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The last thing that Obi-Wan Kenobi remembers is shouting “Brace yourselves!” and then bringing the Force to bear on the doomed gunship, hoping to cushion the inevitable slam into the ground somehow. He suddenly gasps awake, panic surging through him. All he can see is darkness, and though there were many clone troopers with him in the gunship, he notices that it is eerily quiet.
Force, that hurt…
There is excruciating, grating pain in his chest, and he realizes he is having a hard time drawing a full breath.
Oh, this is not good…
“General?”
“…here,” he groans out. He recognizes the trooper’s Force signature as Trapper.
“Looks like it’s just us two left alive, sir.”
“It appears that way. Trapper, are you injured?” he asks breathlessly, hoping that Trapper is better off than he is. It is becoming so difficult to breathe that he sees black spots in his peripheral vision, and there is a high-pitched ringing sound reverberating through his head.
“A little banged up, sir, but I’ll live…” A pause. “General, are you hurt badly? Your breathing sounds terrible…”
Obi-Wan blinks at that. He hadn’t realized how obviously pathological his breathing sounded. Curious…
“Nothing too serious, though my chest does hurt quite a bit. Probably just some broken ribs, nothing to worry about,” Obi-Wan says, trying to project a smile through his voice in the pitch black of the wreckage.
But the act of speaking has caused a rather insistent need to cough. Obi-Wan tries to cough lightly, just to ease the reflex, but the pain in his chest flairs up exponentially at that motion, and he curls into the fetal position and lets out a choked scream. Suddenly he feels as if his heart is beating way too fast; surely it will explode…
His mouth is flooded with blood then, and he turns to his side, coughing and retching. Blood streams out onto the cold metal of the gunship, gushing out over his lips and the sides of his face.
“General? Sir?” Trapper’s concerned voice breaks through the ringing and hissing in his ears.
“’M…fine…” It is hard to talk now, and he feels as though he is drowning, though not in water. His breaths are shallow and ragged; the tearing, crushing pain is unrelenting. All he really wants to do is close his eyes and take a Force-damned nap.
“Just hold on, sir. They must have sent someone out to look for survivors. They’ll get us out of this mess soon.”
Obi-Wan has given up trying to talk, and he gives a weak grunt of affirmative response.
I’ll just close my eyes and rest for a bit. Yes, that sounds perfect…
***
It feels like he closed his eyes for a few seconds, but maybe it was longer? He startles awake, and there is commotion in the wrecked gunship, now. It appears they have been found. Obi-Wan would have sighed in relief, but now he really cannot breathe; therefore, sighing is out of the question.
Someone is shining a bright light in his eyes, and he realizes it is one of the field medics. He feels hands palpating his chest and ribcage, and he nearly blacks out again.
“Easy, General,” the medic says while fitting an oxygen mask over his face. Other medics are hovering over him on his other side, the squeezing of his arm indicating a blood pressure measurement. Someone is very unceremoniously ripping his tunics away from his chest, and he realizes how chilled he is.
Well, that was uncivilized.
“Take some deep breaths for me, sir,” a medic says while pressing a cold metal stethoscope to his chest. He wants to laugh incredulously at this request, but that would definitely be contraindicated in his situation. “I’ve got diminished breath sounds on the right side,” the medic says to the others, “Are we thinking a pneumothorax?”
“What are his vitals?” another medic asks quite brusquely.
“We’ve got tachycardia, tachypnea, blood pressure 80/40, oxygen saturation at 75 percent and dropping fast. Hypothermic. Multiple rib fractures on the right side, from what I could feel. Looking like a flail chest.”
“Shit. Sounds like a hemothorax on the right side and hypovolemic shock from the blood loss. Probably some trapped air as well from damaged lung tissue.” The medic trooper is looking at Obi-Wan, wide-eyed as if perhaps expecting him to expire at that very second. “General, can you rate your pain for me? On a scale of 0-10? I know it’s difficult to talk.”
“10?” he croaks out, wondering if this is a trick question or the understatement of the century. Obi-Wan’s chest has never hurt so much in his life, and that is quite a feat for someone so prone to disaster. He can barely focus enough to ease the pain through the Force. And he still feels as though a bantha is sitting on his chest.
The medic nods gravely and barks out more instructions to his fellow medics. “Alright, boys, we need to pack him up and get him out of here, NOW!” The medic looks back to Obi-Wan. “Stay with us, General Kenobi.”
“Sir, try not to move, but I’m sorry for this. We need to drain the blood and trapped air from your pleural space. It’s going to hurt quite a bit.”
Obi-Wan grits his teeth and gives one quick nod. He has personally never had this done in the field, and not without some kind of anesthesia. He reaches out through his tenuous connection to the Force, trying to release the anxiety.
A stabbing pain explodes through his side, and he finally lets out an animalistic scream. His skin, muscles, and ribs are being violated cruelly by a scalpel and a pair of hemostats and a thick, plastic tube shoved into his chest cavity.
He thinks that maybe it is suddenly a little easier to breathe now, even as he is panting and gasping from the horrible pain.
Vaguely, more sounds come through the haze of pain and effects of prolonged hypoxia; a strange splattering, gurgling sound, and then a clone medic is talking again.
“We have a lot of blood draining now and some bubbling, looking like a hemopneumothorax. Let’s get him ready for transport.”
He feels himself lifting into the air and settling onto a stretcher. The extra movement makes him incredibly nauseous, and he tastes metal in his mouth. Even more of his vision is dark now, and he knows the clone medics are talking to him, but he cannot seem to hear them over the roaring in his ears. He wonders, almost frighteningly cavalierly, if maybe he is dying. The pain in his chest is worse than before if that was possible. He is just so blasted tired.
He closes his eyes again, just for a moment. The roaring sound in his ears abates long enough for him to hear shouting, and through the overwhelming pain and fatigue, he hears the panicked voice of Anakin Skywalker.
He tries to open his eyes to see his former Padawan, but his eyelids feel glued shut. He sends a weak pulse of reassurance to Anakin through the Force.
I’m alright, Anakin…
Then there was only oppressive darkness.
***
Anakin’s heart is in his throat as he, along with a small group from his squadron and his Padawan Ahsoka Tano, speed along the harsh Geonosian landscape to rendezvous with his former Master Obi-Wan’s team. They had lost all comm contact with Obi-Wan’s team after the disastrous drop into the battlefield. His usually strong Force connection with Obi-Wan seems diluted and weakened, and he knows that his foolish Master has gone and hurt himself again. Perhaps severely if it is affecting Obi-Wan’s ability to commune with the Force.
Anakin is shaken out of his somber reverie when he sees a downed gunship in the distance—Obi-Wan’s gunship. It has been reduced to a pile of molten, twisted scrap. Even from a distance, the feeling of death permeates the wreckage, and Anakin knows that there are no other survivors.
Kriff, how did anyone survive that? He swallows thickly, his stomach plummeting to what feels like his feet.
Ahsoka looks particularly distraught, as well, and Anakin knows that she has a special connection with her grandmaster, Obi-Wan.
“He’ll be alright, Snips,” his voice breaking—he had meant it to be a comforting, reassuring statement. But it is evident that he is not at all confident about the truth of his words.
A solemn nod is all she can muster.
They are finally coming up on the rendezvous point. Anakin has his best snarky comment ready for Obi-Wan, as always.
The teasing quip died on his lips as he finally caught sight of his old Master—the closest person he had to a father—and he instead could only manage a half-strangled shout.
“Obi-Wan!”
The person on the stretcher—Anakin knows that it is Obi-Wan, of course—is barely recognizable. The face is obscured by a tube protruding from the limp, pale figure’s mouth, and that tube, he realizes with a start, is attached to some kind of inflatable bladder that a clone medic is rhythmically squeezing. The inflatable bag contraption is breathing for his best friend, the direness of the situation hitting him at once at that implication. Bile surges up into his throat, and he tries not to vomit.
No, this can’t be happening!
He is trying to rush to Obi-Wan’s side, but someone is holding him back.
“General Skywalker!” a medic is shouting now, “You must stay back, General Kenobi is very critical, and we can’t have anyone in the way. I’m sorry, sir.”
Anakin feels his Padawan gripping his arms tightly, trying to keep herself and her Master grounded.
“Master,” Ahsoka pleads, “We have to let them do their jobs.”
A med transport thankfully arrives on the scene, and his mentor is being rushed inside. The evacuating ship is loud, but all Anakin can hear is the whooshing of the artificial breaths sustaining Obi-Wan. It is a horrifying sound, one that he is sure he will never forget.
Anakin does not want to leave Obi-Wan’s side, but grimly he realizes that they still have a critical job to do. If they don’t destroy the Separatist’s droid factories, all of this—his Master fighting for his life—will be for naught.
As Anakin gathers his forces to storm the shield generator, the med-evac transport streaks across the Geonosian sky, taking his Master away from him, and Anakin hopes it is not for the final time.
The usually bright, unwavering light of Obi-Wan’s Force signature dims again as his former Master moves further and further away—at least he hopes it is just the distance.
Anakin falters in his charge across the battlefield. He falls to his knees, clutching his head and screaming. The chaos around him no longer matters.
The blazingly bright light of Obi-Wan Kenobi had been completely and utterly extinguished in that moment. Nothing else mattered now. Anakin could only scream.