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The Force Wills - Chapter 118
🕑 Added 2025-01-31 12:39:11 +0000 UTCThere 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 endeavor, 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.”
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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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A/N: Insidious Palpatine will act, insidiously ;-) The Box has such nasty potential and CW being mostly aimed at a younger audience, they couldn't really develop it further. Not a problem here though. Hope you enjoyed and have a great weekend. Stay awesome folks.
Comments
Sai
Putting him in charge of the Red Guard? That’s a bold attempt at trying to foreshadow
Green One
Now time to walk the mental tightrope of calculated reactions and emotions while a Sith Lord picks and pokes at you.
