Chapter Text
Asajj Ventress’s fortress on Rattatak, one year after the beginning of the Clone Wars.
After two months of interrogation and unspeakable torture, Obi-Wan and Alpha—the clone trooper who was captured along with him on Jabiim—were finally escaping. They killed the last two guards standing in their way and ran out of the fortress onto a small landing pad. There was a single ship sitting on it, most likely Ventress’s personal shuttle.
“Alpha, take off as fast as you can! I’ll hold her off!” Obi-Wan shouted, already turning around. Alpha nodded and ran towards the ship.
Obi-Wan hoped Alpha was going to hurry. The two months of torture and very little food had left him with barely enough energy to walk. The adrenaline and hope had given him the strength to get this far, but the last bits of his energy were quickly fading. He had only minutes left before his legs gave out on him for good. He just hoped that they would both be in the air by then.
He took a deep breath, drawing the Force around himself, and ignited the two lightsabers again.
The blue lightsaber in his right hand was his own. The green one in his left once belonged to the Jedi Knight who had crashed on this planet many years ago and who had trained Ventress as a child. His name had been lost, but his lightsaber was not. Obi-Wan and Alpha had found the green lightsaber at the foot of the dead Jedi’s statue while fleeing through the fortress. Obi-Wan had decided to take the lightsaber with them and bring it back to the Temple. It belonged there, not in the hands of that monster.
Asajj Ventress appeared on the landing pad, seething with fury, her two red lightsabers already ignited.
“You filthy thief and defiler!” she screeched, almost spitting with rage as she recognized the green lightsaber in Obi-Wan’s hand. “I know that lightsaber, and you do not deserve to wield it!”
She leapt towards him and attacked him in a blind rage. Obi-Wan only barely managed to fend off her blows. He wasn’t able to make even a single counter-attack. All he could do was desperately deflect her blades to the side or avoid them entirely, retreating the whole time.
Ventress’s strikes were brutal, vicious. The fight has only been going on for seconds, and he was already breathing heavily, his hands shaking with exhaustion. He could feel his strength rapidly fading with each strike he had to block. He was quickly growing weaker and she knew it.
The force of Ventress’s next blow made Obi-Wan stumble backwards and almost lose his balance.
Ventress cackled. “What’s wrong, false Jedi? Tired already?”
Obi-Wan didn’t have the air or energy to answer. His arms and legs felt like lead, and the edges of his vision were beginning to turn worryingly blurry. Ventress’s next strike knocked the green lightsaber out of his hand, producing another loud laugh from her.
Force, Alpha, please hurry up . I’m almost out of time.
Obi-Wan no longer had the strength left to even block her strikes. All he could do was avoid them and retreat. He had only several seconds left before he would be cornered at the edge of the landing platform, and then it would be game over. Darkly, he wondered if she was planning to stab him to death or push him over the edge into the bottomless void below.
Obi-Wan gathered what little strength he still had and used the Force to shove her backwards as hard as he could, hoping to buy a few precious more seconds. The effects of the push were pathetic. Ventress stumbled backwards, not even falling, and quickly regained her balance. She laughed again. Using the Force to push the opponent away like that was a sign of desperation, they both knew it.
At last, the ship’s engines roared into life and it lifted off into the air. Obi-Wan used the final bit of his strength to shove Ventress backwards again, and leap onto the ship’s landing ramp as it rose into the air. His legs gave out immediately and he crashed to his knees and hands, gasping for breath. He didn’t even have the strength to reach for the button to close the landing ramp, and had to use the Force to press it.
The ramp closed, throwing Obi-Wan onto the floor of the ship. Alpha gunned the engines. The ship shot upwards as fast as its engines could carry it, heading towards the edge of the planet’s gravity well. They needed to jump to hyperspace before Ventress could find another ship and chase them.
Obi-Wan tried to get up, in case Alpha needed help in the cockpit, but it was immediately clear that it wasn’t happening. His energy was completely spent. He couldn’t move his arms and legs at all. He didn’t even have the strength to lift his head from the floor. He lay on his back helplessly, breathing heavily, every muscle in his body shaking with absolute exhaustion.
The darkness at the edges of his vision closed in completely, and everything went black.