Chapter Text
He was just about ready to get off this stupid rock of a planet, and it wasn’t difficult to tell that everyone around him was in a similar mood.
They would already be back on Coruscant, if it weren’t for the almost continuous flood of battle droids.
Obi-Wan flicked his lightsaber up to block a stray blaster bolt before dropping behind a rocky outcrop and letting his tired arms fall to his side, lightsaber retracting. The battle lulled for a second as the fourth furious push for the day eased, clones racing for cover while lines of blaster fire still racked the air around their heads. Obi-Wan, tired as he was, could sense the tension, frustration and exhaustion colouring the Force around all of the 212th, and, somewhere to the east, the continued fighting of Anakin, Ahsoka and the 501st.
Cody clattered up, firing two shots over Obi-Wan’s head towards the mass of droids, then dropped into a crouch next to the Jedi general. Obi-Wan looked over at him, noting the amount of scorch marks scoring his once-white armour.
“Cody—” Obi-Wan started, but was interrupted as a large shell fell from the sky, screaming a song of death towards the ground. Both the Jedi and the commander covered their faces and turned away as heat radiated outwards and the ground shook, sending rubble and dust into the air. Obi-Wan flinched as too many Force signatures flicked out, crushed or shot in the aftermath, looking down as a clone helmet rolled away from the blast, heart heavy.
“Yes, General?” Cody flicked a red hot stone off his forearm bracer and peered up over the rock they were concealed behind.
“Have you heard anything from Rex? I can’t get Anakin on the comms—” Another shell shattered into the ground, a little closer this time; starting to get too close for comfort. “—after my bracer shattered and broke my wrist comm with it.”
“Nothing,” Cody responded, ducking back into cover. “There’s been nothing but silence from the lot of them.” Even though his helmet was on, and Obi-Wan couldn’t see his face, he didn’t need to. Cody’s anxiety and tiredness were bleeding into the Force, drifting around him like ink in water, slowly lapping against Obi-Wan’s shields. The clone commander never gave up, but there was apprehension in his thoughts now― not that he’d ever admit it out loud.
“Do you think we’ve got enough for one last push?” Obi-Wan knew he could draw on the Force for a little longer to keep him upright, but the entire legion was on the far edge of their endurance: everyone needed a hot meal and several good night’s sleep.
“If we have to, Sir.” Cody responded diplomatically. So, no. Not really.
Obi-Wan took a deep breath, releasing it slowly to shed at least some of his own anxieties, then twisted to peer over the rock towards the line of droids.
The vast majority of them were just the standard battle droids; weak individually, but designed for numbers. Among them were some super battle droids, grey and imposing. A few tanks were placed behind a small amount of cover further back, being hurriedly reloaded to fire more shells down on the heads of the sheltering clones. Obi-Wan’s eyes flicked along the droid’s lines before scanning the land between the two fronts.
Little cover, but we’re coming up to a slight valley. Enough to funnel them in? Maybe. The walls aren’t that high— Those tanks are just on the other side; I could draw the droids' fire for a while while Cody gets clones up on the ridge….
“What are you thinking, General?”
“Who says I was thinking anything, Cody?” Obi-Wan answered distractedly while he continued to put together a desperate plan.
“You’ve got that look about you is all, Sir.”
Obi-Wan’s lips twitched into a small smile, before he ducked back down behind full cover again. “And what’s that look, Commander?”
Cody shifted his weight from his left foot onto his right. “That look. You know the one.”
Obi-Wan thought for a moment, then conceded. “You’re right. I do know it. I see it all too often on my former Padawan’s face.” And when I do, it often doesn’t go well…
“So what were you thinking?” Cody prompted, after a soft chuckle.
Obi-Wan leant forward, hand scratching the side of his jaw for a second. “Alright. Here’s what I’ve got.”
The ground was uneven here, cracked and scorched black. Obi-Wan placed his feet carefully, concealed from the enemy’s gaze by a thick screen of smoke, deployed only a couple of seconds ago. He could sense the clones starting to move, rallied by Cody and the solidity of a plan, filing up to the tops of the valley’s walls. Cody’s distinctive signature was directing everyone into place with calm urgency. A particularly uneven stone threatened to send him to the ground, so Obi-Wan drew himself back, trusting that the clones would get to where they needed to be. The smoke swirled around his boots as he made his way forward, still careful to not trip.
The droids’ fire had stopped when the smoke bomb had gone off— a commanding droid was probably being contacted, so he didn’t have much time. He wasn’t really in the mood to get shot to pieces.
His lightsaber was loosely held, not ignited, but ready to use as Obi-Wan finally made it to the rapidly thinning edge of the smoke. Carefully covering the light, Obi-Wan activated his commlink. It blinked twice red, then green.
“We’re all in position, sir. Ready when you are.”
Alright. Obi-Wan tried not to think about how this was really something Anakin was better at doing and rolled his shoulders, trying to loosen the soreness of a two-day long skirmish. He took a deep breath, letting himself sink a little into the Force, allowing its light to ease some of the tiredness and the pain. Now, feeling calm and poised, Obi-Wan opened his eyes, lifted his weight onto the balls of his feet and Force-sprinted out of the smoke, igniting his saber.
There was a moment of silence as Obi-Wan raced along the uneven surface of the no-man’s-land, the Force guiding where he placed his feet. Then a droid spotted him and called out, pointing with a two-fingered hand and alerting the aimlessly milling droids to the Jedi’s presence, and the moment was broken. Blasters were leveled, Obi-Wan drew his lightsaber up in a defensive position and chaos resumed.
When the clones saw their General sprinting out of the smoke, Cody pointed down at the clustered droids.
“Give ‘em hell, boys!” He roared and started to fire.
The rest of his legion were quick to follow, raining blaster bolts down on the droids with glee, their numbers quickly dropping. The droid’s fire was entirely focused on the small figure of Obi-Wan, lightsaber spinning in an almost ceaseless motion as he deflected bolt after bolt back towards the senders. Once again, Cody was reminded of the Jedi’s power as the wirey General continued to run flat-out towards the droids. Once or twice, Cody saw a bolt make it past General Kenobi’s guard but the man didn’t even flinch, still flicking droids to the ground with their own fire.
The droids had now realised that there were soldiers up above them as well and were starting to divert their barrage away from the lone Jedi and up to the clones. Cody’s jaw clenched when pained cries began to echo across their comm lines, but he didn’t stop his own bombardment; the blaster in his gloved hands growing hot with continuous fire.
Obi-Wan barely felt the burning lines that peppered his torso and limbs, didn't feel the screaming of his muscles as he continued to run towards the diminishing line of droids. He only concentrated on the motion of his lightsaber in his hand; spin up, drop down left, cut across, down, right up. His trance-like connection through the Force kept the blade from flying out of his hands at the speed it was going, and stopped Obi-Wan snapping an ankle on the treacherous ground. The droids were close now: a few of the retreat’s stragglers had already fallen under his blade, molten metal from the cuts spraying up and sizzling small holes in his tunic.
He didn’t feel the burn.
He had reached the main group now, mind vaguely noticing that the clone’s fire had moved with the droids, Cody’s shouted commands stopping the clones accidentally taking out their General. His lightsaber hummed and spat as he cut through battle droid after droid, scything a large swatch out of their numbers.
Jumping up and flipping mid-air, he deflected three blasts before landing on the roof of the nearest tank. He ripped the hatch open and stabbed the droid inside before launching himself off the side and back down into the battle. Obi-Wan once again began his tirade, cutting down four or five droids around him— but now the Force warned danger and Obi-Wan only had a second before the recently-clone-blasted remains of a droid slammed into his chest. Obi-Wan staggered, foot sliding backward to regain balance, but in a series of unfortunate events, the curved barrel of a discarded blaster caught under his heel. Obi-Wan had time only to retract his saber before crashing to the ground, his Force trance shattering like glass.
All of the battle hit him at once.
Obi-Wan groaned through gritted teeth, every blaster burn now on fire . A searing headache slammed itself into his brain, crumbling his shields and almost sending him into unconsciousness. Only sheer willpower kept him from surrendering to it.
Through flickering vision and burning pain, Obi-Wan tore himself free of the droid to block a bolt from another, tunic sleeve tearing almost to the elbow. Molten metal from the clone’s blaster hole scorched into the droid’s chest dripped onto his skin and he bit back a scream, but he didn’t have time to stop, the battle forcing him to raise his lightsaber again to dispatch another two droids. With his shields in tatters, Obi-Wan felt a flicker of concern across his bond with Anakin, but his former apprentice was too far away, too far to help.
The droids numbers were patchy now, the clone’s rain of blaster fire cutting through their ranks. Obi-Wan vaguely registered one of the tanks blowing up under several rocket-launched attacks before he fell to his knees again. His right arm was now numb up to his shoulder so he reached over and picked up his lightsaber with his left hand, forcing himself to his feet again, legs shaking.
The Force now felt far away, dangerously out of reach, but Obi-Wan dragged yet more of its power into his heart, feeling the warmth scorch through his bones. Come on, Kenobi. Get up. GET UP. He forced his trembling legs to move, taking a step forward and weakly thrusting his saber through the chest of a battle droid who was not so sneakily trying to clobber him with its blaster. Another step forward, another droid. Another, another. One more. One more. Slice to the left, spin up, stab down. One more. Another.
Obi-Wan blinked. The last droid he had sliced through was spitting sparks at his feet, but there wasn’t another one behind it. Where’d they all go?
Obi-Wan looked around blearily, vision black at the edges, head throbbing. The battlefield was strewn with droid parts and snapping wires, small electrical fires guttering in droid’s chests, lighting everything in odd shades of orange. Obi-Wan stumbled forward, momentum abruptly halted, and clenched his eyes shut against the pain. His hold on the Force was slipping like water through his fingers and he barely stayed standing as Cody ran up to him, throwing his blaster to the side.
Cody only just managed to catch General Kenobi as the Jedi’s eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed like a rather burnt-looking rag doll.