I had researched her. Why would I research her if this was the first time we met? Therefore, she had not been circumspect enough in her spying and I had spotted her. I neatly headed off that dangerous line of thinking.
"So… Do you have any advice?"
I had to give her this credit, pride was not a problem at least. She was a knight that was coming to a padawan for help, that showed at least a certain humility and recognition that despite our differing rank, she would go to anyone who seemingly had the experience and knowledge to help.
It was so tempting to screw with her. She was technically part of the enemy's machinations after all.
"Ask yourself the question, Akaris, why are you fighting in this war?" I gave her a pointed look with my left eye.
"Why?" she asked incredulously, as if it was the stupidest question in the galaxy.
"Yes, you don't need to. You can join the ranks of Jedi who are content to be in the rear echelon."
She blinked, almost spluttered and with a deep breath wrenched control back. "I- I can't."
"Again, I ask, why?"
She started to say something but stopped herself, as if she had been about to answer but for the first time truly looked at her words from an objective perspective. I could well guess what those words were: she was fighting for her slain master, fighting because the CIS had killed Sember Vey in the Geonosis arena. She fought out of her underlying hatred for the CIS.
In the beginning months of the war, the Jedi Order had been desperate for every knight they could get, so for a long time, they had overlooked Akari's motives. Now with the war itself settled into its own equilibrium and its second year, the Council could catch up with decisions that had been set aside, including evaluation of how certain Jedi acclimatized to the war and act accordingly.
"I- I don't think I can answer, padawan."
"Until you can give an answer that you can voice to a mere padawan, let alone a master, then perhaps it's for the best that you are not out there anymore, Akaris. You've seen what the war did to Krell, someone who despite his formidable physicality and strength in the Force, was lacking in everything else that mattered and fell to the Dark Side of his own soul. Do you want to fall?"
My words might as well have slapped her for the effect it had on her expression. "O- Of course not," she hissed.
"The council is not in a hurry to create more Krells in this war, Akaris. Most of the time, you should accept their wisdom and heed their instruction."
She raised an intrigued eyebrow at me. "Most of the time?"
"Nothing is perfect," I smirked. "As much as they want to pretend otherwise, the council is included in that. So what are they having you do besides cooling your heels and meditating?"
"I'm a teacher at the Academy, lightsaber basics and history."
"Do you not see the honor and trust they place in you? They're entrusting the next generation of Jedi to you, in terms of how they defend themselves and how they see the past."
Her shoulders sagged and she leaned with her arms on the balcony railing, almost as if she was realizing the unbearable weight she had been carrying with her all this time. "No, I suppose I didn't see it that way. It was just… a chore to keep me busy and here in the Temple and not out there… making a difference."
"You must realize you are making a difference. I can't tell you how influential my own academy teachers were, despite me disliking the majority of them. You are building in the classroom, Akaris, not destroying. That is why I rather mildly envy you." She gave me another incredulous look. "Oh yes, I would be content spending my time as a Jedi in dusty archival halls or archeological sites to delve into the mysteries of the Force, but that is not the hand I've been dealt." I stepped forward to lean a hand against the railing near her, affecting an air of friendly companionship for a fellow Jedi. "Now I'm cursed to cleave apart CIS droids and blast their starships to scrap amongst the stars as they try to carve out more and more of the galaxy for themselves. Do you want to know why?"
She nodded.
"Because ultimately, as history has shown on countless worlds across this galaxy in microcosm, that the revolution they espouse to promote is just a facade for the worst among them to indulge in their own vices and hunger for power. Name one world, when faced with Dooku's 'liberation from Republic tyranny' that successfully said 'no' to him without it devolving into a fight."
She clearly thought about it. Not that it was easy given the full breadth and scope of the war.
"None," she eventually acknowledged.
"There you have it. I have been behind enemy lines and there is peace, crime is significantly lower in the CIS, things seemingly get done much quicker as well, but it all flows from fear. If anyone says the wrong opinion or disagrees with the new status quo, that person might find themselves waking up to a knock in the middle of the night. Neighbors are then surprised to find that apartment empty the next day and when they ask questions, they're quietly advised not to ask anymore."
The reports I was getting through Fulcrum from the CIS sometimes made for disturbing reading. It was basically Sidious and Dooku prototype testing the fear tactics that I knew would become commonplace during Imperial times.
"That's… that's horrible."
"It is. That is a galaxy I would not want to live in, therefore I fight to prevent it. Do you see what I'm trying to say?"
She worried her lower lip with her teeth in a reflexive gesture. "Your fight comes from a… pure desire, goal or motivation. It sees you through even the worst parts of the war. It's a shield for your spirit."
"That's one way to look at it, Akaris. Let it not be said I don't struggle though. Every day is a battle in my heart against the darker parts of my nature."
"You? Have a dark nature?"
"All of us do, did your late master not tell you?"
She hesitated in answering, clearly thinking for a moment. "In hindsight, she did say so, but it wasn't said so plainly. I was too young and hot headed to understand."
"And there's my primary criticism for the Jedi imparting philosophy to young sentients who haven't developed the mental faculties to think beyond themselves. Many masters make that mistake and so default to telling the younglings, 'suppress', 'it's bad to think that', because it's what happened to them as younglings. It isn't until the brain has developed sufficiently that we can even begin to approach these topics."
"So until I find a true purpose that calls to my heart…" She nodded and trailed off.
"Precisely. Do you enjoy teaching at the academy?"
"It's not something I can say I enjoy, I just… do it, because I was ordered to."
"Oh boy, the students must have a fun time with you," I said with thinly veiled sarcasm. "They don't need to be Force sensitive to pick up that your heart isn't in it."
"There's been no complaints and I've met all the teaching goals," she retorted.
"On a surface level, that is true, but do you think those students will look back on your classes fondly?"
"Probably not," she admitted with a wince.
"Teaching may simply not be your calling. It's like any other profession, some are good at it, others horrible. Yet somehow we Jedi are expected to become a personal teacher to a padawan one day when we become a knight with enough experience." I scratched my right montral deliberately in a gesture of frustration, pushing away from the balcony. "Anyway, I must get going. Master Agnook will be rather irked that I missed his appointment. It was a pleasure to meet you, Knight Akaris. If you find yourself in need of a kind montral, please don't hesitate to call me."
We bowed to each other and parted ways.
I really wished my prescience could be more expansive in the Shroud, but I was sure the seeds I had planted in Akaris would take root and with a bit of care, grow.
You want more spies, Palpatine? Go ahead.
I'll just make them my own weapons against you.
Ever since the start of the war, Obi-Wan had never imagined that this would be how he would first set foot in the Serenno system.
Disguised down to nearly the cellular level into the bounty hunter that had 'killed' him. It was an idea that could only come to pass from the Jedi Council and Mace Windu, after multiple levels of sanity had been cast off. Then again, what was sane about the war?
He was now wearing the best armor that had been available at the black market arms bazaar Eval had stopped at a few days ago. That alone had been an eye opening experience on what the CIS would tolerate within their borders.
A Katarn-class chest and back armor plate in beige; he was already dreading the repercussions his report would generate in Republic Intel at the security failure that represented. Somehow armor sets usually issued to Clone commandos had found its way there. Then he found an old style Mandalorian helmet that had been in vogue a century ago - it had been refurbished and its systems updated to neatly interface with the katarn armor. For his legs, he had chosen rugged armored trousers with kneepads from the katarn set. A vacuum rated bodysuit came next and the final piece came in the form of a modular blaster system from Blastech that he knew hadn't even hit the market properly yet - a DC-21 that could switch between a sniper rifle and close-range carbine with a quick change of a barrel and receiver module, which he could keep mounted securely in a pouch on his back.
He folded his arms as he sat back in the chair on the small bridge of Eval's rusty light freighter, watching through the forward screens as Serenno grew larger and larger.
"Finally, we're here," Greedo grumbled.
The rodian had not gone crazy with Eval's stipend at the arms bazaar.
He simply wore blue flack armor, with an armless orange jacket, gray trousers, black boots and a holstered belt for a blaster pistol that was molded to work best with a rodian hand.
"I told you we would make it," Eval smirked smugly. "This ship might look like it's about to be scrapped, but that's the point. It still works where it counts."
Obi-Wan could personally admit that he had a few sleepless nights in hyperspace whilst on a ship that Anakin would generously describe as a 'rusty bucket of bolts.'
Eval didn't even have a name for it, because it could switch transponder and EM signatures with the tap of a button. They had breezed through Republic space with ease, even through military blockades into neutral space in the north-east of the galaxy. In CIS space, it was practically the same story. The ship had a transponder for 'every situation' according to the phindian.
He also had outfitted himself in dark orange contoured armor specifically designed for his physiology, which had been waiting for him at the arms market. On both vambraces he had holo emitters and expansive touch pad controls, which had extensive interlinking and slicing capabilities. Yet another demonstration of his superb contingency planning.
The ship began rumbling as it began the atmospheric interface with Serenno, the forward shields passing into the visible spectrum as it shoved aside the plasma and heat.
Eval was a decent pilot as well, as he had no problem keeping the ship steady through it and with smooth confidence he maneuvered through upper atmosphere turbulence and even a major weather system.
A mere nine minutes of flight later, Eval pulled back on the controls to flare the ship before landing thrusters popped into life and let it settle on an expansive landing pad.
"Welcome to Serenno," Eval said easily, his hands blurring through a shutdown checklist before triggering the embarkation ramp in the belly of the ship.
When the three impromptu partners in crime emerged to set foot into the cool evening of Serenno, Obi-Wan had to amend his previous thoughts.
This wasn't a mere landing pad, it looked big enough for a Munificent star frigate to touch down with room to spare.
Eval had thankfully landed close to the three main structures - which he recognized thanks to Ahsoka's intel as Dooku's personal residence; a smooth tower that stretched high into the sky, which had two curving wings stretched outward to either side. The western building was definitely military in nature, given the amount of scanners and transmitters on the roof, in addition to commando droid patrols all around it. The eastern building was definitely more civilian orientated, it was visibly older but was well cared for, with expansive windows and ten floors of space arranged in a circular dome.
From the massive landing area, a long lit walkway snaked towards the central tower and Obi-Wan hurriedly triple checked his stealth in the Force as he saw who was approaching.
In the company of four Magnaguard droids, Count Dooku walked into the light of the closest overhead light pole.
The magnification function of Obi-Wan's helmet reacted to his eyes squinting, automatically zooming in.
Well, the good count looked the same as ever, though Obi-Wan could see a few extra wrinkles around the eyes of the Sith. He bemoaned his Force Stealth's limitations as he dearly wished to get a good read on the extent of Dooku's physical corruption. Anakin and Ahsoka's memories of their last battle, showed Dooku tapping deeper and deeper into abilities that would've accelerated the deterioration of his body. Clearly the count had found a way to at least ameliorate or hide it.
"Count Dooku, apologies-" Eval greeted with an eager smile.
A smile that was wiped off his face when both Magnaguards brandished their electrostaffs into his personal space.
"Your careless delay to show off, could've ruined my plan, Eval," Dooku sneered with a deadly tone of threat underlying his voice. He narrowed his eyes at the two beings following him. "What's this? Two new recruits for the plan? I recognize Greedo, but who is the other one?"
Obi-Wan felt the brush of Dooku's general probe through the Force. He brought all of Hardeen's gathered memories to the fore and worked it into the Force stealth carefully, presenting the disciplined surface thoughts of a trained Mandalorian warrior.
The surface level scan skittered across his mind and withdrew.
"This is Rako Hardeen. A new talent that caught my eye in prison and was instrumental in letting my escape plan proceed with minimal complications. I thought he would be a good candidate for our selection trials."
"When will we get our promised payment for your escape, Eval?" Greedo snarled.
"The rodian makes a good point," Obi-Wan said flatly.
"You shall have it," Dooku interjected smoothly. "And perhaps much more. Perhaps both of you would like to enter our friendly little contest?"
"What contest?" Obi-Wan asked shortly.
"Suffice it to say I require a certain caliber of individual to undertake the plan Eval has only alluded to you thus far. Only the best and most skilled will do. Therefore, we will hold a contest to determine that."
"I'm in."
"Greedo?"
"Eval already owes me, now you'll be added to that list. It just means more money in the end," the rodian shrugged and nodded his agreement.
"If you survive the trials, I assure you the reward will be well worth it." He stood aside and gestured up the path. "My bodyguards will escort you to your accommodations for the evening."
Obi-Wan didn't hesitate in walking forward, followed quickly by Greedo as two of the magnaguards fell in step beside them to guide the way.
They turned at a fork in the path, heading towards the eastern building.
The droids stopped at an entrance that seemed to be merely a smooth expanse of transparisteel, but it parted into a door whose motivators didn't make a sound.
Beyond was an expansive lobby that seemed to define the words, opulent and luxury.
Ancient paintings of men who were probably Dooku's ancestors, in poses with hunted fauna of the world. Busts of various kinds, with yet more of Dooku's distant family members, looking severely at anyone who dared enter the space. A dark smooth floor so soft underfoot that Obi-Wan felt like his boot soles were partially sinking into it. Tapestries with dazzling patterns hung from the walls and an intricate crystal chandelier overhead produced light for the entire setting.
The droids followed inside, clearly to head off the idea of any of them getting sticky fingers for the valuable ornamentation.
They were further guided to a turbolift that, after a few seconds' ride upward, delivered them into what was a guest wing of the building.
The luxury faded here somewhat, but Obi-Wan still got the impression he was walking through an upmarket hotel.
The magnaguard stopped in front of a set of doors on either side of the long hallway, gesturing to either side with its electrostaff.
"These are your quarters," it droned monotonously. "Inside you will find amenities and sustenance for your stay. You are not to attempt to leave before a droid escort fetches you. Any attempt to deviate from these instructions will lead to instant death via commando sniper droids outside or the turrets lining this hall. There will be no warnings."
The doors hissed slightly as they opened into their recesses.
Obi-Wan decisively chose the right door, leaving Greedo to the left.
The door slammed shut barely a moment after he had crossed the threshold.
Beyond was a cosy open plan guest room with a single bed, kitchenette, en suite refresher and a living room with a large active holoscreen, currently showing a sports channel from Mandalorian space featuring bolo-ball being played.
Well, that part of my deception has held, he thought wryly.
He scanned the room thoroughly with his helmet's systems and was unsurprised to find a number of surveillance and listening devices embedded rather cunningly into bits of the furniture and lighting.
Obi-Wan lifted off the helmet, careful to restrain the sigh of relief that threatened to escape his control.
First stop, the kitchenette. There were a number of ready made trays in the preserver with decent meals on each and a number of bottles filled with water and a local Serennian milk.
He pretended to eagerly prepare a meal to satisfy a growling stomach.
When he sat down in front of the screen and began eating, he eyed the bolo-ball match being played between the Krownest Ice Devils and Concordia Mythosaurs.
Hardeen wasn't the biggest supporter of the sport, but he did watch whenever Concord Dawn was playing in the Mandalorian sector tournament. Obi-Wan therefore forced himself to keep watching and make the appropriate reactions as the two teams fought for possession, scoffed at poor decisions by match officials, held up his glass whenever a team scored and even clapped at an impressive acrobatic reverse kick resulting in the Ice Devils scoring the final point and securing victory.
"Enjoying the game?"
Ahsoka's thoughts suddenly pushing through Anakin's bond, was enough of a surprise that Obi-Wan almost swallowed the water in his cup incorrectly.
"Are you sure it's wise to make contact now?" he thought back wryly to her.
"As long as we keep it brief. Has the intel been corroborated?"
"I'll know more tomorrow for sure, but yes, it has."
"I see, good luck."
The bond went silent.
Obi-Wan dearly wanted to know how Ahsoka had managed to somehow gain a Fulcrum intelligence asset on Serenno of all places, but she had outright refused to reveal any details beyond that one existed.
This asset was the reason Obi-Wan had a full layout of Dooku's entire compound memorized, the general security systems and what military assets were immediately on hand for the Sith to call upon. Everything he'd need to know to either escape or outright sabotage the place, should things go very badly.
'Don't let things get to that level, Kenobi,' he thought to himself as he headed to bed.
Obi-Wan awoke the next morning only to find that at some point during his slumber, a starship sized, perfect cube of decorated durasteel had parked itself outside and was now hovering fifty meters off the ground. He hurriedly put on his helmet, having slept in his armor, and let the computer analyze it.
550 meters perfectly on each side and repulsorlift emissions were strong enough that Obi-Wan could well imagine the thing capable of space flight, though whether it was hyperspace capable was debatable.
The local sun was just peaking over the horizon and into the valley of Dooku's compound, which made for a breathtaking view as the sunlight played over the cuboid structure, casting a massive shadow over the area.
He barely had time to appreciate the view before the door to his quarters abruptly opened.
"It is time, come," the magnaguard droid ordered.
He met Greedo in the hallway, but for the first time he spotted new figures there who had emerged from other rooms - eleven of them, from a variety of species, all armed, armored and with the grim air in the Force of experienced killers and hunters.
There were also eight magnaguards arranged in escort formation with electrostaffs, who with curt gestures guided the collection of scum and villainy out of the guest accommodation and into the fresh early morning light.
Dooku and Eval were waiting for them at the end of the walkway that led to the massive landing area, with the giant cube hovering overhead.
"Welcome to Serenno," Dooku said genially. "You have been invited here because you have been judged to be the best bounty hunters the galaxy has to offer." He gestured to a female weequay with an EE3 carbine on her back. "Kiera Swan, two time winner of the Obsidian Sphere."
She acknowledged the praise with a nod and Obi-Wan made a mental note to watch out for this one. The Obsidian Sphere was a well known competition hosted by the largest Bounty Hunters Guild in the galaxy - you had to find and track down an extremely rare black jewel that was in the possession of someone, and you were given very little information to find the holder - who could be anywhere in the galaxy.
"Derrown, known simply as The Exterminator," Dooku gestured to the floating sentient, a parwan. They had a rare lighter than air physiology and had evolved in the upper reaches of their gas giant homeworld. Their three eyes, four leg tentacles and dome head made them rather disconcerting to look at. This one had custom ultra-light blasters holstered into the two bandoliers of power cells that were slung over its chest area.
"Sixtat, the Outlands Butcher." A tall male sakiyan, whose face was covered in a black tattoo that stood out starkly against his pink and red skin. Obi-Wan could passively sense the deaths and screams of Sixtat's victims clinging to the sakiyan in the Force. He had to suppress the shudder that threatened to work its way down his own spine.
"Embo, the most prolific bounty hunter in the galaxy currently, broke the Guild's record this year." The bowcaster armed kyuzo tipped his large brimmed armored hat in modest acknowledgement of the achievement, his segmented orange eyes sparkling with satisfaction.
Obi-Wan was familiar with this one, because he made a point of studying the top bounty hunters on the guild roster and Embo had often worked with the late Cad Bane.
"Greedo, Tatooine's own prolific bounty hunter, also known as Jabba's Blaster." The rodian didn't react to his own accolades being pronounced, his eyes focused on every fellow hunter with suspicion, his hand casually resting near his holstered blaster.
"Rako Hardeen, the Marksman of Concord Dawn."
Obi-Wan only nodded in acknowledgement, keeping his head turned towards Dooku.
"Jakoli, he has the highest kill count among the Guild, with not a single capture," Another rodian and like Sixtat was steeped in death hanging off his spirit like an awful cloak. He gleefully nodded that it was true and was occasionally glaring at Greedo.
"Onca and Bulduga, a pair of legendary bounty hunter brothers who are currently ranked second behind Embo." The two ithorians were glaring at their rival, the latter of whom didn't acknowledge the hostility at all.
"Twazzi, your acrobatic skills once earned you praise from Chancellor Valorum, which you've applied wonderfully to your profession. There is no place she can't get into and rare is the person who can outmatch her reflexes." This was the first time Obi-Wan had seen a frenk up close - they were slender reptilian humanoids with strong flexible legs, overly large black eyes and diamond shaped heads. She was also interestingly armed with a weequay blaster lance and attached bayonet, not a weapon anyone wanted to get close to.
"Sinrich, inventor of the holographic disguise matrix." Obi-Wan knew he'd seen that specific snivvian before from somewhere. Sinrich's large nostrils flared with pride and he smirked at everyone as if to say, 'yes, that was me.' His invention had become a nightmare for security forces around the galaxy and it had also facilitated the attack on the Jedi Temple last year. He was first known as a middling bounty hunter, until his technical skill allowed him to develop the holomatrix - which catapulted his effectiveness and notoriety. He especially liked to disguise himself as the most trusted person closest to his bounty targets, before he pulled out a blaster and stunned them.
"And finally, Mantu," Dooku nodded towards the infamous selkath. "Your people were once a peaceful race known throughout the galaxy as the old stewards of kolto, before its replacement by bacta. How far they have fallen." Most of the galaxy had trouble believing a selkath could kill unless provoked to extreme lengths, they were that pacifistic, but Mantu had single handedly erased that stereotype. He was a hunter who didn't care about collateral damage in pursuing his targets - once destroying an entire space station filled with thousands just to ensure his bounty was dead. Ironically, the bounty on his own head was worth quite a lot and Obi-Wan imagined that a number of hunters around them were quietly debating whether they could pull off collecting.
The problem was that Mantu's destructive tactics generally gave everyone pause and no one wanted to find out what he'd do when cornered. The selkath had a wild sadistic streak that bordered on madness that was clear to sense. Obi-Wan would almost never admit that someone deserved to just be killed, but in the name of protecting future innocents from Mantu's madness he resolved that if the opportunity arose for him to arrange that the selkath fail or have a fatal accident… he wouldn't hesitate.
"In a few moments," Dooku continued, gesturing to the massive cuboid structure. "All thirteen of you will enter what we call the Box."
"You built that entire thing just for this?" Obi-Wan asked flatly.
"It will have other uses in the future Hardeen, but its first official task is for this most important occasion. Now, some of you will not make it out alive. For those who do, we are looking for the five most skilled among you. Any additional survivors will be eliminated to preserve the integrity of the job that awaits you."
Two magnaguards approached with a repulsorlift trolley. "Place all weapons here," it said ominously.
Naturally, all the bounty hunters were rather reluctant to disarm in front of rivals, but they eventually relented with the threat of the magnaguards and Dooku himself watching on. Obi-Wan disarmed as well, attaching the sniper modules to his weapon before placing it on the trolley.
"For those we choose, you will, of course, be paid most handsomely. More than that, you will be a part of an operation remembered as a turning point in the Clone Wars. And when we succeed, we will bring the Republic to its knees."
"Listen up," Eval interjected and Obi-Wan was sure that if it had been any other situation, Dooku would've cut down the phindian in that instant, judging from the look the Sith gave his 'employee'. "The Box was designed by me, Moralo Eval, to simulate certain situations that might happen on the job. Go now and enter the Box, if you have the courage."
Obi-Wan didn't hesitate and began walking, leading the way.
Embo and Greedo fell in step beside him, whilst the others were content to follow.
Floodlights highlighted a single point on the underside of the Box and an invisible tractor beam lowered a five meter wide platform, breaking the smooth outward appearance of the Box's armored exterior.
The platform landed and Obi-Wan, easily banishing his own fear, stepped onto it.
Soon all thirteen contestants were on and Eval tapped a control on his vambrace.
"I'll be seeing you all soon," he smirked ominously as the platform was pulled into the air.
Obi-Wan looked up to get some hint of what was coming as they were buffeted by crosswinds, but only saw bright light from within the Box, streaming down and blinding them to what was beyond.
They were soon swallowed into the cold steel embrace of the structure, in the darkness he could briefly see the cross section of the outer hull - it was definitely thick enough for a starship - before it was replaced by a darkness so complete that his helmet was forced into infrared mode to see anything.
The first thing he noticed was a very familiar pattern - one which any Jedi who'd used the Temple training arenas would recognize - modular grav cubes, the multifunctional technology that allowed all forms of patterns to be encoded into them and simulate all manner of scenarios and surfaces that a Jedi could encounter in a fight. These were also clearly different, changed in ways that he couldn't guess at with a quick look. He had an idle wish for Ahsoka's technometry skills at that moment.
If someone as clever and sadistic as Eval had improved on that technology, he shuddered to think what trials would await them in the next hour.
The platform slowed down until it stopped within a cuboid room fifteen meters in height. It was lit via the grav cubes emitting light from the ceiling in a checkered pattern, whilst the floors and walls were utterly gray, all made up of yet more grav cubes.
Was the entire volume of the Box just filled with cubes? No, it had to have fuel tanks, power source, life support and repulsorlifts at least.
It was an almost stupendous concept. He imagined a starship with an entirely reconfigurable interior that could change as the situation demanded and made a note to tell Ahsoka about it.
The bounty hunters carefully spread out and curiously examined their surroundings, their mannerisms tense.
Every wall in the room came alive with a huge holoscreen, showing Eval's face massive in size and looking down on them with a delighted satisfaction.
Now Obi-Wan was really impressed, integrated compounding holo emitters, definitely an idea to improve the Jedi Temple's own grav cubes.
"Before we begin the first challenge, let me first say there is only one rule inside the Box… there are no rules," Eval's voice boomed at them from every direction.
"Yes, but what is the point of the challenge?" Embo said in his native tongue. Obi-Wan only understood the words through the intent being projected through the Force - a neat little trick that could almost always help bridge language barriers.
"The point, my friend, is to escape quickly, because only the survivors will advance to the next challenge."
The giant holo vanished from the walls.
The tension in the room ratcheted up further as the bounty hunters waited for the first challenge, their eyes scanning the near featureless room.
A cube disappeared with a hiss near Sinrich's feet, almost causing the snivvian to fall into the newly created hole.
Everyone whirled around at the sound and backed away.
Just in time for a vile looking green gas to begin pumping into the room.
Obi-Wan knew immediately what this was, as gas was one of the preferred methods to attack or incapacitate Jedi. Therefore every Jedi from the time they were padawans were trained to recognize every commonly used gas weapon in the galaxy.
"Dioxis! Don't breath it!" He snapped, jumping back immediately.
The hunters scrambled back away from the gas in every direction.
That was until the entire room came alive with pillars rising up out of the floor, one of which picked up Sixtat, causing him to lose balance in surprise and fall.
He quickly got to his feet and jumped back on the slowly rising pillar, "Everyone for themselves!"
The hunters scrambled to find a pillar and Embo decided to take Sixtat's advice, jumping into the air with extreme dexterity, flipping into a somersault whilst kicking the sakiyan off his pillar.
Naturally, there weren't enough pillars for everyone to raise themselves above the heavier-than-air gas.
Fights broke out immediately, as Twazzi easily knocked Jakoli off his pillar to claim it.
Greedo kicked Onco in the face to defend his pillar, whilst his brother struggled against Sinrich for another.
Obi-Wan on his own pillar, delivered a boot to Mantu's face to keep him away and unfortunately the mass murdering selkath didn't fall helplessly into the cloud of deadly gas pooling in the lower ends of the room.
Mantu managed to grab hold of the base of another pillar. He showed impressive strength and climbing skills, pinning his feet onto two separate pillars with only friction holding him up.
Finally, the pillars stopped and equilibrium was achieved between the hunters - the strongest standing, whilst those who couldn't had at least managed to cling to life by following Mantu's example.
"That wasn't so hard," said Sixtat from his own newly claimed pillar, nursing a black eye from fighting Balduga.
Obi-Wan had the irrational urge to Force Push the sakiyan into the gas just for saying that.
Sure enough, Sixtat's pillar rose even higher, threatening to crush him against the ceiling. It forced him to jump off and cling to its sides. Twazzi suffered a similar fate and now only seven pillars remained at a comfortable height with hunters on them. The rest clung to the sides with only Derrown being unbothered by the whole test. The parwan simply floated high in the air, with a spindly hand clutched to a pillar.
"Now what?" asked the floaty sentient.
Eval answered them by moving the entire ceiling downward, and the pillars slowly lowering.
Soon there would be nowhere to hide from the gas.
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- Location
- Canada
Woo! Just as I finished binging the entire story yesterday, does a new chapter come out!
Indeed. I did a full reread a little over a year ago, but I may need to break down and give it another reread from the beginning in a few chapters, see if there's anything noteable I've forgotten about, or if anything in older chapters can be looked at in a different context after taking into account newer chapters.
damn took me a week to get all caught up.
I got to say I love this story
But I wish there was more captain rex and more clone trooper interactions and character development
And please
Develop the clone troopers into characters and the mandalorians
And idea
Get the inhibitor chip out of rex and cody and the arc troopers
And the
Bridg staff the Resolute and The Vigilance
So in case something happens they can hold the bridge and control the ship
But I wish there was more captain rex and more clone trooper interactions and character development
And please
Develop the clone troopers into characters and the mandalorians
And idea
Get the inhibitor chip out of rex and cody and the arc troopers
And the
Bridg staff the Resolute and The Vigilance
So in case something happens they can hold the bridge and control the ship
Last edited:
Chapter 118
New
A/N: The Squid.... sorry... The Box continues... Thanks to Patrons and Super Patrons for helping to keep my starship fueled 
Chapter 118
There had to be a way.
Eval wouldn't make this unsolvable. If no one got out of the first trial, that would be disastrous for him as well. There wasn't enough time for inviting another batch of bounty hunters. Dooku would not be amused at all and probably Force Choke the phindian.
Obi-Wan also couldn't actively use the Force in an overt fashion, lest he compromise his stealth, so he turned to his own mind and the technology in his helmet.
Everyone was looking up, left and right, along the walls for some hidden panel or door.
No, that answer was too obvious. He had spent more than a week in hyper with Eval and while it wasn't memories to be cherished, he had used the Force for some surreptitious mindwalking on the phindian. Eval had a bewilderingly awful mind, but Obi-Wan could with some confidence deduce how the serial killer thought by now.
There was only one way left - down, into the gas itself.
The gas could only enter the room via a gap in the floor after all, which would be at least as big as a single grav cube, which in turn was just under a meter wide.
"The way out is down!" Obi-Wan announced to the hunters. "My helmet can seal itself off for vac ops for a short time. I'll scout a way out!"
He tapped his vambrace controls to engage the helmet seal to the undersuit - a warning appeared in his HUD that there was no external oxygen supply and started counting down the five minute emergency supply that was innately part of the katarn armor's back piece.
A step forward and he was falling into the green haze of gas.
A minor internal use of the Force to strengthen his legs let him easily absorb the fall's energy, which he disguised with a forward roll.
He was now totally surrounded in the deadly gas, unable to see conventionally, but a few quick twitches of his eyes, let him switch through different vision modes - infrared and laser would be befuddled by the gas, but thermal did the trick once he filtered away the gas' temperature from the image result.
It took but a few quick seconds after that to find the gap in the floor from where the gas was being pumped upward.
As he suspected there were four specially modified grav cubes here on all sides of the gap that had an internal supply of dioxis gas.
Beyond that was a small open shaft downward that didn't have the gas, which was being kept from sinking by a minor forcefield.
The timer in his HUD was glaring as it counted down.
There was no choice.
He stepped forward and let gravity take hold.
The small force field yielded to his falling mass, letting him pass to land in the narrow shaft's floor.
Now surrounded by only stacked grav cubes, Obi-Wan was thankful he wasn't claustrophobic.
He tapped each side with his hand-
To his left, the cubes suddenly retreated and made room with echoing thumps of grav fields shifting and briefly colling, until there was a clear escape tunnel branching away.
A tap on his vambrace enhanced the volume of his helmet's vocorder.
"There's a hole in the floor which gets you below the gas line, follow the sound of my voice!"
Obi-Wan hurriedly crawled into the tunnel to get out of the way.
Embo was the first to take the plunge and soon landed in the shaft, quickly followed by Twazzi and Greedo.
He could spare no more thought for them as he crawled further to make room for more of the hunters to escape the gas trap.
The tunnel continued to light itself with holo emitters from every side as they crawled further and further.
His HUD's inertial guidance showed they had crawled for 65 meters before the tunnel stopped and turned upward. There were no handholds, so Obi-Wan was forced to brace his back and legs against either side, using friction and adjustments of his limbs to make the climb.
Twenty meters upward and he finally emerged into a new room.
It was only partially lit but much larger than the gas trap.
He was now standing on a small platform, only a single grav cube wide around the mouth of the climbing tunnel.
Embo and Twazzi jumped out, quickly claiming space to stand. Derrown had somehow managed to bypass Greedo and the rodian looked extremely disgruntled by it, glaring at the parwan.
Soon enough, all twelve hunters were crowding the platform, Onca and Bulduga, due to their size were forced to stay seated with their legs dangling in the tunnel.
The dark room was suddenly lit by Eval's face appearing from every wall, finally giving them a proper sense of the size of this one.
"Moralo Eval is impressed. No deaths from the first challenge."
The platform they were standing on lurched downward, the entire structure turning out to be a tower, which was descending towards the floor of the massive room.
"I guarantee you there will be in this one."
The massive screens vanished, the platform becoming part of the floor and the hunters wearily spread outward to make room for each other.
The space remained generally unlit, with only low level lighting coming from a few cubes.
Obi-Wan cycled his helmet to show algorithm enhanced imagery and caught one of the grav cubes at chest height beginning to open.
He spotted an emitter of some kind emerging.
Greedo was totally unaware of this and Obi-Wan pushed the rodian to the side, jumping in the other direction.
The emitter burst to life with what at first glance was a yellow lightsaber blade, before it surged outward on a horizontal pillar with high speed to impale any unwary hunter.
Many of them managed to dodge as well, but Sinrich was clipped by the edge of the pillar and hit painfully, even as the lightsaber simulator rapidly waved and twitched on an articulation mechanism.
The entire room came alive with grav cubes opening up in random places, lightsaber simulators emerging before lancing outward on pillars that shot into space the hunters occupied.
The pillars also retracted before lancing back in rapidly.
It all created an active deadly maze that was constantly changing, forcing the hunters to constantly move and dodge.
It was not just a matter of basic dodging, as the space you dodged into had the potential to be filled with a solid pillar or lightsaber a moment later.
As Onca found out.
His dodges and movement was admirably quick for an ithorian, but he was so harried by the deadly obstacles that he ended up with his back against the room's wall, a pillar blocking his movement left, whilst to the right and above his head lightsabers were slashing threateningly.
Another pillar shot forward, before running out of length, the lightsaber attachment just centimeters from his flat face.
His sigh of relief was short-lived as the wall behind him came alive, the grav cube stabbing the lightsaber straight through the ithorian's chest.
Obi-Wan felt the death in the Force as he ducked and weaved, vaulting over a lancing horizontal pillar to avoid getting boxed in.
He had to be quite careful to time his prescient battle reflexes in such a way that didn't make it obvious that he was a Jedi, aware that Dooku would spot it instantly. It made for quite an interesting challenge.
It quickly became apparent after increasingly desperate evasive ducks, dodges and jumps, that there existed a small island of safety where the lightsaber pillars didn't reach.
All the hunters gathered there wearily, whilst Obi-Wan could sense Bulduga trying to not let the death of his brother affect his concentration.
The pillars continued their attack and it quickly became apparent that the little island they were standing in was not a stable place, as lightsaber simulators came close to slicing off a number of Derrown's lower tentacles.
The hunters quickly shifted and were soon in a tight back-to-back formation.
Obi-Wan decided to take charge of the situation, as he scanned the rapidly shifting lightsabers and pillars.
"There's a pattern to them. Twazzi, step inward!"
He managed to grab her by the collar and yank her back, just in time for a lightsaber to miss her head by centimeters.
"What pattern? I don't see it!" babbled Jakoli, his voice tinged with panic.
"Look, that one's next," Obi-Wan pointed to a bare stretch of wall. Everyone looked just as pillars emerged in sequence and clearly rising higher in the room, until it intersected with a long pillar that surged forward to stop directly underneath an exit shaft in the ceiling. "See it? If you can time it right, it should be a rather straightforward matter. Just follow and do what I do."
Obi-Wan rushed into the gap of two lancing pillars to jump on the third crossing pillar.
He was pushing off it with another jump before it stopped, his right foot landing on the next pillar in the sequence, the next step up.
The route took him on a spiral around the room as he ascended higher, only stopping for one second to wait for the next step to lance outward in front of him.
"Get moving!" Obi-Wan shouted.
Embo and Twazzi were the first to follow, but a moment's distraction caused Sinrich to pay dearly.
A pillar slammed into him, impaling him through the side on the energy blade and catapulting his body across the room. Another pillar caught him as he flew through the air, where the attached blade practically cut the snivvian in half at the waist.
Derrown had the easiest time of it, using the horizontal pillars to boost his hovering form higher into the air, adjusting his flight to avoid the danger areas by careful inflation of his head bladders and flicking his tentacles with propulsive movements against the air.
Embo, using his natural dexterity, caught up to Obi-Wan at that point, with Twazzi on his heels, as they continued the frantic fluid running and jumping through the lethal three dimensional maze.
Obi-Wan pushed off a pillar, angling his body and weight into a sideways somersault that was just within the realms of conventional skill for a highly trained human. His mind suddenly flashed back to his time in Mortis, where Ahsoka with help from Bentu, had set up her own version of the Jedi Temple training arena. There she had demonstrated a movement system that could've come from the Ataru form, but was refined to the point where even a non Force-sensitive could do it. She had called it Narir, based on the Mandalorian word for the flowing movement of water. Her training arena had looked rather similar to the one he was running through at the moment.
His feet landed and he instantly pushed off again, getting enough height to ascend the next deadly step.
He was forced to duck immediately when his feet had something solid beneath them as a pillar came in from the side to try to impale him.
There was no time to dawdle and he jumped forward onto a pillar that was just coming into full extension, turning left to ascend two quick steps.
He sprinted as fast as he could along it, to avoid crossing pillars with rapidly swerving lightsaber analogues.
At the end was one last long jump which he managed to stick, before running the last few steps to hop upward and into the escape shaft.
He felt another death happen below as he climbed; Bulduga.
That meant both ithorians were dead and given that the race was not exactly known for being fast and limber, it was not really surprising that the brothers would struggle in a deadly maze that required it for survival.
Sinrich's death would be a blow to the general kidnapping endeavour, but it wouldn't surprise Obi-Wan if his possessions were already being raided by Dooku's droids and his body would be examined to unlock the secret of the perfect holomatrix disguise. The technology was out there already, but Sinrich had naturally kept the best version of it to himself.
The climb went on for another five meters before it opened up into a narrow corridor just big enough for someone to stand in.
Obi-Wan stopped a few meters in, pretending to catch his breath a bit.
Embo, Twazzi and Derrown were the first to come into sight, followed by Greedo and Jakoli, who looked to be moments away from a fist fight to the death.
Kiera, Sixtat and a visibly shaken Mantu ascended last.
Obi-Wan nodded at Embo, showing wordless respect, which the kyuzo returned with his own nod.
They continued as a group down the narrow corridor wearily.
He could feel everyone was hyper alert in their own equivalent states of adrenaline release, knowing that the next challenge could come at any time.
It ended after fifty torturous, nerve wracking meters and the only way further was to climb upward.
This one was only a few meters and they emerged into a much smaller room than the others, but it was twenty meters high, giving it cuboid dimensions.
Eval's face appeared on every wall with a satisfied smirk.
"Three down. To get to the next challenge you must pass through my shield."
Three of the room's walls were lit up with a shield that tinted into the red of the visual spectrum. Obi-Wan wondered if there was an actual technical reason or if it was simply chosen that way for the psychological impact. Red was a color most species associated with blood and death, though that wasn't true for everyone.
The shield's geometry began changing before their eyes, moving inward, slowly away from the walls.
A single grav cube on the empty wall changed, displaying a holographic green button, but it retreated backward and was covered with a much smaller red shield.
"Yes, that is the switch to turn off the shield."
A line of grav cubes rose from the floor, before the final one blossomed open, revealing a mounted hypo-injection filled with a luminous green fluid.
"The syringe you see contains an electrolytic serum that will allow you to pass through the shield. However, it is toxic to all but one of you."
Eval's holo faded away as he laughed with amusement.
"If we get this wrong, all of us die, to touch the shield will be instantly lethal," said Embo darkly, as the shield began encroaching further, shrinking the available space
"So it would seem," Obi-Wan agreed, scanning the other hunters and wracking his mind about each species' physiology that he could remember. There was no doubt the serum would be lethal to him - the electrolytics would fry a human nervous system in moments before it even reached the heart.
Eval also wasn't content to give them much time or wait for the shield to slowly fill the space.
The platform containing the serum abruptly rose into the air as a composite platform assembled under it.
Everyone close to the platform jumped to remain on it, clearly seeing the pattern in Eval's tests by now.
Mantu was not quick enough though.
He ran two steps before a new pane of the red shield emerged from the floor and swallowed him up.
"Arrrrgghhllll!" He screamed as his body twitched with the discharge of energy.
He died in the next second, as the energy supercharged his highly liquid selkath physiology.
In moments, the mass murderer's body exploded into chunks of flesh and liberated steam that expanded rapidly in the room.
It was all Obi-Wan could do not to react presciently to the event.
The scalding hot steam and air expansion buffeted the hunters.
Jakoli screamed in pain as a piece of hot flesh landed on his leg. His trouser material melted instantly before he could slap away the flesh and he was left cursing in huttese. He nearly lost his balance but managed to regain it just in time, whilst fighting through the pain.
Obi-Wan calmly brushed the two bits of Mantu that had landed on his chest armor off.
A line of pillars rose from below, creating a walkway to their objective.
Derrown sinuous hand reached for the serum hypo.
"What are you doing?" snapped Greedo, grabbing the parwan's hand.
Derrown babbled in his native language, which being a gas dweller whose native environment was generally filled with odd air densities, was extremely strange to humanoid ears.
Obi-Wan reached forward and pulled Greedo's hand away with enough strength that the rodian winced in pain. "Let him try. He's saying that his blood can handle the serum."
Derrown nodded, "Imrawwn."
Greedo pulled his arms away out of Obi-Wan's grip, allowing the parwan to grab the injector properly and float towards the shielded button.
"Are you sure about this?" Twazzi hissed.
Obi-Wan had recalled all he had studied about the parwan, simply because one of his thesis in the Jedi Academy had been about Jedi Master Obratuk Glii - another parwan, who had been alive more than a century ago. He had been a seasoned diplomat and the first Republic ambassador to approach the hutts to reopen general relations since the Ruusaan Reformation era of the Republic began.
"Fifty-fifty," Obi-Wan answered shortly in Hardeen's style. "Depends on the blood type of the parwan. They use a similar technique to this in their security systems."
Eval wasn't content to just give them the time, now that they had figured out his trial.
The platform suddenly decreased in size, forcing the hunters to squeeze together and Greedo had to jump for one of the pillars.
The shield also began advancing with speed.
"Hurry, use the serum!" Obi-Wan winced as he endured being squeezed by Twazzi and Kiera.
Derrown slammed the hypo into his right arm, his mouth twisting in pain as green electric static discharges arced over his skin, trying to ground itself to his bandoleers.
More of the platform descended, forcing most of the hunters to jump for the few platforms that remained on the path towards the button.
The parwan winced as he began reaching through the shield, which parted before his slender hands thanks to the adjusted bioelectrics.
Obi-Wan sensed that Derrown's biology was under strain from the serum, but it was thankfully not killing him or at least incapacitating him enough so that he couldn't do his job.
In the meantime, the shield had advanced to the point where he could reach out and touch it.
"Hurry!" Greedo shouted.
Derrown was struggling though, the shield still had enough strength that it was making it difficult for the parwan to get enough momentum to move further forward. His bandoleers were also a problem as they didn't have the serum and were being naturally grabbed by the shield.
The button to deactivate the shield retreated further.
"Move you gas bag!" Jakoli cursed.
Obi-Wan turned his body sideways, thinning himself as much as possible.
Embo's armored hat was just about to be touched by the shield.
Derrown screamed and lunged forward with all his strength…
… and hit the button.
The red shield vanished.
Obi-Wan's light adapted eyes struggled in the darkness before lights emerged from every panel in the room and the pillars sank into a new floor level that was generated.
The button Derrown had pushed vanished, the cube and numerous others retreated and rearranged to form a new lit corridor to walk down.
He could sense a malaise of reluctance starting to creep into everyone, something they were hiding outwardly. Obi-Wan was beginning to feel it as well; that trial had been completely out of his control. If Derrown had been slower by a few seconds…
No.
No use thinking about that.
He squared his shoulders and walked onward, leading the way for the rest.
The seven surviving hunters followed.
After a short walk they approached a dead end, which promptly opened up into another cubic room.
This was easily the largest one that had been created thus far. His helmet indicated a total of 100 meter length, width and height. They had walked out onto a platform that hung out into this relatively vast space. Nearby on the platform at hip height were the first grav cubes that were of entirely different dimensions - forming three rectangular cuboids. The corridor behind closed off and Eval's voice began echoing through the space.
"Your next challenge."
The thump of noise drew their attention to the floor fifty meters below.
Every cube opened its upward facing and what looked like blaster barrels emerged from each but what emerged was not plasma bolts.
Flames shot out instead.
It created a massive fiery inferno so strong that Obi-Wan could immediately feel the scalding heat even from their elevated position. All the hunters backed off immediately from the edge of the platform as the hot rising air threatened to give them instant debilitating burns.
"Now it's time to see who among you is truly the best marksman."
The cuboids opened up to reveal eight modified Blastech sniper rifles.
"Oh and don't think you can use these to shoot each other. Their onboard sight computers have been reprogrammed to disallow that. They will also give no aim assistance."
Sixtat was the first to step forward. He grabbed a rifle, aimed at Greedo in a flash and pulled the trigger.
The clicking of the trigger against the finger guard was the only result.
"Just checking," smirked the sakiyan at the enraged face Greedo made in response.
"Ta banthaa poodoo," the rodian swore vociferously in huttese before grabbing his own rifle.
Obi-Wan grabbed a weapon and immediately went through the practiced routine and ritual Hardeen did when familiarizing himself with a new weapon.
First, finding the center of gravity on it by balancing on one hand. Then unloading the power cell and reloading it. Followed by shouldering it and seeing how fast he could adjust his aim against imaginary distant targets.
"Adequate," he pronounced.
"I'm glad it meets your approval, Hardeen," Eval's tone dripped with sarcasm. "Now that all of you are armed. You'll find your weapons have exactly enough charge for 50 low yield shots."
Dozens of holographic lights, in octagonal shapes barely larger than a fist appeared on the walls around the trial room, which then began rapidly moving in random directions along the two primary axes. Their speed also varied from slow to blindingly fast.
"Your task is to shoot as many targets as possible with the shots you have. Only the five best among you will advance, whilst the remaining three, if you have survived at that point, will die."
"What do you mean 'survived'? We can't kill each other with these weapons," Jakoli pointed out.
"Ha ha ha, already forgetting the single rule of the Box? Your contest begins now!"
Sixtat reminded Jakoli of the rule by delivering a kick to the rodian's back, trying to push him off the platform and into the flames, before aiming and taking the first shot, scoring a hit and the first point of the trial.
Every hunter was immediately faced with the choice - attack each other to upset the aim of their rivals or shoot at the targets.
Jakoli was sent flying off the platform and his dying screams echoed through the room as a general melee broke out amongst the hunters.
Embo and Twazzi traded and deflected kicks, including using their own rifles as blunt weapons.
Obi-Wan found himself squaring off against Kiera and Derrown, whilst Sixtat and Greedo immediately laid into each other with knees, kicks and trying to bash in each other's skulls with their rifles.
Derrown pushed off into the air, out of reach and fired twice, scoring two target hits before gravity started pulling him back down.
Obi-Wan swept Kiera's feet out from under her.
Her back smashed into the unforgiving floor, pushing the air out of the female weequay's lungs.
He snapped his weapon up, embraced the Force internally and rapidly shot five times.
All of them scored hits on target.
Derrown's tentacles tried to snag Obi-Wan's rifle, but he was easily able to yank it out of the parwan's grip.
An elbow straight into the chest sent his temporary enemy flying backward to crash against the wall.
Embo and Twazzi's fight nearly bowled him over in the next moment as they jinked, flipped, kicked and punched against each other in contest that would give Ataru masters pause.
Obi-Wan log rolled out of the way, slamming the butt of his rifle against the recovering Kiera's ankle, sending her tumbling to the floor again. She let out a scream of combined pain and frustration.
Sixtat and Greedo had taken to using their rifles as outright melee weapons, using them as staves and clashing them against each other with the clang of durasteel on durasteel.
The latter had the upper hand at the moment and was pushing Sixtat hard towards the edge of the platform.
Sixtat dug in his heels and resisted as hard as he could, but the floors, being made up of dozens of grav cubes, didn't have significant amounts of traction to help really.
The sakiyan suddenly smirked, worming his fingers over to Greedo's rifle and rapidly pulled the trigger.
Four shots spilled randomly outward, hitting the walls and completely missed any target.
At the missed impact points, red holo light flared.
The grav cubes at those points opened, revealing an emitter…
Obi-Wan jumped to his feet just in time to watch four lethal blaster bolts hit Greedo in his left chest and head, turning both to a smoking ruin.
Sixtat's eyes widened in surprise as the ruined body slumped to the floor in death.
"Ah ha ha ha!"
Obi-Wan had never imagined a laugh could sound so cruel and evil. Eval's sinister cackle echoed over the hissing noise of flame below as suddenly every hunter stopped their respective struggles.
"Sorry, forgot to mention that little detail of what happens when you miss a shot. Ha ha. Oh, that was fun to watch. The good news is that there's only six of you left, one more to go!"
Obi-Wan wearily eyed his fellow hunters as they stepped back from each other.
"Fighting each other now is not a good idea," he declared coldly.
Sixtat scoffed, kicking and shoving the remains of Greedo off the platform and into the fires below to make room. "This just makes things more interesting, Hardeen."
"The trial room itself is our greater enemy now. We miss, we die. If we don't put all our concentration into it-"
"Distractions are part of the battlefield! As you should know!"
"Of course, but this is not a battlefield. Now as far as I recall, I'm in the lead with five hits. You're behind, Sixtat."
Embo and Twazzi nodded at each other in both a mutual agreement and respect, before raising their rifles and starting to shoot.
Derrown followed it up, surged into the air and fired twice carefully from his lofty vantage. Each shot hardly had any recoil, but it was enough to push him slightly backward.
Obi-Wan raised his rifle and fired three times rapidly, scoring easy hits on the moving targets.
Sixtat snarled seeing he was falling behind and also began shooting.
Obi-Wan was halfway through his powerpack when the first miss occurred.
"No!" shouted Sixtat in fear and dove to the floor, trying to take shelter behind the larger Twazzi.
Thankfully the emitter that emerged didn't fire, but another opened from the ceiling and nailed the sakiyan in the chest, leaving a crater of smoking, charred flesh in its wake.
"And then there was five!" announced Eval with delight.
The fire emitters died down and a normal floor was quickly reestablished.
The platform lowered itself swiftly down to the same level.
A cuboid door opened on the side and Eval himself stepped out of it, clapping his hands almost in a mocking fashion.
"Well done, my friends," he smirked in satisfaction. "Out of interest, your marksmanship scores are Hardeen in first place, Embo in second, Derrown third, Kiera fourth and Twazzi fifth. Until Sixtat missed, he was actually dead last and wouldn't have survived this round anyway. Now do any of you know why this specific trial was held?"
"I might be the best sniper, but there's no guarantee that circumstances on the mission will let me take the critical shot," Obi-Wan answered.
"Precisely, Hardeen. Despite my plan being objectively perfect, I cannot think or account for every contingency. There is always…" he gestured vaguely with his fingers, "... a chaotic element to factor in. That is where luck and improvisation must make up the difference. As much as I wish it were otherwise."
"Quite, now what's the next trial?"
"Ah ha, good. So glad you caught that, Hardeen. You have a clever tactical mind under that gruff Mandalorian exterior. We have our ideal team of six now, which includes yours truly." He gestured to himself smugly. "Now there's just the matter of who will be our team leader."
"And how will that be determined?"
The entire right wall lit up with a holoscreen, showing Dooku's face grinning down on them.
"I will make that decision, Hardeen," the Sith declared, his voice booming into their ears, not just through volume but also via the Force. "Once I have seen you and Eval fight each other. Such is the true way of things - the strong rule and the weak follow."
Obi-Wan nodded and burst forward in a jump, kicking a surprised Eval at the knees.
The phindian tumbled to the ground.
Obi-Wan aimed his rifle right at his opponent's face and pulled the trigger.
Click.
"Urgh, did you really think that I'd be an exception to the rifle lockouts?" Eval groaned.
"Never hurts to try," Obi-Wan said coldly before swinging the rifle at Eval's head.
The phindian blocked the hit with his armored vambrace and swiftly threw his legs around to gain the momentum to rapidly get to his feet.
He kept the pressure on, as they both traded strikes, kicks and even tried a few grapples.
Eval was remarkably agile and quick. His skill in the unarmed combat arts was there, but it was clearly not his focus. Even if Obi-Wan hadn't called on the Force, he could spot a dozen openings in the phindian's form to dismantle him in seconds. The problem was he had to fight as he knew Hardeen could fight. Something he knew not just thanks to mindwalking the man but also having trained with Ahsoka in Mandalorian styles and during his time as Satine's bodyguard.
Most of those were catered to fighting wearing armor, with flight and close range blaster work, but there were styles made for when you're surprised with no weapons at hand.
Obi-Wan managed to sneak a spade strike through a gap in Eval's own armor around the neck.
The phindian gasped in pain, gagging in reflex but managed to roll backwards to gain some distance.
Just long enough for him to press a button on his vambrace.
His senses screamed in warning and he had to consciously not react until he could see and hear a cube in the ceiling retract and five armed spheroid droids fly out on puffs of gas and repulsorlifts.
They zoomed in with speed, blaster barrels emerging from their small bodies.
He dodged left and right rapidly, immediately seeing their weakness - the barrels weren't independently articulated, the droid had to shift their entire body to aim.
Red bolts missed him to either side as the droids barreled down on his position.
He rolled forward, bringing his rifle to bear and rapidly fired seven bolts as fast his finger could physically cycle on the trigger.
The first droid fell to the floor, disabled.
Obi-Wan rolled forward again to avoid more shots, picking up the disabled droid and hurling it at the next.
Their light chassis weren't armored due to their need for rapid flight - they crumpled into each other, producing a small explosion as their small batteries and tibanna reserves ignited.
The remaining three charged him down, probably trying to explode in a suicide charge on him.
He jumped with all his conventional strength to meet the next droid with a pushing kick.
The chassis crumpled under the blow, sending it directly into the path of the fourth droid.
In the same movement, Obi-Wan hurled his rifle at the fifth.
Minor explosions and smoking droid parts were now strewn across the floor.
"Anything else?" he taunted Eval.
The phindian had used the time to recover his breath and even jammed a stim into his wounded neck.
"I haven't even begun to fight," he boasted, tapping his vambrace again.
Obi-Wan had to roll backward to avoid the suddenly rising floor from upsetting his balance.
A wall emerged between him and Eval that was actually part of a maze that was at least two and a half meters tall.
He burst into a sprint directly into it, easily hearing his opponent's movements through the sound pickups in his helmet. He also cheated a little by simply sensing the phindian's life energies.
With just two turns, he was already catching up to Eval, who was using the narrow walls and his species' natural dexterity for climbing to speed through the maze at a blistering pace.
Eval made it outside the maze first and with the tap of a button, raised a wall right in Obi-Wan's face.
Obi-Wan did not need the screaming warning of the Force at that moment. He jumped backward, then fluidly pushed off the sides of the maze to climb out of it.
Just in time, before every floor and side panel opened to belch scorching hot flame inward.
Obi-Wan immediately pushed off from the maze's upper wall and jumped directly towards the very surprised looking Eval.
He landed with both feet directly on the phindian's armored chest, knocking him hard onto his back.
Obi-Wan straddled his opponent, and sent a right hook straight into Eval's temple, which stunned him thoroughly.
He grabbed both his opponent's arms and rammed them into the floor.
Both vambrace touchscreens shattered, the casing twisted and internal circuitry sparked.
"No more battlefield control for you," Obi-Wan snarled coldly, before jumping off into a backflip to create distance from his opponent.
Eval got to his feet in a rage, rushing forward in pursuit. He jumped into the air, coming down with two overhead fists that Obi-Wan could see coming a mile away.
Very aware of his audience, which included a Sith, he let Eval connect with the hits.
Obi-Wan was driven down and caught an uppercut that threatened to tear his helmet off, as Eval targeted his neck and arms.
He let Eval continue the beating, internally using the Force to dampen the effects but still give a good show.
The phindian grabbed him by the neck and waist, showing an impressive mundane level of strength.
Eval raised Obi-Wan above his head and threw him into the floor with a roaring snarl.
Obi-Wan rolled with the impact and genuflected to his feet, in the same motion beginning a forward sprint.
The serial killer was surprised though by getting a face full of low quality beskar helmet, after Obi-Wan had thrown it.
"Arggh!" The audible crack and shattering of Eval's nose proved enough distraction to let Obi-Wan tackle his opponent around the waist.
Obi-Wan feigned and broadcasted a rage on his now exposed face as he began punching Eval's face in with left and right hooks.
Before a final flat palm strike to Eval's bulbous ear analogue laid the phindian into a senseless bleeding mess below Obi-Wan.
"Finish him, Hardeen," instructed Dooku.
The moment that he had been dreading had arrived ever since the Council had come forward with this plan of infiltration. A moment that Ahsoka had warned him would come as an inevitability.
'It's the nature of eventuality, probability and the Force,' she had said. 'Going undercover has huge risks and it's not really something a traditional Jedi can do. A moment will come where you have to make a choice. If you choose as a Jedi would, you'll be failing the greater mission, even potentially exposing yourself as not really being Rako Hardeen.'
'So I should just… kill to preserve my cover?'
'I'd argue that sometimes not killing can lead to greater evils and promote the Dark Side. If I have a patient before me who is dying of an overgrowth disease, should I not cure it because it would kill the malfunctioning cells?'
Obi-Wan's palm snapped forward again, acting as Hardeen would after having received the order to eliminate a target by a client, ramming straight into Eval's already broken nose, driving the bones straight into the phindian's brain.
He rose to his feet and casually gathered his helmet before putting it on.
Dooku laughed with a low delight, "Excellent. Most excellent, Hardeen." The platform carrying the four other surviving hunters descended, allowing them to join Obi-Wan and look expectantly up at the massive image of Count Dooku. "You have earned your role as leader of this team. To the rest of you, congratulations on having survived the Box. Tomorrow, you will be fully briefed on the plan Eval developed to kidnap Chancellor Palpatine at the Festival of Lights on Naboo. You will have four days to study it and then practice it until you are aware of its every detail and all the possible contingencies. This will continue in your two week journey there. I want there to be no flaws in your execution.
"With the leader of the Republic as our hostage, we will demand the release of all Separatist prisoners. If our demand is not met, the chancellor will be executed. Either way, you will help reshape the galaxy.
"Hardeen is now team leader, all of you effectively work for him now. He has the power of life and death over you, he speaks with my voice and the purse strings of this operation. Is that understood?"
Embo and Twazzi nodded, whilst Kiera scowled but eventually agreed. Derrown merely bobbed up and down in the air to signal his wordless agreement.
"Good. Hardeen, meet me outside, we have much to discuss."
Why does this feel like we're outside a principal's office?
It was an utterly stupid thought that just popped into my head.
Sure if that principal was also secretly a Sith Lord who could explode you with Force Lightning with just a gesture of his hands or even worse, turn the Republic's own strength against you, as what happened to the Ahsoka of another time and space.
I folded my arms under the bust of my beskar'gam and gave a nervous look at the main door leading into the chancellor's office, donning the mask of a padawan seeing the great man leading the Republic.
"Relax Snips," Anakin ordered flatly, from his seat next to me in the secretariat office, his own default mask these days was a grim countenance that hardly ever smiled anymore.
"Yes, master."
My fingers idly drummed on my helmet next to me as we waited.
We had arrived exactly on time for the appointment, but still found ourselves in a queue that had consisted of three CEOs of Coruscant's top companies and a single senator from Hosnia.
The spider weaving more of his web, I thought in the deepest, most protected parts of my mind.
My paranoia and precaution was even more needed now, because at the desk not a few feet away from me was the white eyed, bald visage of Sly Moore, dressed in her usual voluminous Umbaran white robe, that was hung well away from her body. A curtain of material surrounding her that was kept stiff and only allowed flexibility for her arms to emerge. She even had a standing desk as it was utterly impractical to sit with that outfit. Umbaran female fashion always made me think they had taken some inspiration from the Vorlons.
The fact that her planet had almost seceded from the Republic by force of arms into the CIS had seemingly caused no friction in her official position as Palpatine's senior administrative aide and chief of staff.
My senses made an active sweep around the room and beyond - the action of a now battle-hardened, paranoid padawan.
Moore's stealth in the Force was naturally up to the challenge of appearing as an ordinary umbaran, it was as perfect as Palpatine's.
Sidious hardly needed anyone's help in manipulation, but he was just one man who could rarely leave Coruscant. Moore was his other acolyte, one totally unknown to Dooku as far as I knew, who could easily be sent to apply her considerable mental abilities in the Force towards Palpatine's cause.
The doors to the chancellor's office swished open with a hiss and the Hosnian senator left with a dignified unhurried pace, but his emotions were a cloud of rage and frustration.
"The chancellor will see you now, Knight Skywalker, Padawan Tano," said Moore, her voice had an eerie tonality and lilt - another distinct feature of an umbaran female in comparison to their males.
I picked up my helmet as we stood and Anakin bowed slightly in thanks to the aide.
Inside we found Palpatine standing pensively behind his desk, looking out of his expansive floor to ceiling office window.
We stopped at a respectful distance in front of the desk and bowed in the Jedi manner of greeting.
"Chancellor," Anakin said with respect, letting a hint of general frustrated anger show by flexing a jaw muscle slightly.
Palpatine turned around with a genteel smile, his face showing a genuine pleasant surprise, "Ah, Anakin, Ahsoka, is it that time already?"
"Yes, chancellor. Your transport has been waiting for three hours now," Anakin answered with a mild exasperation.
"Politics," Palpatine said as if it explained everything, he stepped forward pushing a button on his desk. "Thank you both for agreeing to augment my security detail, especially during this trying time."
"It's our pleasure, excellency," I said with a mild smile. "We have… moved on from Master Kenobi's death and are ready to return to business as usual." Our inner masks showed otherwise to him.
"Good, good, the war will not wait for anyone to come to terms with loss," he nodded and gestured towards the doors, which opened again to reveal six imposing members of the Red Guard - the chancellery's personal bodyguards.
They wore rather intimidating face concealing helmets with a single strip visor and flowing red robes that also concealed their armor from view. In full view at their sides were force pikes that I could tell, from just one look through technometry, only had a lethal setting.
Anakin and I fell in step behind and on either side of Palpatine, whilst the Red Guard stepped into a box formation around us.
It was rather awkward to maneuver around the secretary's desk, but we managed without bumping or hassle.
In the adjoining corridor as we headed towards the chancellor's personal landing pad, Palpatine patted Anakin's arm. "My boy, another detail. I think I'll put you in charge of my Red Guard for this journey, just to smooth out the chain of command should anything unfortunate happen."
"Thank you, excellency."
Oh, for frak's sake…
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Chapter 118
There had to be a way.
Eval wouldn't make this unsolvable. If no one got out of the first trial, that would be disastrous for him as well. There wasn't enough time for inviting another batch of bounty hunters. Dooku would not be amused at all and probably Force Choke the phindian.
Obi-Wan also couldn't actively use the Force in an overt fashion, lest he compromise his stealth, so he turned to his own mind and the technology in his helmet.
Everyone was looking up, left and right, along the walls for some hidden panel or door.
No, that answer was too obvious. He had spent more than a week in hyper with Eval and while it wasn't memories to be cherished, he had used the Force for some surreptitious mindwalking on the phindian. Eval had a bewilderingly awful mind, but Obi-Wan could with some confidence deduce how the serial killer thought by now.
There was only one way left - down, into the gas itself.
The gas could only enter the room via a gap in the floor after all, which would be at least as big as a single grav cube, which in turn was just under a meter wide.
"The way out is down!" Obi-Wan announced to the hunters. "My helmet can seal itself off for vac ops for a short time. I'll scout a way out!"
He tapped his vambrace controls to engage the helmet seal to the undersuit - a warning appeared in his HUD that there was no external oxygen supply and started counting down the five minute emergency supply that was innately part of the katarn armor's back piece.
A step forward and he was falling into the green haze of gas.
A minor internal use of the Force to strengthen his legs let him easily absorb the fall's energy, which he disguised with a forward roll.
He was now totally surrounded in the deadly gas, unable to see conventionally, but a few quick twitches of his eyes, let him switch through different vision modes - infrared and laser would be befuddled by the gas, but thermal did the trick once he filtered away the gas' temperature from the image result.
It took but a few quick seconds after that to find the gap in the floor from where the gas was being pumped upward.
As he suspected there were four specially modified grav cubes here on all sides of the gap that had an internal supply of dioxis gas.
Beyond that was a small open shaft downward that didn't have the gas, which was being kept from sinking by a minor forcefield.
The timer in his HUD was glaring as it counted down.
There was no choice.
He stepped forward and let gravity take hold.
The small force field yielded to his falling mass, letting him pass to land in the narrow shaft's floor.
Now surrounded by only stacked grav cubes, Obi-Wan was thankful he wasn't claustrophobic.
He tapped each side with his hand-
To his left, the cubes suddenly retreated and made room with echoing thumps of grav fields shifting and briefly colling, until there was a clear escape tunnel branching away.
A tap on his vambrace enhanced the volume of his helmet's vocorder.
"There's a hole in the floor which gets you below the gas line, follow the sound of my voice!"
Obi-Wan hurriedly crawled into the tunnel to get out of the way.
Embo was the first to take the plunge and soon landed in the shaft, quickly followed by Twazzi and Greedo.
He could spare no more thought for them as he crawled further to make room for more of the hunters to escape the gas trap.
The tunnel continued to light itself with holo emitters from every side as they crawled further and further.
His HUD's inertial guidance showed they had crawled for 65 meters before the tunnel stopped and turned upward. There were no handholds, so Obi-Wan was forced to brace his back and legs against either side, using friction and adjustments of his limbs to make the climb.
Twenty meters upward and he finally emerged into a new room.
It was only partially lit but much larger than the gas trap.
He was now standing on a small platform, only a single grav cube wide around the mouth of the climbing tunnel.
Embo and Twazzi jumped out, quickly claiming space to stand. Derrown had somehow managed to bypass Greedo and the rodian looked extremely disgruntled by it, glaring at the parwan.
Soon enough, all twelve hunters were crowding the platform, Onca and Bulduga, due to their size were forced to stay seated with their legs dangling in the tunnel.
The dark room was suddenly lit by Eval's face appearing from every wall, finally giving them a proper sense of the size of this one.
"Moralo Eval is impressed. No deaths from the first challenge."
The platform they were standing on lurched downward, the entire structure turning out to be a tower, which was descending towards the floor of the massive room.
"I guarantee you there will be in this one."
The massive screens vanished, the platform becoming part of the floor and the hunters wearily spread outward to make room for each other.
The space remained generally unlit, with only low level lighting coming from a few cubes.
Obi-Wan cycled his helmet to show algorithm enhanced imagery and caught one of the grav cubes at chest height beginning to open.
He spotted an emitter of some kind emerging.
Greedo was totally unaware of this and Obi-Wan pushed the rodian to the side, jumping in the other direction.
The emitter burst to life with what at first glance was a yellow lightsaber blade, before it surged outward on a horizontal pillar with high speed to impale any unwary hunter.
Many of them managed to dodge as well, but Sinrich was clipped by the edge of the pillar and hit painfully, even as the lightsaber simulator rapidly waved and twitched on an articulation mechanism.
The entire room came alive with grav cubes opening up in random places, lightsaber simulators emerging before lancing outward on pillars that shot into space the hunters occupied.
The pillars also retracted before lancing back in rapidly.
It all created an active deadly maze that was constantly changing, forcing the hunters to constantly move and dodge.
It was not just a matter of basic dodging, as the space you dodged into had the potential to be filled with a solid pillar or lightsaber a moment later.
As Onca found out.
His dodges and movement was admirably quick for an ithorian, but he was so harried by the deadly obstacles that he ended up with his back against the room's wall, a pillar blocking his movement left, whilst to the right and above his head lightsabers were slashing threateningly.
Another pillar shot forward, before running out of length, the lightsaber attachment just centimeters from his flat face.
His sigh of relief was short-lived as the wall behind him came alive, the grav cube stabbing the lightsaber straight through the ithorian's chest.
Obi-Wan felt the death in the Force as he ducked and weaved, vaulting over a lancing horizontal pillar to avoid getting boxed in.
He had to be quite careful to time his prescient battle reflexes in such a way that didn't make it obvious that he was a Jedi, aware that Dooku would spot it instantly. It made for quite an interesting challenge.
It quickly became apparent after increasingly desperate evasive ducks, dodges and jumps, that there existed a small island of safety where the lightsaber pillars didn't reach.
All the hunters gathered there wearily, whilst Obi-Wan could sense Bulduga trying to not let the death of his brother affect his concentration.
The pillars continued their attack and it quickly became apparent that the little island they were standing in was not a stable place, as lightsaber simulators came close to slicing off a number of Derrown's lower tentacles.
The hunters quickly shifted and were soon in a tight back-to-back formation.
Obi-Wan decided to take charge of the situation, as he scanned the rapidly shifting lightsabers and pillars.
"There's a pattern to them. Twazzi, step inward!"
He managed to grab her by the collar and yank her back, just in time for a lightsaber to miss her head by centimeters.
"What pattern? I don't see it!" babbled Jakoli, his voice tinged with panic.
"Look, that one's next," Obi-Wan pointed to a bare stretch of wall. Everyone looked just as pillars emerged in sequence and clearly rising higher in the room, until it intersected with a long pillar that surged forward to stop directly underneath an exit shaft in the ceiling. "See it? If you can time it right, it should be a rather straightforward matter. Just follow and do what I do."
Obi-Wan rushed into the gap of two lancing pillars to jump on the third crossing pillar.
He was pushing off it with another jump before it stopped, his right foot landing on the next pillar in the sequence, the next step up.
The route took him on a spiral around the room as he ascended higher, only stopping for one second to wait for the next step to lance outward in front of him.
"Get moving!" Obi-Wan shouted.
Embo and Twazzi were the first to follow, but a moment's distraction caused Sinrich to pay dearly.
A pillar slammed into him, impaling him through the side on the energy blade and catapulting his body across the room. Another pillar caught him as he flew through the air, where the attached blade practically cut the snivvian in half at the waist.
Derrown had the easiest time of it, using the horizontal pillars to boost his hovering form higher into the air, adjusting his flight to avoid the danger areas by careful inflation of his head bladders and flicking his tentacles with propulsive movements against the air.
Embo, using his natural dexterity, caught up to Obi-Wan at that point, with Twazzi on his heels, as they continued the frantic fluid running and jumping through the lethal three dimensional maze.
Obi-Wan pushed off a pillar, angling his body and weight into a sideways somersault that was just within the realms of conventional skill for a highly trained human. His mind suddenly flashed back to his time in Mortis, where Ahsoka with help from Bentu, had set up her own version of the Jedi Temple training arena. There she had demonstrated a movement system that could've come from the Ataru form, but was refined to the point where even a non Force-sensitive could do it. She had called it Narir, based on the Mandalorian word for the flowing movement of water. Her training arena had looked rather similar to the one he was running through at the moment.
His feet landed and he instantly pushed off again, getting enough height to ascend the next deadly step.
He was forced to duck immediately when his feet had something solid beneath them as a pillar came in from the side to try to impale him.
There was no time to dawdle and he jumped forward onto a pillar that was just coming into full extension, turning left to ascend two quick steps.
He sprinted as fast as he could along it, to avoid crossing pillars with rapidly swerving lightsaber analogues.
At the end was one last long jump which he managed to stick, before running the last few steps to hop upward and into the escape shaft.
He felt another death happen below as he climbed; Bulduga.
That meant both ithorians were dead and given that the race was not exactly known for being fast and limber, it was not really surprising that the brothers would struggle in a deadly maze that required it for survival.
Sinrich's death would be a blow to the general kidnapping endeavour, but it wouldn't surprise Obi-Wan if his possessions were already being raided by Dooku's droids and his body would be examined to unlock the secret of the perfect holomatrix disguise. The technology was out there already, but Sinrich had naturally kept the best version of it to himself.
The climb went on for another five meters before it opened up into a narrow corridor just big enough for someone to stand in.
Obi-Wan stopped a few meters in, pretending to catch his breath a bit.
Embo, Twazzi and Derrown were the first to come into sight, followed by Greedo and Jakoli, who looked to be moments away from a fist fight to the death.
Kiera, Sixtat and a visibly shaken Mantu ascended last.
Obi-Wan nodded at Embo, showing wordless respect, which the kyuzo returned with his own nod.
They continued as a group down the narrow corridor wearily.
He could feel everyone was hyper alert in their own equivalent states of adrenaline release, knowing that the next challenge could come at any time.
It ended after fifty torturous, nerve wracking meters and the only way further was to climb upward.
This one was only a few meters and they emerged into a much smaller room than the others, but it was twenty meters high, giving it cuboid dimensions.
Eval's face appeared on every wall with a satisfied smirk.
"Three down. To get to the next challenge you must pass through my shield."
Three of the room's walls were lit up with a shield that tinted into the red of the visual spectrum. Obi-Wan wondered if there was an actual technical reason or if it was simply chosen that way for the psychological impact. Red was a color most species associated with blood and death, though that wasn't true for everyone.
The shield's geometry began changing before their eyes, moving inward, slowly away from the walls.
A single grav cube on the empty wall changed, displaying a holographic green button, but it retreated backward and was covered with a much smaller red shield.
"Yes, that is the switch to turn off the shield."
A line of grav cubes rose from the floor, before the final one blossomed open, revealing a mounted hypo-injection filled with a luminous green fluid.
"The syringe you see contains an electrolytic serum that will allow you to pass through the shield. However, it is toxic to all but one of you."
Eval's holo faded away as he laughed with amusement.
"If we get this wrong, all of us die, to touch the shield will be instantly lethal," said Embo darkly, as the shield began encroaching further, shrinking the available space
"So it would seem," Obi-Wan agreed, scanning the other hunters and wracking his mind about each species' physiology that he could remember. There was no doubt the serum would be lethal to him - the electrolytics would fry a human nervous system in moments before it even reached the heart.
Eval also wasn't content to give them much time or wait for the shield to slowly fill the space.
The platform containing the serum abruptly rose into the air as a composite platform assembled under it.
Everyone close to the platform jumped to remain on it, clearly seeing the pattern in Eval's tests by now.
Mantu was not quick enough though.
He ran two steps before a new pane of the red shield emerged from the floor and swallowed him up.
"Arrrrgghhllll!" He screamed as his body twitched with the discharge of energy.
He died in the next second, as the energy supercharged his highly liquid selkath physiology.
In moments, the mass murderer's body exploded into chunks of flesh and liberated steam that expanded rapidly in the room.
It was all Obi-Wan could do not to react presciently to the event.
The scalding hot steam and air expansion buffeted the hunters.
Jakoli screamed in pain as a piece of hot flesh landed on his leg. His trouser material melted instantly before he could slap away the flesh and he was left cursing in huttese. He nearly lost his balance but managed to regain it just in time, whilst fighting through the pain.
Obi-Wan calmly brushed the two bits of Mantu that had landed on his chest armor off.
A line of pillars rose from below, creating a walkway to their objective.
Derrown sinuous hand reached for the serum hypo.
"What are you doing?" snapped Greedo, grabbing the parwan's hand.
Derrown babbled in his native language, which being a gas dweller whose native environment was generally filled with odd air densities, was extremely strange to humanoid ears.
Obi-Wan reached forward and pulled Greedo's hand away with enough strength that the rodian winced in pain. "Let him try. He's saying that his blood can handle the serum."
Derrown nodded, "Imrawwn."
Greedo pulled his arms away out of Obi-Wan's grip, allowing the parwan to grab the injector properly and float towards the shielded button.
"Are you sure about this?" Twazzi hissed.
Obi-Wan had recalled all he had studied about the parwan, simply because one of his thesis in the Jedi Academy had been about Jedi Master Obratuk Glii - another parwan, who had been alive more than a century ago. He had been a seasoned diplomat and the first Republic ambassador to approach the hutts to reopen general relations since the Ruusaan Reformation era of the Republic began.
"Fifty-fifty," Obi-Wan answered shortly in Hardeen's style. "Depends on the blood type of the parwan. They use a similar technique to this in their security systems."
Eval wasn't content to just give them the time, now that they had figured out his trial.
The platform suddenly decreased in size, forcing the hunters to squeeze together and Greedo had to jump for one of the pillars.
The shield also began advancing with speed.
"Hurry, use the serum!" Obi-Wan winced as he endured being squeezed by Twazzi and Kiera.
Derrown slammed the hypo into his right arm, his mouth twisting in pain as green electric static discharges arced over his skin, trying to ground itself to his bandoleers.
More of the platform descended, forcing most of the hunters to jump for the few platforms that remained on the path towards the button.
The parwan winced as he began reaching through the shield, which parted before his slender hands thanks to the adjusted bioelectrics.
Obi-Wan sensed that Derrown's biology was under strain from the serum, but it was thankfully not killing him or at least incapacitating him enough so that he couldn't do his job.
In the meantime, the shield had advanced to the point where he could reach out and touch it.
"Hurry!" Greedo shouted.
Derrown was struggling though, the shield still had enough strength that it was making it difficult for the parwan to get enough momentum to move further forward. His bandoleers were also a problem as they didn't have the serum and were being naturally grabbed by the shield.
The button to deactivate the shield retreated further.
"Move you gas bag!" Jakoli cursed.
Obi-Wan turned his body sideways, thinning himself as much as possible.
Embo's armored hat was just about to be touched by the shield.
Derrown screamed and lunged forward with all his strength…
… and hit the button.
The red shield vanished.
Obi-Wan's light adapted eyes struggled in the darkness before lights emerged from every panel in the room and the pillars sank into a new floor level that was generated.
The button Derrown had pushed vanished, the cube and numerous others retreated and rearranged to form a new lit corridor to walk down.
He could sense a malaise of reluctance starting to creep into everyone, something they were hiding outwardly. Obi-Wan was beginning to feel it as well; that trial had been completely out of his control. If Derrown had been slower by a few seconds…
No.
No use thinking about that.
He squared his shoulders and walked onward, leading the way for the rest.
The seven surviving hunters followed.
After a short walk they approached a dead end, which promptly opened up into another cubic room.
This was easily the largest one that had been created thus far. His helmet indicated a total of 100 meter length, width and height. They had walked out onto a platform that hung out into this relatively vast space. Nearby on the platform at hip height were the first grav cubes that were of entirely different dimensions - forming three rectangular cuboids. The corridor behind closed off and Eval's voice began echoing through the space.
"Your next challenge."
The thump of noise drew their attention to the floor fifty meters below.
Every cube opened its upward facing and what looked like blaster barrels emerged from each but what emerged was not plasma bolts.
Flames shot out instead.
It created a massive fiery inferno so strong that Obi-Wan could immediately feel the scalding heat even from their elevated position. All the hunters backed off immediately from the edge of the platform as the hot rising air threatened to give them instant debilitating burns.
"Now it's time to see who among you is truly the best marksman."
The cuboids opened up to reveal eight modified Blastech sniper rifles.
"Oh and don't think you can use these to shoot each other. Their onboard sight computers have been reprogrammed to disallow that. They will also give no aim assistance."
Sixtat was the first to step forward. He grabbed a rifle, aimed at Greedo in a flash and pulled the trigger.
The clicking of the trigger against the finger guard was the only result.
"Just checking," smirked the sakiyan at the enraged face Greedo made in response.
"Ta banthaa poodoo," the rodian swore vociferously in huttese before grabbing his own rifle.
Obi-Wan grabbed a weapon and immediately went through the practiced routine and ritual Hardeen did when familiarizing himself with a new weapon.
First, finding the center of gravity on it by balancing on one hand. Then unloading the power cell and reloading it. Followed by shouldering it and seeing how fast he could adjust his aim against imaginary distant targets.
"Adequate," he pronounced.
"I'm glad it meets your approval, Hardeen," Eval's tone dripped with sarcasm. "Now that all of you are armed. You'll find your weapons have exactly enough charge for 50 low yield shots."
Dozens of holographic lights, in octagonal shapes barely larger than a fist appeared on the walls around the trial room, which then began rapidly moving in random directions along the two primary axes. Their speed also varied from slow to blindingly fast.
"Your task is to shoot as many targets as possible with the shots you have. Only the five best among you will advance, whilst the remaining three, if you have survived at that point, will die."
"What do you mean 'survived'? We can't kill each other with these weapons," Jakoli pointed out.
"Ha ha ha, already forgetting the single rule of the Box? Your contest begins now!"
Sixtat reminded Jakoli of the rule by delivering a kick to the rodian's back, trying to push him off the platform and into the flames, before aiming and taking the first shot, scoring a hit and the first point of the trial.
Every hunter was immediately faced with the choice - attack each other to upset the aim of their rivals or shoot at the targets.
Jakoli was sent flying off the platform and his dying screams echoed through the room as a general melee broke out amongst the hunters.
Embo and Twazzi traded and deflected kicks, including using their own rifles as blunt weapons.
Obi-Wan found himself squaring off against Kiera and Derrown, whilst Sixtat and Greedo immediately laid into each other with knees, kicks and trying to bash in each other's skulls with their rifles.
Derrown pushed off into the air, out of reach and fired twice, scoring two target hits before gravity started pulling him back down.
Obi-Wan swept Kiera's feet out from under her.
Her back smashed into the unforgiving floor, pushing the air out of the female weequay's lungs.
He snapped his weapon up, embraced the Force internally and rapidly shot five times.
All of them scored hits on target.
Derrown's tentacles tried to snag Obi-Wan's rifle, but he was easily able to yank it out of the parwan's grip.
An elbow straight into the chest sent his temporary enemy flying backward to crash against the wall.
Embo and Twazzi's fight nearly bowled him over in the next moment as they jinked, flipped, kicked and punched against each other in contest that would give Ataru masters pause.
Obi-Wan log rolled out of the way, slamming the butt of his rifle against the recovering Kiera's ankle, sending her tumbling to the floor again. She let out a scream of combined pain and frustration.
Sixtat and Greedo had taken to using their rifles as outright melee weapons, using them as staves and clashing them against each other with the clang of durasteel on durasteel.
The latter had the upper hand at the moment and was pushing Sixtat hard towards the edge of the platform.
Sixtat dug in his heels and resisted as hard as he could, but the floors, being made up of dozens of grav cubes, didn't have significant amounts of traction to help really.
The sakiyan suddenly smirked, worming his fingers over to Greedo's rifle and rapidly pulled the trigger.
Four shots spilled randomly outward, hitting the walls and completely missed any target.
At the missed impact points, red holo light flared.
The grav cubes at those points opened, revealing an emitter…
Obi-Wan jumped to his feet just in time to watch four lethal blaster bolts hit Greedo in his left chest and head, turning both to a smoking ruin.
Sixtat's eyes widened in surprise as the ruined body slumped to the floor in death.
"Ah ha ha ha!"
Obi-Wan had never imagined a laugh could sound so cruel and evil. Eval's sinister cackle echoed over the hissing noise of flame below as suddenly every hunter stopped their respective struggles.
"Sorry, forgot to mention that little detail of what happens when you miss a shot. Ha ha. Oh, that was fun to watch. The good news is that there's only six of you left, one more to go!"
Obi-Wan wearily eyed his fellow hunters as they stepped back from each other.
"Fighting each other now is not a good idea," he declared coldly.
Sixtat scoffed, kicking and shoving the remains of Greedo off the platform and into the fires below to make room. "This just makes things more interesting, Hardeen."
"The trial room itself is our greater enemy now. We miss, we die. If we don't put all our concentration into it-"
"Distractions are part of the battlefield! As you should know!"
"Of course, but this is not a battlefield. Now as far as I recall, I'm in the lead with five hits. You're behind, Sixtat."
Embo and Twazzi nodded at each other in both a mutual agreement and respect, before raising their rifles and starting to shoot.
Derrown followed it up, surged into the air and fired twice carefully from his lofty vantage. Each shot hardly had any recoil, but it was enough to push him slightly backward.
Obi-Wan raised his rifle and fired three times rapidly, scoring easy hits on the moving targets.
Sixtat snarled seeing he was falling behind and also began shooting.
Obi-Wan was halfway through his powerpack when the first miss occurred.
"No!" shouted Sixtat in fear and dove to the floor, trying to take shelter behind the larger Twazzi.
Thankfully the emitter that emerged didn't fire, but another opened from the ceiling and nailed the sakiyan in the chest, leaving a crater of smoking, charred flesh in its wake.
"And then there was five!" announced Eval with delight.
The fire emitters died down and a normal floor was quickly reestablished.
The platform lowered itself swiftly down to the same level.
A cuboid door opened on the side and Eval himself stepped out of it, clapping his hands almost in a mocking fashion.
"Well done, my friends," he smirked in satisfaction. "Out of interest, your marksmanship scores are Hardeen in first place, Embo in second, Derrown third, Kiera fourth and Twazzi fifth. Until Sixtat missed, he was actually dead last and wouldn't have survived this round anyway. Now do any of you know why this specific trial was held?"
"I might be the best sniper, but there's no guarantee that circumstances on the mission will let me take the critical shot," Obi-Wan answered.
"Precisely, Hardeen. Despite my plan being objectively perfect, I cannot think or account for every contingency. There is always…" he gestured vaguely with his fingers, "... a chaotic element to factor in. That is where luck and improvisation must make up the difference. As much as I wish it were otherwise."
"Quite, now what's the next trial?"
"Ah ha, good. So glad you caught that, Hardeen. You have a clever tactical mind under that gruff Mandalorian exterior. We have our ideal team of six now, which includes yours truly." He gestured to himself smugly. "Now there's just the matter of who will be our team leader."
"And how will that be determined?"
The entire right wall lit up with a holoscreen, showing Dooku's face grinning down on them.
"I will make that decision, Hardeen," the Sith declared, his voice booming into their ears, not just through volume but also via the Force. "Once I have seen you and Eval fight each other. Such is the true way of things - the strong rule and the weak follow."
Obi-Wan nodded and burst forward in a jump, kicking a surprised Eval at the knees.
The phindian tumbled to the ground.
Obi-Wan aimed his rifle right at his opponent's face and pulled the trigger.
Click.
"Urgh, did you really think that I'd be an exception to the rifle lockouts?" Eval groaned.
"Never hurts to try," Obi-Wan said coldly before swinging the rifle at Eval's head.
The phindian blocked the hit with his armored vambrace and swiftly threw his legs around to gain the momentum to rapidly get to his feet.
He kept the pressure on, as they both traded strikes, kicks and even tried a few grapples.
Eval was remarkably agile and quick. His skill in the unarmed combat arts was there, but it was clearly not his focus. Even if Obi-Wan hadn't called on the Force, he could spot a dozen openings in the phindian's form to dismantle him in seconds. The problem was he had to fight as he knew Hardeen could fight. Something he knew not just thanks to mindwalking the man but also having trained with Ahsoka in Mandalorian styles and during his time as Satine's bodyguard.
Most of those were catered to fighting wearing armor, with flight and close range blaster work, but there were styles made for when you're surprised with no weapons at hand.
Obi-Wan managed to sneak a spade strike through a gap in Eval's own armor around the neck.
The phindian gasped in pain, gagging in reflex but managed to roll backwards to gain some distance.
Just long enough for him to press a button on his vambrace.
His senses screamed in warning and he had to consciously not react until he could see and hear a cube in the ceiling retract and five armed spheroid droids fly out on puffs of gas and repulsorlifts.
They zoomed in with speed, blaster barrels emerging from their small bodies.
He dodged left and right rapidly, immediately seeing their weakness - the barrels weren't independently articulated, the droid had to shift their entire body to aim.
Red bolts missed him to either side as the droids barreled down on his position.
He rolled forward, bringing his rifle to bear and rapidly fired seven bolts as fast his finger could physically cycle on the trigger.
The first droid fell to the floor, disabled.
Obi-Wan rolled forward again to avoid more shots, picking up the disabled droid and hurling it at the next.
Their light chassis weren't armored due to their need for rapid flight - they crumpled into each other, producing a small explosion as their small batteries and tibanna reserves ignited.
The remaining three charged him down, probably trying to explode in a suicide charge on him.
He jumped with all his conventional strength to meet the next droid with a pushing kick.
The chassis crumpled under the blow, sending it directly into the path of the fourth droid.
In the same movement, Obi-Wan hurled his rifle at the fifth.
Minor explosions and smoking droid parts were now strewn across the floor.
"Anything else?" he taunted Eval.
The phindian had used the time to recover his breath and even jammed a stim into his wounded neck.
"I haven't even begun to fight," he boasted, tapping his vambrace again.
Obi-Wan had to roll backward to avoid the suddenly rising floor from upsetting his balance.
A wall emerged between him and Eval that was actually part of a maze that was at least two and a half meters tall.
He burst into a sprint directly into it, easily hearing his opponent's movements through the sound pickups in his helmet. He also cheated a little by simply sensing the phindian's life energies.
With just two turns, he was already catching up to Eval, who was using the narrow walls and his species' natural dexterity for climbing to speed through the maze at a blistering pace.
Eval made it outside the maze first and with the tap of a button, raised a wall right in Obi-Wan's face.
Obi-Wan did not need the screaming warning of the Force at that moment. He jumped backward, then fluidly pushed off the sides of the maze to climb out of it.
Just in time, before every floor and side panel opened to belch scorching hot flame inward.
Obi-Wan immediately pushed off from the maze's upper wall and jumped directly towards the very surprised looking Eval.
He landed with both feet directly on the phindian's armored chest, knocking him hard onto his back.
Obi-Wan straddled his opponent, and sent a right hook straight into Eval's temple, which stunned him thoroughly.
He grabbed both his opponent's arms and rammed them into the floor.
Both vambrace touchscreens shattered, the casing twisted and internal circuitry sparked.
"No more battlefield control for you," Obi-Wan snarled coldly, before jumping off into a backflip to create distance from his opponent.
Eval got to his feet in a rage, rushing forward in pursuit. He jumped into the air, coming down with two overhead fists that Obi-Wan could see coming a mile away.
Very aware of his audience, which included a Sith, he let Eval connect with the hits.
Obi-Wan was driven down and caught an uppercut that threatened to tear his helmet off, as Eval targeted his neck and arms.
He let Eval continue the beating, internally using the Force to dampen the effects but still give a good show.
The phindian grabbed him by the neck and waist, showing an impressive mundane level of strength.
Eval raised Obi-Wan above his head and threw him into the floor with a roaring snarl.
Obi-Wan rolled with the impact and genuflected to his feet, in the same motion beginning a forward sprint.
The serial killer was surprised though by getting a face full of low quality beskar helmet, after Obi-Wan had thrown it.
"Arggh!" The audible crack and shattering of Eval's nose proved enough distraction to let Obi-Wan tackle his opponent around the waist.
Obi-Wan feigned and broadcasted a rage on his now exposed face as he began punching Eval's face in with left and right hooks.
Before a final flat palm strike to Eval's bulbous ear analogue laid the phindian into a senseless bleeding mess below Obi-Wan.
"Finish him, Hardeen," instructed Dooku.
The moment that he had been dreading had arrived ever since the Council had come forward with this plan of infiltration. A moment that Ahsoka had warned him would come as an inevitability.
'It's the nature of eventuality, probability and the Force,' she had said. 'Going undercover has huge risks and it's not really something a traditional Jedi can do. A moment will come where you have to make a choice. If you choose as a Jedi would, you'll be failing the greater mission, even potentially exposing yourself as not really being Rako Hardeen.'
'So I should just… kill to preserve my cover?'
'I'd argue that sometimes not killing can lead to greater evils and promote the Dark Side. If I have a patient before me who is dying of an overgrowth disease, should I not cure it because it would kill the malfunctioning cells?'
Obi-Wan's palm snapped forward again, acting as Hardeen would after having received the order to eliminate a target by a client, ramming straight into Eval's already broken nose, driving the bones straight into the phindian's brain.
He rose to his feet and casually gathered his helmet before putting it on.
Dooku laughed with a low delight, "Excellent. Most excellent, Hardeen." The platform carrying the four other surviving hunters descended, allowing them to join Obi-Wan and look expectantly up at the massive image of Count Dooku. "You have earned your role as leader of this team. To the rest of you, congratulations on having survived the Box. Tomorrow, you will be fully briefed on the plan Eval developed to kidnap Chancellor Palpatine at the Festival of Lights on Naboo. You will have four days to study it and then practice it until you are aware of its every detail and all the possible contingencies. This will continue in your two week journey there. I want there to be no flaws in your execution.
"With the leader of the Republic as our hostage, we will demand the release of all Separatist prisoners. If our demand is not met, the chancellor will be executed. Either way, you will help reshape the galaxy.
"Hardeen is now team leader, all of you effectively work for him now. He has the power of life and death over you, he speaks with my voice and the purse strings of this operation. Is that understood?"
Embo and Twazzi nodded, whilst Kiera scowled but eventually agreed. Derrown merely bobbed up and down in the air to signal his wordless agreement.
"Good. Hardeen, meet me outside, we have much to discuss."
Why does this feel like we're outside a principal's office?
It was an utterly stupid thought that just popped into my head.
Sure if that principal was also secretly a Sith Lord who could explode you with Force Lightning with just a gesture of his hands or even worse, turn the Republic's own strength against you, as what happened to the Ahsoka of another time and space.
I folded my arms under the bust of my beskar'gam and gave a nervous look at the main door leading into the chancellor's office, donning the mask of a padawan seeing the great man leading the Republic.
"Relax Snips," Anakin ordered flatly, from his seat next to me in the secretariat office, his own default mask these days was a grim countenance that hardly ever smiled anymore.
"Yes, master."
My fingers idly drummed on my helmet next to me as we waited.
We had arrived exactly on time for the appointment, but still found ourselves in a queue that had consisted of three CEOs of Coruscant's top companies and a single senator from Hosnia.
The spider weaving more of his web, I thought in the deepest, most protected parts of my mind.
My paranoia and precaution was even more needed now, because at the desk not a few feet away from me was the white eyed, bald visage of Sly Moore, dressed in her usual voluminous Umbaran white robe, that was hung well away from her body. A curtain of material surrounding her that was kept stiff and only allowed flexibility for her arms to emerge. She even had a standing desk as it was utterly impractical to sit with that outfit. Umbaran female fashion always made me think they had taken some inspiration from the Vorlons.
The fact that her planet had almost seceded from the Republic by force of arms into the CIS had seemingly caused no friction in her official position as Palpatine's senior administrative aide and chief of staff.
My senses made an active sweep around the room and beyond - the action of a now battle-hardened, paranoid padawan.
Moore's stealth in the Force was naturally up to the challenge of appearing as an ordinary umbaran, it was as perfect as Palpatine's.
Sidious hardly needed anyone's help in manipulation, but he was just one man who could rarely leave Coruscant. Moore was his other acolyte, one totally unknown to Dooku as far as I knew, who could easily be sent to apply her considerable mental abilities in the Force towards Palpatine's cause.
The doors to the chancellor's office swished open with a hiss and the Hosnian senator left with a dignified unhurried pace, but his emotions were a cloud of rage and frustration.
"The chancellor will see you now, Knight Skywalker, Padawan Tano," said Moore, her voice had an eerie tonality and lilt - another distinct feature of an umbaran female in comparison to their males.
I picked up my helmet as we stood and Anakin bowed slightly in thanks to the aide.
Inside we found Palpatine standing pensively behind his desk, looking out of his expansive floor to ceiling office window.
We stopped at a respectful distance in front of the desk and bowed in the Jedi manner of greeting.
"Chancellor," Anakin said with respect, letting a hint of general frustrated anger show by flexing a jaw muscle slightly.
Palpatine turned around with a genteel smile, his face showing a genuine pleasant surprise, "Ah, Anakin, Ahsoka, is it that time already?"
"Yes, chancellor. Your transport has been waiting for three hours now," Anakin answered with a mild exasperation.
"Politics," Palpatine said as if it explained everything, he stepped forward pushing a button on his desk. "Thank you both for agreeing to augment my security detail, especially during this trying time."
"It's our pleasure, excellency," I said with a mild smile. "We have… moved on from Master Kenobi's death and are ready to return to business as usual." Our inner masks showed otherwise to him.
"Good, good, the war will not wait for anyone to come to terms with loss," he nodded and gestured towards the doors, which opened again to reveal six imposing members of the Red Guard - the chancellery's personal bodyguards.
They wore rather intimidating face concealing helmets with a single strip visor and flowing red robes that also concealed their armor from view. In full view at their sides were force pikes that I could tell, from just one look through technometry, only had a lethal setting.
Anakin and I fell in step behind and on either side of Palpatine, whilst the Red Guard stepped into a box formation around us.
It was rather awkward to maneuver around the secretary's desk, but we managed without bumping or hassle.
In the adjoining corridor as we headed towards the chancellor's personal landing pad, Palpatine patted Anakin's arm. "My boy, another detail. I think I'll put you in charge of my Red Guard for this journey, just to smooth out the chain of command should anything unfortunate happen."
"Thank you, excellency."
Oh, for frak's sake…
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I hope Kenobi also doesn't talk without checking for bug's lol
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- Location
- Germany
I do hope the two will be able to find each other in thte end, their Slap, Slap, Kiss-type relationship is a wonder to behold, but they deserve a happy conclusion.
As for forgiving Obi-Wan... maybe Satine needs to give the Negotiator a good spanking?
