Chapter Text
Obi-Wan had not planned on ending back on Fett’s ship anytime soon.
Yet here he was.
And really, after all that effort into getting a ship he wasn’t pleased with the fact that he was being forced to leave it behind for now. But apparently Fett thought that if Obi-Wan had his own ship he’d try and get away.
Which, all right, Fett maybe had a point. Obi-Wan was very busy right now and he didn’t have time for Fett and whatever he wanted.
He still had more droid foundries to find and convince to join his army. Still had to put together a manifesto of some sort to present to both Republic and Separatists. Something that would hold up politically, but built in with compromises he was willing to make so that he could be convinced to ‘concede’ once the imminent threat of war had passed and both governments remembered that there was such a thing as ‘diplomacy’ and ‘negotiations’. Which unfortunately everyone seemed to have forgotten.
But no, now he was being delayed by Fett.
He, R2, and their four escort droids had been ‘welcomed’ back onto Slave I.
Boba had been sent to do his homework and R2 had hooked back up to the ship to ‘talk’, which Obi-Wan found oddly endearing.
The four droids that had been escorting him and R2 were somewhat awkwardly settling in the cargo hold, which left Obi-Wan with Fett in the cockpit.
Obi-Wan should probably ask what it was Fett wanted, but Obi-Wan was tired and he found it more productive to stare at the stars and mentally readjust his plans and begin re-composing the manifesto he planned to send to the Republic as Fett prepared them for hyperspace
Unfortunately, Fett didn’t seem inclined to waste time. “You stole my ship and kidnapped my kid. In any other circumstances even one of those acts would be deserving of a blaster bolt through your throat.”
Obi-Wan turned a little, because yes, he was well aware that was what Fett would like to do, but Obi-Wan didn’t have the time to waste on this. “Yes, well, either get on with it or get over it.”
Fett snorted, but Obi-Wan sensed a hint of amusement from the bounty hunter. “And most people would be smart enough not to be quite so antagonistic.”
“Yes, well, I’m very busy Fett.”
Fett turned in his seat, and the look he gave Obi-Wan was sharp and assessing. “Yes, I can see that. Six droid foundries in a month. I’m fairly certain I can account for every moment of your time, between traveling, recruiting your new army, and destroying the foundries behind you so that they can’t be put to work creating more armies since you’ve stolen theirs.”
Obi-Wan shrugged, he had said he was busy. “I take it you have a point to all this?”
Fett tilted his head, and Obi-Wan had no doubt that he was currently being judged. “What exactly is your plan when they start sending the clone army after you?”
Obi-Wan was still working on that part of the plan. “I haven’t figured out details.” He didn’t like the thought of senselessly murdering them because the Republic was being foolish. He could try and stun them and take them hostage, but he didn’t have the resources to care for that many people. He could stun them and then send them back to the Republic, but that would just result in a never-ending cycle.
He was making things up as he went and inwardly despairing about that fact.
“Have you considered recruiting them?”
Obi-Wan had actually. “I imagine they’d be much harder to convince then the droids, and even if I could convince them, there’s the problem that the Kaminoans would almost certainly report me to the Republic or the Jedi if I tried to steal their army.”
“Not if they don’t realize you’re no longer a Jedi. If you’re just there to pick up your army, and you happen to have the trusted progenitor there helping you.”
Obi-Wan frowned, the way Fett said it made it seem like Fett had been thinking about this for a while. “Is this your ‘proposition’ as you called it?” He leaned forward. “What do you get out of it?”
Fett scowled at him. “That’s none of your concern.”
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. “You’re making it my concern by pulling me into it.”
Fett leaned forward in a copy of Obi-Wan’s position, and he was practically right in Obi-Wan’s space now. “Listen, Jetii, you want to save your worthless Republic, anyone with any sense can see that. Your methods are bizarre, yes, but they might just work, but only if you’re willing to go all the way. And right now, I’m willing to help you do that.” Fett’s voice was a low snarl. “Does it benefit me? I’m not a charity, so obviously, it’ll be benefitting me. But you don’t need to know my personal motivations, are we clear?”
Obi-Wan had to put in effort to not roll his eyes. He refused to be intimidated by the bounty hunter, no matter how dangerous a man he was. “First, I’m not longer a Jedi, Fett. It’s the only reason I can do this. And second, if your personal motivations start getting in the way of me protecting this Republic, then—”
“Don’t worry yourself, Kenobi. Fortunately for you, our motivations are aligned.”
For now, at least. Obi-Wan considered it a moment longer, but then decided that for now he’d let it be. Obi-Wan had worked with far more dubiously immoral characters than Fett before. And well, from a lot of perspectives, Obi-Wan probably looked dubiously immoral as well. He mentally flinched at the thought.
It was fine though, he told himself, his own reputation and perceived character was wholly secondary.
“What do you want from me, Fett?”
Fett stared a moment longer before nodding, apparently satisfied with whatever he saw, and leaning back in his chair again. “I want you to steal the clone army, I would have thought we’d made that clear.”
“And beyond that?”
Fett turned away from him to stare at the viewport. “I don’t really care beyond that. Do what you will.”
It was a lie, Obi-Wan was fairly certain of that. But also… not. Obi-Wan shook his head. Trying to understand Fett was likely a useless endeavor and not exactly a mystery that Obi-Wan thought he needed to prioritize trying to unravel right now.
He’d try and recruit the clone army to his cause, and then whether he failed or succeeded he and Fett would hopefully never cross paths again.
He didn’t think he could count on getting lucky twice, when it came to keeping Fett from wanting to kill him.
He stood, stretching. “I assume we’re headed to Kamino then?” he asked. Fett seemed the sort to assume he’d get what he wanted and just go forward with his plans regardless of getting an agreement.
“Yes.”
Obi-Wan nodded. “I’m going to be in your hold, speaking with R2 if you need me.”
Fett waved a hand at him in what was clear dismissal and Obi-Wan couldn’t quite stop himself from making a face at him.
He headed out of the cockpit and back to the main hold. R2 was still hooked up to the ship and the four other droids had temporarily shut themself down. Obi-Wan took a seat on the floor beside R2.
He might as well try to meditate while he waited for R2 to be ready to talk.
Of course, the moment he closed his eyes and started settling into something resembling peaceful meditation, the Force niggled at him that he was being watched.
Even with the warning, Obi-Wan was hard pressed not to flinch back when he opened his eyes to find Boba three inches away.
“Is there something I can do for you, Boba?”
“What were you doing?” Boba asked, and the keen look in his eyes warned Obi-Wan that this wasn’t just idle curiosity.
“I was meditating.”
Boba nodded and then immediately dismissed it. “I almost poked you.”
Obi-Wan tilted his head in question. “I see.”
“Does that mean I’d have been able to kill you? Does that mean I win?”
Obi-Wan blinked a few times. “No, that’s… not what that means.”
“But, I totally could have! You were all out of it and not paying attention!” Boba’s eyes were bright and excited, clearly delighted at the thought of having finally gotten one over on him. Obi-Wan was almost tempted to give it to Boba.
But he had raised a ten year old before.
He pursed his lips as though in thought. “I see what you’re saying. You might have poked me, but did you poke me?”
Boba narrowed his eyes. “No.”
“Then how do you know you could have?”
Boba frowned at that and Obi-Wan had no doubt about what was about to happen next.
Obi-Wan leaned back and to the side as Boba’s hand flashed forward, catching Boba when the sudden lunge knocked him off balance. The boy wriggled a little in his arms, and Obi-Wan could feel a slight embarrassment in the Force.
Obi-Wan gently settled Boba back on his knees. “A nice effort.”
“But predictable,” Boba muttered, looking up at him with a pout.
Obi-Wan fought down a smile. “It was a little predictable, yes.”
“So what could I have done that wouldn’t have been predictable?”
Obi-Wan shrugged. “Well, that’s not really something I can tell you, is it? Then you’ll become predictable.”
“Well, I wouldn’t use it on you,” Boba argued. “I’d use it on someone else.”
They were interrupted by R2 disengaging from the ship and whistling derogatorily.
“Yeah, well I could take you.” Boba sent R2 a mutinous glare.
Before R2 could respond to that with the offense that Obi-Wan had no doubt R2 felt, and before Fett could walk in on Obi-Wan being a passive observer to his kid and Obi-Wan’s droid arguing, Obi-Wan interrupted. “Perhaps this ship has seen enough mess for now, and we can avoid the two of you having another fight.”
A moment later Fett stepped into the hold. “I was wondering what happened that had caused my ship to need a cleaning. I don’t think the floors have been that clean since I’ve had it.”
Obi-Wan paused, but regretted it when Boba immediately jumped in with his version of the story. “In order to kill Obi-Wan I had to fight pass R2! But R2 couldn’t keep up with me, so he sprayed oil everywhere to try and stop me. It didn’t work though!”
Well, that had a… passing resemblance to the truth.
Fett nodded, and his eyes had the look of someone who had heard this story before. “Yes, at which point, Obi-Wan decided to clean up after himself.” Fett was watching him, and there was amusement in his eyes, though Obi-Wan wasn’t certain what he found amusing. Surely not that Obi-Wan had cleaned up the spilled oil? That was only common courtesy.
“Yes, well, it was a mess.”
Fett tilted his head as though observing him. “You do have the look of a neat-nick.”
Obi-Wan huffed at that. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Fett hummed. “I haven’t decided.”
“You can help me clean my room if you want,” Boba offered, smiling up at Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan found he wasn’t certain if Boba genuinely thought it was a kind offer or if he really just didn’t want to have to clean his room and hoped Obi-Wan would. “It’s always kind of a mess.”
Fett answered before Obi-Wan could. “Nice try, Boba. You still need to clean your own room.”
Obi-Wan shrugged. “You heard your buir.”
Boba sighed.
“That was an instruction for now, Boba.”
Boba pouted, but headed off. Obi-Wan watched him go. “How many attempts on my life should I expect on our way to Kamino?”
Fett shrugged. “A few.” Obi-Wan could handle the attempts from Boba, but Obi-Wan really hoped that he wouldn’t have to see any of those attempts coming from Fett. He hadn’t signed up for that.
R2 let out a mournful whistle.
Obi-Wan sent the droid a hurt look. “That’s not fair, R2, I haven’t died yet.”
Both Fett and R2 let out disbelieving sounds, as though they weren’t sure how he was still alive. Which really, that wasn’t fair. These were very special circumstances he’d found himself in, and it was hardly fair for them to judge him on this.
He was a very rational, put together person… most of the time.
“I’m going to make dinner, any allergies?”
“Hoi broth.” Obi-Wan sent a narrow-eyed look up at Fett. “Which is not an invitation to spike my food with it.”
Fett grinned at him, it was not a nice grin, though it looked unfairly good on Fett’s face. “I’ll save any attempts on your life until after I’ve gotten what I want from you.”
“Fair enough.” Hopefully someone new would have ticked Fett off by then and earned Fett’s less-than-desirable attentions.
Fett walked away and Obi-Wan turned back to R2.
“I hope you had a good conversation with the ship, R2?”
R2 let out a smug sounding hum and Obi-Wan immediately decided he didn’t want to know what the two had talked about.
“We’re headed to Kamino. We’ll be trying to expand our army base.”
The next few minutes were filled with R2 interrogating him, and the two of them putting together further plans.
They wouldn’t use quite the same pitch on the clone soldiers as they had the droids. Obi-Wan sighed a little as he realized he was going to have to talk to Fett more. Fett would hopefully have a far better idea of what offers would be more appealing to the clones than Obi-Wan did.
Hopefully Fett was feeling helpful.
For some reason, Obi-Wan doubted it.
-_-
The rest of the trip went surprisingly smoothly. Obi-Wan had interrogated Fett as much as Fett was willing about what sort of terms the clones would want. He and R2 had kept revising their plans. Boba tried to ‘kill’ him a few more times, but mostly he seemed interested in interrogating Obi-Wan while his father sat nearby and scoffed.
At first, Obi-Wan could admit that he’d found the behavior a little annoying. Until he’d realized that Fett was, for some reason, trying to get a reaction out of him.
At which point, Obi-Wan found himself purposefully phrasing things in a way that would make it almost impossible for Fett to not scoff.
Fett had caught on quick, however, and had realized what he was doing and had retaliated by doing his best not to react at all to even the most ludicrous things Obi-Wan said.
Overall, Obi-Wan thought he could consider it a win. Or at the very least, he was certain that Fett hadn’t won, and he could settle for a tie much more gracefully than Fett could. Which was a win in and of itself.
Obi-Wan joined Fett in the cockpit as they prepared to come out of hyperspace. “Are you going to tell me the real reason you brought me here?”
It wasn’t that the curiosity was killing him, Obi-Wan could handle not knowing things. But he found himself… intrigued. Fett was a bundle of contradictions, Obi-Wan had no doubt that Fett would kill anyone who hurt Boba, and yet Obi-Wan was here, having kidnapped Boba—accidentally, he still felt the need to add—but still alive and unhurt.
“No.” Fett looked up at him, hint of a smile on his face accompanied by a clear warning to not push further.
“I will find out, you know.”
Fett scoffed, and Obi-Wan added a mental point to his tally. “Keep dreaming, Kenobi.”
Obi-Wan couldn’t quite restrain himself with an opening like that. “Wouldn’t you just love to be in my dreams, Fett.”
Fett looked somewhat shocked, before a somewhat lewd smile crossed his face. “You saying I’m not already?”
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. “Not by a long shot.”
Fett shrugged. “I suppose I’ll settle for staying in your nightmares.”
“Not even there, Fett. Not even there.”
That seemed truly offensive to Fett. “I’ll have you know—” he pushed a few buttons and they dropped out of hyperspace “—that I am truly—”
Obi-Wan froze, turning to Kamino in front of them. “Oh, this is a complication.”
“What?” Fett cut off, and Obi-Wan could sense the irritated scowl, either at the words or at Obi-Wan ruining his attempts at banter. “We haven’t even landed on planet, yet. What could have possibly complicated matters.”
“Master Yoda is here.” The Grandmaster’s presence was a warm beacon in the Force. Normally, Obi-Wan found the presence of the Grandmaster a calming, soothing thing.
This was far from a normal situation. It was so far from a normal situation that even taking into account Obi-Wan’s rather interesting and unusual past, this situation fell so far off the radar that Obi-Wan was already despairing at the thought of trying to explain.
The softened atmosphere of the moment before was gone as Fett stiffened. “You’re not backing out of our deal, Kenobi.”
“I didn’t say I was going to,” Obi-Wan retorted annoyed. “I just said this complicated things.”
Fett’s eyes on him were piercing. “You better not, Kenobi. I need you.”
“I’ve got this under control.” He specifically didn’t say anything about what Fett had said, he suspected Fett didn’t want Obi-Wan to have noticed the truth or desperation behind it. Obi-Wan quietly re-evaluated just what he suspected Fett’s real motivations were, but suspected that he’d still be surprised when he finally found out what they were.
-_-
“Expect to see you here, I did not.” Yoda settled slowly into a seat as they sat down. Boba had disappeared, but Fett had followed behind the two of them, probably to ensure that Obi-Wan didn’t ‘back out of their deal’. “Saddened, I was, to hear that left the Order you had.”
Obi-Wan winced. “Master Yoda, I can explain.”
Yoda shook his head. “An explanation I do not need. Trust you had reasons I do, young Obi-Wan.”
The emotion that welled up in Obi-Wan’s chest at that was hard to name. Relief maybe, gratification. There had been some small part of him that had assumed that everyone would assume the worst of his actions. And yet, here Master Yoda was, trusting him.
“Thank you, Master Yoda.” Obi-Wan hesitated, there was a part of him that didn’t want to explain his plan, wanted to maintain Yoda’s trust as long as he could. “But there are some things I need to explain.”
But Yoda was on Kamino, and Obi-Wan wouldn’t be able to keep Yoda unaware as he went for his plan. His best shot would be to get Yoda on his side.
But how could he possibly? He was going against the very Republic. Yes, it was mostly to help the Republic, but that didn’t change that for all intents and purposes Obi-Wan would look like the greatest traitor the Republic, or the Jedi, had ever known.
“Then listen, I will.”
Obi-Wan took a deep breath. “Dooku claims that there’s a Sith Lord in the Senate, controlling the Republic.” He shrugged. “That may or may not be true, but there are a few things that are clear. Two armies have rather miraculously made an appearance at an incredibly optimal time to throw the galaxy into straight out war.”
“See this, I do. Hope there still is. Diplomacy we have.”
Obi-Wan nodded. “Yes, we do. And I’m hoping that diplomacy will work. I just… don’t think it will, when both sides have an army they can use instead.”
Yoda’s ears flattened a little, but Obi-Wan was fairly certain Yoda agreed with him. Yoda, after all, had lived far longer than Obi-Wan and had seen too many times just how much easier aggression could be.
“A fear this is.”
Obi-Wan sighed. “Which is why I stole the majority of the droid army.” He took a deep breath. “And I plan to ah, declare myself enemy number one.”
Yoda frowned. “Flaws, this—”
“And I’m hoping to steal the clone army as well.”
Yoda blinked several times, looking genuinely surprised. Which, given everything Yoda had seen in his life, was an incredible feat.
“If I have both armies, then if the Republic or CIS want to go to war they’ll have to actually convince the public that it’s the right action, and even then, they’d be hesitant to actually go to war when I have… well, two armies.”
“Wish to keep the Republic hostage by fear, you will?”
“No!” Obi-Wan exclaimed, feeling immediately sickened. “I’ve been speaking with the droid army and with Fett, though I also hope to speak to the clones. But I’m hoping to keep things from escalating into a galactic war for as long as possible, and then to negotiate rights as regular citizens for both the droid and clone armies…” he winced a little. “At which point I will turn myself in and face the consequences of my actions.”
Behind him Fett stirred, but Obi-Wan ignored him.
Treason, of course, had only one consequence he could expect. But he would have kept the Republic from falling apart, and would have hopefully spared pulling the Jedi’s reputation through the mud.
Yoda closed his eyes, and Obi-Wan could feel him reaching out to the Force, communing softly with an ease and depth that Obi-Wan admired.
Finally Master Yoda opened his eyes. “Condone this course of action, I cannot.”
Obi-Wan felt his stomach sink, unsure how he was supposed to go forward. Fett had, annoyingly enough, been right about one thing. If he was to be truly successful, getting the clones on his side was a necessity. But if Master Yoda thought that Obi-Wan needed stopping, then Obi-Wan… Obi-Wan couldn’t and wouldn’t bring himself to fight Master Yoda.
“Only one course of action does that leave you,” Master Yoda continued, and Obi-Wan could suddenly feel the Force swirling in strange anticipation. “Abduct me you must.”
Obi-Wan felt his jaw drop, because of everything he might have expected Yoda to say, that was not what he’d expected. “What?”
Behind him, Obi-Wan could hear Fett trying to bring his breathing under control before the man apparently lost it and started laughing.
Master Yoda was nodding seriously. “Yes, abduct me you must. A shame it is, that abductee’s syndrome will I quickly develop.”
“Master Yoda!” Obi-Wan didn’t know if he’d ever been this appalled in his life, and he’d raised Anakin for a decade!
Master Yoda gave him a small smile, and Obi-Wan smiled back in helpless confusion. What was the old Master even thinking? “Old I am, very wearying it is, to be taken hostage. A nap I think I will take.”
Behind him, Fett was still laughing while Obi-Wan tried and failed to compute Yoda's actions. Obi-Wan hoped he choked on his laughter, the bastard.