Chapter Text
Negotiations Will Be Short:
In a bold move, General Grievous and the CIS launch an attack on the planet of Ilum in the hopes of seizing the Jedi kyber crystals. In retaliation, the Republic sends Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and his 212th attack battalion to drive off the Separatist Forces.
“General, we really need to stop meeting like this.” Obi-Wan said. His lightsaber already ignited and ready for combat.
“Kenobi! Your lightsaber will make a fine...” General Grievous was cut off as Separatist fire shook the Venator-Class star destroyer, which forced him to support himself in a wall. Across the other side of the hallway, Obi-Wan also struggled to maintain his footing.
“Those fools!” Grievous said as he stood up again. “I told them not to target this ship!”
“Well, that’s what you get for working with droids.” Obi-Wan said, twirling his lightsaber along with a step back, positioning himself in a Soresu stance.
Grievous ignited two lightsabers, one in each of his hands and, with a growl, pounced at Obi-Wan. The Jedi master swatted one of the blades aside and ducked beneath the other one, he spun on his feet and went for a strike at Grievous’ back, which the Kaleesh cyborg caught with one of his sabers before kicking Kenobi away.
Obi-Wan rolled on his back and jumped back to his feet. And that was when he heard it, the clanking of battle droids. Grievous was a formidable warrior on his own, but with droid support, there was no chance Obi-Wan would make it out of that ship alive.
Grievous jumped, aiming both of his lightsabers for a downwards strike at Obi-Wan, who retaliated letting loose a force push that sent the cyborg barreling back through the hallway. Grievous managed to regain his composure and stuck his lightsabers in the ground, slowing himself down until he finally stopped beside a platoon of B1 battle droids.
“General. I didn’t expect to see you here.” One of the droids said.
“Shut up and kill Kenobi!” Grievous screamed at the clankers.
“Roger roger.” It replied before the platoon turned and began firing blaster bolts at Obi-Wan. He moved his lightsaber deftly, reflecting the bolts back to the droids and some of them aimed at Grievous, the droid general to take cover.
“Well General, it has definitely been a pleasure seeing you again.” Obi-Wan said as he reflected one last bolt and turned around, speeding out of there while enhancing his capabilities with the force, towards the hangar.
When he arrived, he saw some clones pinned down by droids, both B1 and B2. Obi-Wan had no idea how they had managed to board his ship so easily, but it didn’t matter anymore.
Obi-Wan jumped straight into the fray. Using the force to enhance his jump, he landed and sliced 2 droids with a single horizontal swing. The droids turned and started firing at him, but he simply deflected the blaster fire back to them.
Upon seeing that the Jedi had started destroying the droids, the clones acted.
“Go, go, go boys!” One of them shouted, encouraging his brothers to fight. With the support of the clones, Obi-Wan made short work of the remaining droid forces in the hangar, destroying the last remaining B2 battle droid with an overhead lightsaber strike.
Obi-Wan deactivated his lightsaber and turned to the clones. “Board these ships, we don’t have much time. Unless we get reinforcements, this battle is lost.” he said.
“Yes sir.” They said in unison, before rushing off to evacuate. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan headed to an Eta-2 Actis-class Jedi starfighter with a built-in hyperdrive, one that Anakin had modified himself. He got into the cockpit of the ship and flew out of the hangar quickly. When he got out of the hangar, Obi-Wan found himself in an all out naval battle, with vulture droids and clone starfighters engaging in several close range skirmishes.
Obi-Wan maneuvered his starfighter with surgical precision, destroying vulture droids both with his laser and ion cannons. Behind him, the Venator Class star destroyer he was in exploded, it’s ray shields giving out before the continued Separatist assault.
But far away, he spotted a ship destroy two Clone Z-95 starfighters, with more agility and precision than any droid fighter could. It was without a doubt General Grievous. Obi-Wan opened fire on the Soulless One, but Grievous dodged the laser barrage and opened fire back, forcing Obi-Wan to veer off course. Grievous, of course, pursued.
“He really doesn’t know when to give up.” The Jedi said to himself as the droid general fired at him relentlessly. Then, Kenobi’s comlink beeped, which he answered immediately.
“General Kenobi.” Commander Cody’s voice came through Obi-Wan’s comlink.
“Cody! Glad to hear you’re still alive.” Obi-Wan said in return.
“General, we are getting Jedi reinforcements, General Luminara is on her way.” Cody informed Obi-Wan.
“Well then, perhaps this battle is not lost yet, but,” Obi-Wan said, struggling to dodge Grievous’ relentless attack, “I’m afraid I won’t be here to see them arrive. I’ll be jumping to hyperspace.”
“General, you’re headed for the unknown regions.” The clone commander said.
“I’m aware, but not to worry, I’ll make the jump and turn right back around. Besides, I can’t seem to shake off Grievous.”
“Understood, General.” Cody said and cut off the transmission.
And so, Obi-Wan set the navicomputer to make the necessary calculations for the jump to hyperspace. While it did that, Grievous managed to hit the ship, though the starfighter’s shields held up. With the calculations complete, Obi-Wan prepared to make the jump, but Grievous fired another shot, this time, the ray-shields managed to take the brunt of the impact but some of the damage got through and hit the starfighter directly.
The impact shook the small fighter and Obi-Wan to the core, making him hit his head with the controls of the ship, which knocked him unconscious momentarily. But he had already made the jump to hyperspace.
Obi-Wan awoke and shook his head, trying to shake off most of the impact. “At least it seems he didn’t hit anything critical.” He said, just before being interrupted by the incessant beeping of the navicomputer. Obi-Wan took a glance at the screen.
“Oh, not good.”
The ship was abruptly pulled out of hyperspace, which forced Obi-Wan to hold on tight to the controls of the ship. When he recovered, he looked around, only to see a lone star ahead of him, no planets in his immediate vicinity and both the hyperdrive and the engines of the ship damaged.
He drifted in space for a while until he realized the ship was moving, consequence of a gravitational pull. Then, it was hit by a small piece of debris, that awakened Kenobi’s curiosity, who turned the ship around only to find a small, shattered moon that was most definitely not there a minute before.
A moon can’t have such a strong gravitational pull, Kenobi thought.
He let the ship continue to be pulled towards the moon, and then, watched in awe as an entire planet started materializing in front of his eyes. Not only that, there were also large amounts of space debris, likely from the moon itself.
The pull was also growing stronger the closer he got to the planet, so he got to work. Grabbing a hold of the ship controls, he did his best to maneuver around the debris spread throughout the planet’s atmosphere, avoiding bigger debris that would destroy the ship were he to crash with them, some of the smaller fragments of the moon hit the ship but weren’t nearly enough to break through the hull.
When Obi-Wan entered the stratosphere of the planet, he got a view of the planet, with 4 visible continents and an island off the coast of the easternmost continent. He also realized he was headed directly to the continent in the north, the only one covered entirely by snow. The Jedi master tried to direct his flight path, but because of his damaged engine, it would be impossible to do so without slamming in the ocean, so he let the ship follow its course.
Getting nearer, he spotted a big city and a floating city, which quickly ended up becoming his secondary concern, since he was more preoccupied with not crashing directly to the ground.
His path came to an end as he approached a big wasteland, with nothing but snow as far as he could see. He prepared the landing gear of the ship and made contact with the snow, he held tightly anything he could get a hold of as the ship slid for several meters until coming to a halt.
“Flying is definitely for droids.” Obi-Wan said, taking a moment to gather his bearings before trying to open the cockpit so he could get out of the ship. When it wouldn’t budge, he used the force to open it forcibly and jumped out.
He landed in the snow and took a deep breath. Turning around, he saw the damage of the ship. It was rendered completely useless, with smoke emanating out of almost every part of the ship. It was a wonder he was still alive
I don’t think even Anakin could fix this, at least not while stranded, Obi-Wan thought. Jumping back on top of the ship, he realized that, while the fighter was unable to fly, most of the inner workings of it were intact, or at least in a state to be repaired.
Then, he felt a disturbance through the force, turning around, he saw several creatures, at least a dozen, standing far away from him, observing. They stood on their 4 legs, with pitch black skin, bone plates in their shoulders and ribs, with very large canines emerging from their maw and spikes emerging from their backs.
But their terrifying appearance wasn’t what bothered Obi-Wan the most, it was the way they felt through the Force. Emanating an endless bloodlust, rage, hate, emotions that belonged to those that followed the Dark Side, and, most importantly, the fact that the force avoided them like the plague, those things were unliving creatures. Aberrations in the force.
“The local wildlife, perhaps?” Obi-Wan said to himself, not a moment sooner as one of the creatures charged at him, with the rest of them following closely. Obi-Wan ignited his Jedi weapon and prepared for the confrontation with the beasts.
“Your mom, Summer, would be proud of you.” Qrow told Ruby. She smiled at this, but her smile faded away and she looked at the ground before speaking again.
“Her last mission...”
“Qrow!” Clover shouted, bursting from the tunnel and startling all of the celebrating, newly licensed huntsmen. “We’re leaving, and you need to come with us.”
Both Qrow and Ruby were startled, but he recovered quickly.
“Right, we’ll talk later, kiddo.” He said.
Qrow jumped from the stands where he and Ruby were talking and landed besides Clover, who immediately started sprinting back where he had come from, Qrow followed right behind.
“What’s going on?” Qrow asked.
“I don’t know, the General will brief us when we get on the Manta.” Clover replied.
Qrow continued following Clover down the tunnel, coming out to find the rest of the Ace-Ops already geared up with their weapons at the ready.
“Catch.” Harriet told him, throwing Harbinger at him.
Qrow caught his weapon and put it on his back. All of them mounted the Manta and took off quickly. Qrow took a seat in front of Harriet, waiting for James to brief them on what the hell had them in such a hurry.
Qrow watched Clover connect his scroll in the Manta, and then James’ voice reverberated in the entire vessel.
“Ace-Ops, Qrow. One of our radar operators back in Atlas has detected an object moving at high speed coming straight to Solitas from outer space. A ship, to be exact.” Ironwood briefed.
“Wait, a ship? Like a spaceship?” Qrow asked incredulously.
“Yes, Qrow. Images were also taken, they have been sent to your scrolls.” James answered.
Immediately after, every scroll on the ship beeped, and all of them glanced at the screens of their devices-
“That doesn’t look like an asteroid,” Marrow said.
“Because it isn’t,” Harriet replied.
“It looks like it’s damaged,” Elm remarked.
“Yes, it’s emanating smoke,” Vine said.
The rest of the ride was silent. The Ace-Ops and Qrow waiting to arrive at their destination.
“We’ll land over here,” Clover said, “we’ll continue on foot.”
The group of huntsmen jumped out of the ship, leaving the pilot to land the ship on his own. They walked through the snow, climbing a small hill. On the top, they spotted a lone, armored man inspecting what they supposed was the ship. Clad in white armor consisting of a gorget around his collar, bracers, armguards, and greaves, along with a rough-sewn tunic, all over a black bodysuit.
“That’s a lot of dead Sabyrs,” Qrow said with a whistle, realizing there were at least more than a dozen dead Grimm behind the man.
“Yes. Harriet, restrain him,” Clover told the speedster.
“Roger that,” She said, throwing the gravity bolas at the unknown man. The restraining tool flew through the air, but just as they were about to hit him, he turned around, activating a blue laser blade and cutting straight through them, both halves of it falling harmlessly to the ground.
“He’s fast,” Qrow noted, mostly to himself. He prepared Harbinger, while the Ace-Ops did the same with their own weapons, Marrow took aim with his rifle at the man. He eyed them for a second, seemingly just realizing they were there. Then he did what any sensible person in his position would do.
“I surrender,” he said. He retracted his weapon back inside it’s hilt, and then threw it to the ground, where it sank slightly in the snow.
“He’s alive! I can feel it!” Anakin all but screamed at the Jedi council.
“Know that alive Obi-Wan is, I do. Know where he is, we do not.” The small grandmaster of the order replied.
“And that’s exactly why we need to look for him. There is a chance that-”
“Anakin,” Master Windu’s voice interrupted him, “I understand your frustration, I really do. But if, like you and master Yoda say, master Kenobi is indeed alive, we need to wait until he can contact us before we are able to do something.”
“Besides, vital to the war effort you are, young Skywalker. Send you in a pointless search in the outer rim, we will not.” Yoda said.
Anger bubbled within him. But, deep down, Anakin knew they were right.
“I… I understand, master,” Anakin relented.
“Go, young Skywalker. And know that we are not taking this decision lightly.” Windu said.
Anakin bowed his head and turned around, stepping outside of the doors of the council’s chamber, where his padawan awaited him.
“How did it go?” Ahsoka asked as she walked towards him.
“They said Obi-Wan needs to contact us before we can do anything,” The young Jedi Knight said.
“But if he’s lost in the unknown regions, how would he do that?” The togruta girl said.
“I know, Ahsoka. I know,” Anakin replied, both of them walking together to whatever campaign of the war awaited them next.