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Chapter Text

Anakin Skywalker had never been anywhere like Coruscant. Well, he’d never been off Tatooine so of course the city planet capital of the Republic would be overwhelming. Everything was new and exciting and more than once on the shuttle ride to the Queen’s apartment Anakin turned to point something out to his mother. Only to remember that his mother wasn’t there. Because Mister Qui-Gon hadn’t been able to free her.

She’d told him not to look back, Anakin thought even as his stomach knotted with anxiety and sadness. His mom had told him not to look back, because what she wanted more than anything was for him to be free.

And he was free, he reminded himself as he stuck his hand in his pocket and touched the detonator for his slave chip. Mister Qui-Gon had handed it to him immediately after deactivating it.

“You are free now, Ani,” Mister Qui-Gon had told him as the Jedi crouched to meet his much shorter height. “We’ll get the chip taken out when we get to Coruscant, but for right now, hold on to that,” he pointed to the detonator in Anakin’s hand, “so you know that you’re free.”

The feelings he’d had when he closed his hand around the detonator were almost indescribable. An overwhelming mix of gratefulness, triumph, excitement, and sadness.

Sadness because his mom was not there to experience freedom with him. But he’d go back, Anakin promised silently to her and to the galaxy. When he was a powerful, trained Jedi he’d go back to Tatooine and free all the slaves. He’d free his mother.

Sitting around in the Queen’s parlor waiting for Mister Qui-Gon to return and take him to the temple was boring. Jar-Jar was kind of funny, but mostly dumb, and Padmé was stuck in with the Queen talking to the old Senator. There was nothing for Anakin to occupy himself with, but his nervousness about meeting the Jedi High Council. Mister Qui-Gon had explained that the Council was made up of the wisest of the Jedi Masters and that they made really important decisions for the Order. They would also be the ones to decide if he would be able to become a Jedi or not.

This thought was worrying to him. What would happen to him if the Council didn’t let him become a Jedi?

What seemed like a long time later, Mister Qui-Gon finally appeared.

“Come along, Ani,” he said holding out a hand to usher Anakin toward the elevator. “I’ve made my report to the Council and they’ve agreed to see you.”

Anakin took comfort from Mister Qui-Gon’s heavy warm grip on his shoulder through the elevator ride and out to the speeder that would take them to the Jedi Temple.

“There’s no reason to be nervous,” the Jedi Master said. “The Council is just going to test you to see how in tune with the Force you are.”

Anakin thought that was plenty reason to be nervous. He’d never used the Force on purpose before. It’s always just been instinct and reflexes. Except… except that one time his mom was getting roughed up by a smuggler. He’d never been so scared and angry before and he’d shoved outward with that burning tangle of emotion. His memory was a blur after that. He didn’t really know what was happening until he and his mom had been back in their tiny slave quarters.

“Ani,” his mom had said, a bruise on her cheek and worry, fear in her eyes. “You must never do that again. You cannot let your feelings out like that. You cannot hurt anyone else or we will be punished.”

He never asked his mom what happened to the smuggler. He got the feeling he didn’t want to know.

It was late afternoon, the sun was starting to set by the time Anakin finally stepped into the Jedi High Council chambers. He was nervous, but not scared. At least that’s what he told himself.

There were twelve of them. Twelve Jedi Masters all sitting in a circle. All of them staring at him with unreadable faces. Even the feelings in the air, or the Force Anakin thought, were unrecognizable. Like it was filled with a cloud of bland, neutral nothing.

This did not make him feel any better. Slaves depended on reading their masters intentions in body language and expression to survive. How was he supposed to guess what these Jedi were thinking if there was no reaction or emotion on their faces or in the air around them?

He was standing in the center of the room looking around at the Masters, growing increasingly uncomfortable the longer the silence lasted. Then the little green Jedi with long ears and big eyes leaned forward, his clawed hands folded on top of his walking stick.

“Introduce yourself, you should,” the ancient looking Jedi said, his voice tumbling from his mouth like pebbles. “Know much about you, we do not.”

It took Anakin a moment to untangle that since Basic was not his first language and the green Jedi twisted his sentences oddly.

“My name is Anakin Skywalker,” he said after a pause. Then a little spark of pride made him finished, “and I’m a Freedman.”

That caused a tiny stir in the masters around him, but Anakin didn’t look. He kept his attention on the small Jedi.

“Freedman, you are,” the small Jedi hummed, his eyes glinted with something like curiosity. Then he nodded, “As you should be. Master Yoda, I am, Grand Master of the Jedi Order.”

Anakin’s brow creased a little in confusion. “Grand Master, sir?”

Master Yoda’s mouth twitched and Anakin caught a flash of sharp teeth as he smiled. “Very old, it means I am,” he said and there was definitely humor on his face now. “Oldest in the temple, I am, by a couple hundred years. For lasting this long, deserve fancy titles, I think I do.”

A little giggle escaped him before he could stop it and he froze worried he’d offended Master Yoda, that he’d done something wrong. But then he heard a suspicious sounding cough. Anakin turned and saw a quickly covered smirk on one of the Jedi’s faces. He examined the air, the Force in the room and felt a distant whisper of humor, a split second flash of exasperation.

Turning back to Master Yoda, Anakin let himself give the ancient Grand Master a tentative smile. “You can’t be that old, sir,” he said testingly, cautiously, bravely, “You’re not even taller than me.”

His boldness made his heart race and he was on the verge of cursing himself for being stupid. So stupid for back-talking a ma- one of the Jedi.

Then Master Yoda let out a laugh, more of a cackled and flashed his sharp teeth again. “Short, I am, also,” he replied with a hum, amusement still softening his once harshly neutral face. “Short and old, I am, but by size and age, underestimated many of us are, hmm?”

Anakin felt a grin start to pull at his mouth. He thought about winning his podrace when everyone thought he couldn’t because not only was he Human but he was young and small. The other racers had underestimated him, Watto had underestimated him, and now Anakin was free.

Pulled from his thoughts by another considering hum from Master Yoda, Anakin focused again to see a much more scrutinizing look in his large eyes. It wasn’t an unkind look, but it was very intent.

“Tested, Master Qui-Gon wishes you to be,” Master Yoda said. “Agreed to test you, the Council did. But,” he cautioned before Anakin could get excited, “if join the Order, you will, decided we have not.”

He already knew that, Anakin reminded himself. Mister Qui-Gon said they would want to test him before letting him in.

Nodding, Anakin internally steeled himself for any test they might have. “I’m ready, sir-uh Master Yoda.”

The test, it turns out was a guessing game. A very stern looking dark skinned, bald Human Jedi sitting in the chair next to Master Yoda pulled out a datapad and kept it turned away from Anakin as he flipped through pictures. Anakin was supposed to guess what the pictures were.

At first he thought surely he was going to fail, but then images popped into his head. Cup, house, starship, some kind of animal. Every time he was asked, a picture would flashed through his mind and he’d give his answer. He got every single one right.

Anakin couldn’t tell if that was a good thing though, the expressions on the Jedi Masters’ faces had begun to shift the longer the test went on. When he glanced out of the corner of his eyes he could see a few of them seemed displeased, a couple seemed interested, and the rest were still too blank for him to read.

Finally the bald master lowered the datapad and cast a look at Master Yoda.

Master Yoda’s expression was much more solemn and considering now when he looked at Anakin.

“Well, you have done,” he said and Anakin let himself be just a little bit proud. “Feel, how do you?”

Brow furrowing again, Anakin answered as honestly as he could. “Cold, sir. Tatooine is much hotter than Coruscant.”

Master Yoda’s lips twitched, but his expression didn’t lighten further. “Feel inside, how do you?”

“Oh,” Anakin thought about that. How did he really feel inside? Still nervous, if more relaxed than he had been. Though he couldn’t stop himself from wishing that he had his mother’s warm reassuring presence at his side.

“Afraid, are you?” Master Yoda asked when he didn’t respond.

Anakin almost lied and said no, but Master Yoda had been pretty nice to him so far, hadn’t gotten mad when he’d spoken out of turn. “A little, sir,” he said instead.

“Hm,” Yoda brought a claw up to rub thoughtfully at his chin. “See inside you, we can,” he said causing Anakin’s heart to drop. “Much fear and worry, there is in you.”

“Be mindful of you feelings,” the bald master spoke up, a heavy scrutinizing expression on his face, though he kept casting Yoda looks.

“Your thoughts dwell on your mother,” said another master, though his tone of voice indicated this was a bad thing.

“I miss her,” a small surge of indignation filled him. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

Several of the masters frowned at his rudeness, but Anakin didn’t pay them much mind while he scowled at the master.

“What indeed,” Master’s Yoda’s voice knocked some of the burgeoning anger from Anakin and he looked back at the small master. “Fear, anger, hate, dangerous to a Jedi, these emotions are.”

Stomach sinking, Anakin asked, “But how can anyone not feel angry or afraid sometimes?”

“Feel it, we do,” Master Yoda said, and his face once again was softer than most of the others. “But let it go, we do. Let it control us, we do not.”

Unbidden the memory of the smuggler and Anakin’s burst of emotion flitted through his mind before he forcefully shoved it down. Apparently not fast enough because the air in the chamber grew tense and more of the Jedi had displeased or concerned looks on their faces.

There was a long thick silence then. Anakin waited, tense and anxious for one of the masters to speak. He got the strange impression that they were all talking to each other.

Then Master Yoda spoke again, “Older, you are, than the younglings we take in.” Anakin knew that too, Mister Qui-Gon had said as much. “Attached to your mother, you are. Unfamiliar with our ways.”

They were rejecting him, Anakin thought bleakly and a little angrily. He’d abandoned his mother and made the long trip to Coruscant far away from her for nothing.

“However.” Anakin’s head snapped up from where he’d begun to stare at the floor. “Strong with the Force, you are. Smart, brave, and determined, you are also. Good qualities, these are, important qualities.”

He stared at Master Yoda in hope even as he registered that most of the Council was frowning or were practically gaping at the ancient master.

“Consider your admittance very seriously, we will,” Master Yoda finished. “For now, back to Qui-Gon, you will go. His responsibility, you are.”

“Thank you, Master Yoda,” Anakin gushed out in a breath then blinked wide eyed and looked around at the still confused and displeased Jedi Masters. “And uh- Council Masters. Thank you.”

Master Yoda was the only one that looked at him as he tried not to hurry too quickly from the room, his heart pounding in his chest and his mind spinning with many thoughts.

The High Council waited until the door closed securely behind the boy before they rounded on Yoda.

“Master Yoda, you cannot be serious,” burst out one of the more stringently traditional Jedi Masters, Master Poof. “The boy is full of emotion and much too old, not to mention attached to his mother.”

“There is anger in the boy,” said another master, Master Gallia. “It would be too difficult to break him of that.”

“The boy’s path is filled with darkness,” stated Master Sifo-Dyas. “It would be too dangerous to train him.”

The Council members continued on listing all the reasons why Anakin shouldn’t be trained as a Jedi. Master Yoda ignored them as he sat quietly, meditating on his thoughts and the path ahead. The only other master that hadn’t voiced some sort of objection or concern was Master Windu. Who was watching a shatterpoint materialize around Yoda.

The Council members concerns about the darkness in Anakin Skywalker’s future were not unfounded. The boy’s future was clouded, obscured, that much Yoda could see clearly. Anything else about it was hidden from him like a dark gray fog was muddying the boy’s presence. Ordinarily, traditionally, that alone would have disqualified the boy from the Jedi, the chance of him going Dark too much of a risk. But Yoda’s mind turned to his last student.

His Mando’ad student, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Yoda hadn’t seen the boy, now a man, in person since he’d returned from Mandalore almost a decade ago. They’d kept in contact of course, though less frequently as the years had gone by. Obi-Wan becoming increasingly busy helping his adoptive father and brother rule Mandalore, and Yoda becoming ever more worried and concerned with the corruption in the Senate and the slowly growing darkness in the galaxy.

When Yoda had traveled to Mandalore to teach Obi-Wan the Jedi ways of the Force, he’d known that his student had a certain interest in the Dark side. He’d since received confirmation that Obi-Wan had in fact found a Dark Force-user to teach him the ways of the Dark side. By strictly traditional Jedi morals, Yoda should have hunted the boy down and imprisoned if not killed him.

And yet, Yoda could no more kill Obi-Wan than he could kill himself, because he knew that Obi-Wan’s pure heart and selfless soul would never allow him to wholly succumb to the corrupting influence of the Dark.

During their now infrequent holocalls, they didn’t often discuss Obi-Wan’s training or unique use of the Force. But what they did talk about, confirmed that somehow he’d found a balance. He walked in the Light and in the Dark and he remained himself.

So, Yoda thought as the Council continued to bicker around him, if he loved and cared for Obi-Wan who was a self-professed user of the Dark side, how could he reject a boy like Anakin for simply having a cloudy future? The answer is he couldn’t.

The bang of his gimer stick on the tile floor put a stop the bickering abruptly.

“Powerful, Skywalker is,” Yoda said when he was sure he had every Council members’ attention. “Too powerful to leave unchecked.”

“What are you saying, Master Yoda?”

He hummed, brow creased as he thought about his next words. “Consider very carefully, we should, before leave him to the merciless galaxy, we do.”

“Are you saying you fear the boy will become a dark-sider?”

“Fear, is it?” Yoda drawled pointedly. “His fear, you would reject him for. If fear I can feel, then judge a nine year old boy so harshly, you should not.”

There was a whisper of discontent and some guilt in the chamber, before it was released and the Force was clear again.

“Master Yoda’s not wrong,” Mace Windu spoke for the first time since the boy left the room. “Skywalker’s future may be clouded, but he is very powerful in the Force. He needs some kind of training to at least be able to control himself. If we reject him solely based on his emotionalism, his age, and his attachment, all things he has no control over at the moment, then we risk him falling into less scrupulous hands.”

“And we have made exceptions to the Code and the rules before,” Master Plo Koon added, his clawed fingers stroking over his tusks as he remembered a young red headed boy from years ago and a Dark summons that saved a Jedi’s life.

“Yes,” Yoda drawled, nodding his head. “Master Mundi, several wives you have, an exception we made. Knight Quinlan Vos, too old he was, yet powerful psychometry he has, so admit him, we did.”

Quinlan was only just too old, seven years old when the cut off was at six, but Yoda had made his point.

“Perhaps a compromise,” Master Sifo-Dyas spoke up, an odd faraway expression on his face. “He goes to the Creche until he is of eligible padawan age. We see how well he adapts to life in the temple and if there is a master that wishes to train him. That way he is safe, protected in the temple, given some of the training he needs, and yet, he is not immediately thrust into the full life of a Jedi and all that it entails.”

There was a long moment of contemplation where quite a few of the Councilors were not exactly pleased, but couldn’t argue with the suggestion.

“Acceptable, this is,” Yoda said when it became apparent that the still solidly disapproving were in the minority. “Bring Qui-Gon and Anakin in, we will, and tell them our decision.”

Anakin felt a little weak kneed when Master Yoda told them he would be allowed into the Jedi. He felt Mister Qui-Gon give his shoulder a squeeze and there was a burst of renewed strength inside him. Straightening up he did his best to bow, like he’d seen the other Jedi do, and thank the Council.

“Thank you, si-er Masters. Thank you for letting me stay.”

“Welcome you, we do,” Master Yoda said with a now openly kind smile on his wrinkly green face. “Find a home here, we hope you will.”

Anakin smiled in return a bright, happy thing. “I think I will, Master Yoda.”

Master Windu shifted in his seat and drew their attention. “We’ve decided that Anakin will be admitted into the Creche. Where all the younglings stay before they are taken as padawans,” he explained when Anakin’s face creased with uncertainty. “He has much to learn if he is to potentially be a Jedi. He can get caught up on the standard schooling and Initiate level Force training with his peers.”

“I was planning to take him as my Padawan Learner,” Mister Qui-Gon protested, and Anakin was both confused and warmed by the thought.

“A student, you have not had in twenty years,” Yoda said, an unimpressed look on his face and a displeased undercurrent to his words. “Much there is, for you to catch up on, before a padawan, we allow you to take.”

It was obvious that Mister Qui-Gon was not exactly happy about that, but he didn’t protest any more. Anakin got the impression though from the look he cast Master Yoda that particular conversation wasn’t actually done.

“For now, with you, young Skywalker will stay,” the Grand Master said, which raised a few eyebrows around the Council. “Ready, a place in the Creche will be, when return from Naboo you do.”

A few more words were spoken about their masked attacker on Tatooine. A dark-sider, a Sith. There was skepticism among the Council members, but Yoda remembered Mandalore’s abrupt push to rebuild and become stronger. He thought about Obi-Wan’s mysterious Dark side teacher that presumably taught him Sith Alchemy. An art thought dead for near a thousand years, along with the Sith that created it.

“The dark-sider,” Qui-Gon said, reluctance and perhaps a little bit of fear in his voice, “their presence seemed almost familiar. It was too well shielded and too dark to tell for sure.”

“Hm, concerning, this is.” Yoda frowned as the Force whispered in his ear. “Careful, you must be.”

“Of course, Master,” Qui-Gon bowed and then he and Anakin were leaving the chamber to get at least a few hours of sleep before they were to meet Queen Amidala and her entourage at dawn.

*

Mace cornered Yoda in his apartment after the Council meeting was finished. Yoda of course had felt his young protege’s intention the moment he’d decided on it. He opened the door and ushered the younger master inside.

“Do you really think it wise to train the boy?” was the first thing out of Mace’s mouth as he sat at the low table in Yoda’s living room.

Yoda unhurried, poured them both tea before he replied. “Agreed with me in the Council chambers, you did. Second thoughts, you are having?”

Mace grimaced on his first sip of what the whole temple affectionately called swamp tea. “Second, third, and fourth thoughts,” he grumbled truthfully. “On top of a cloudy future the boy’s got some of the largest, darkest shatterpoints I’ve ever seen. The only other being I know of with similar shatterpoints was Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Even as a youngling, Mace had known that Kenobi was going to make waves. No one carried around that many or that large of shatterpoints without causing some chaos. He just hadn’t been able to predict quite how much or what kind of ripples the boy- well, young man now – would cause.

“Interesting, it is, that mention Obi-Wan, you do,” Yoda hummed with a glint in his eyes that Mace did not appreciate. “Thought of him, I did, while making my decision.”

Frowning, Mace couldn’t deny that it made sense. To his knowledge, Kenobi was probably the only Force-user alive that could boast any kind of true balance between the Light and the Dark. He could plainly see Yoda’s thought process. If Kenobi could traverse the galaxy unchecked while actually wielding the Dark side, then why wasn’t a nine year old with a questionable future being allowed the chance to be a Jedi?

Of course just because he could see the logic didn’t mean he had to like it. “Your decision in Council was a shatterpoint, I hope you know,” he said somewhat petulantly. “I’m not particularly eager to see the ripples this one will cause.”

“Worry too much, you do,” Yoda patted him on the arm, half consoling half placating. “Monitor young Skywalker closely, I will. In some lessons, train him personally, perhaps I should.”

That did actually ease some of Mace’s tension. Yoda may be a mischievous little troll and had recently gotten a taste for shit stirring when it came to the Senate, but he took training the younglings very seriously. If any major problems cropped up with Skywalker, Yoda would catch them.

“What do you think of this dark-sider Qui-Gon found?” Because that was the other thing he wanted to grill Yoda on. The Grand Master had that knowing look in his eyes when it came up in the chamber.

A shadow fell over Yoda’s expression. “Fear, I do, that returned Xanatos has.”

“I can’t believe Qui-Gon wouldn’t recognize him,” Mace said doubtfully. “Even after he Fell Qui-Gon had been able to recognize his presence.”

“Over ten years, it has been,” Yoda countered, “since bombed the temple, he did. If a Dark side teacher Obi-Wan could find, perhaps another master Xanatos joined.”

“You really think the Sith have returned?” He didn’t want the answer to be yes, but the Force was whispering in his ear. It was barely discernible, barely more than a breeze of a sense, but it was there. “That somehow Xanatos found himself an extinct Sith Master to apprentice to?”

“Very well trained, Qui-Gon said his masked attacker was. Though talented he was, left the Order before he was Knighted, Xanatos did. If Xanatos the attacker is, and far better training he acquired, then a Master, I believe he found.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.”

Yoda cast the scowling younger master an amused grin, but sobered quickly. “Always two, there are, a Master and an Apprentice. Still the apprentice, the masked attacker is, or the Master has he become?”

Dark tidings, Mace thought grimly as more shatterpoints made themselves visible before disappearing again. “If the Sith truly have returned, what are we going to do?”

“Prepare,” Yoda answered plainly, though there was a hard edge to his voice. “Peaceful, we have been. Grown complacent, we did. Caught by surprise we will be, if make preparations, we do not.”

A strange and frustrating thought occurred to him and Mace turned a tight look on the Grand Master. “Mandalore has been gearing up for something for the last five years,” he said, his suspicion growing the longer he thought about it. “They’ve been strengthening themselves and systematically strengthening as many down trodden and forgotten planets as they can reach. Could the Mandalorians have figured out the return of the Sith before we did?”

It was a not entirely comforting thought. Yoda wondered, if this was true, why Obi-Wan had not told him. Why his student hadn’t warned him of the danger.

“Possible, it is. Perhaps holocall Obi-Wan, I should.”

“Do you think he’d tell you now, when he didn’t tell you before?”

Yoda frowned, but he believed that if Obi-Wan knew of the presence of the Sith and didn’t tell him, that he had a reason. The boy-young man’s heart was too kind to have left the Jedi vulnerable without good cause.

“After Qui-Gon’s mission,” he decided, downing the rest of his cooling tea and meeting Mace’s grave expression. “When confirmation, we have, of the nature of this dark-sider, then contact Obi-Wan I will.”

The two masters sat in silence then, both their thoughts heavy and dark with the uncertainty of the future. And all the while the Force whispers indecipherable warnings and inaudible truths in their ears.

*

TBC...

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan Kenobi, former Jedi Initiate, Darth Mercurus of the Sith, and Ad’Alor be Mandalore was visiting his part-time student and friend, War Lord Asajj Ventress on Rattatak. Or he had been until he got the alert on Naboo.

It’s been five years since Jaster won the Darksaber in single combat against Tor Vizsla and Mandalore was united for the first time since the Dral’Han. During those years, Obi-Wan, Jango, and Jaster had been very busy indeed.

Obi-Wan had been recruiting every Force-sensitive Armorer and Mando’ad that he could find to train them in the technique he’d perfected from Master Basil’s AgriCorps treaties and Sith Alchemy theories. Now there were fifty Mando’ade that were slowly but surely chipping away at the sand and ash of Mandalore’s surface turning it into arable soil and crop land.

Last year they finally canceled their last importation contract for essential foods. They were able to completely feed themselves so Obi-Wan ticked that off the ever growing list of things that need to be done before the galaxy wide war looming on the horizon.

His visions, when he meditated on the future, still foretold of a massive bloody war. So that wasn’t exactly wonderful, but he figures if the Sith have been planning this for nine-hundred-sum-odd years then there wasn’t much they could do than be prepared to fight and survive. It was a long and exhausting process, but it was beyond rewarding.

They began implementing Jango’s plan of alliances with the forgotten and down trodden planets along the Outer Rim after their first successful crop harvest. At first Jaster was sending both Obi-Wan and Jango out to meet with the planetary leaders to offer and negotiate alliances and trade agreements, but after the first attempt was almost derailed because Jango still hadn’t worked out how to smile and nod without kneecapping anyone, they recalculated the division of work.

Now Obi-Wan was the only first point of contact with their prospective allies. He was the one that talked with the leaders and negotiated and even schmoozed sometimes. And when the treaties were signed and the ink on the trade agreements was drying, Jango was the one leading their Supercommandos to clean up whatever mess had that planet allying with them in the first place. Usually it was pirates and slavers.

The Haat Mando’ad Supercommandos got really good at killing pirates and slavers.

Now they were allied with ten other planets along the Outer Rim and the far edges of the Mid-Rim. Every planet now with the beginnings of their own militaries trained by the Supercommandos and armed by the Mandalorian Arms Co,.

After working himself into exhaustion attempting to find and research prospective planets by himself, Obi-Wan formed a council of his own. Now his council did the scouting and intelligence gathering for him. They had the system down pat.

Though he’d stumbled upon Rattatak completely by accident. The Force had lead him on a merry chase until he’d popped out of the hyperspace above a mountainous planet. Upon investigating he’d become aware of another Force-user in the capital city and he’d followed their presence all the way to what was apparently the palace of the planetary War Lord.

At first War Lord Asajj Ventress was not interested in an alliance of any kind. Then Obi-Wan had offered to complete her training. That had sparked a rather tragic retelling of how Ventress had come to be on Rattatak in the first place. It had also been the start of a- well, not beautiful per se, but interesting friendship.

Because of her foundation in the Jedi traditions and the darkness she’d encountered in her hard but young life, she took to Obi-Wan’s unique balance of Light and Dark very quickly. She wasn’t as invested in wholly learning one or the other though, so when Obi-Wan offered to train her in the Dark side until she could be named a Sith Lord she declined. Ventress needed the balance of learning how to control and wield the Dark, but she held her dead Jedi Master, Ky Narec and his teachings in too high regard to become a Sith Lord. Even a benign one, like Obi-Wan.

He’d spent much longer on Rattatak training Ventress than he’d spent on any of the other planets and had since been back to visit multiple times. This was one of those times. Obi-Wan had been on planet for two weeks taking a break from his work as his father’s voice out in the galaxy when his council sent him the alert.

Apparently the Trade Federation had blockaded Naboo and were attempting to force the Queen to sign a treaty that would retroactively make their blockade and attempted monopolization of the plasma trade legal. Plasma being Naboo’s most profitable export. They’d already invaded the planet with an army of droids, but the Queen had escaped and was presumably on her way to Coruscant. No doubt to appeal to the Senate for aid.

She wouldn’t get it, Obi-Wan thought as he read the file his council had compiled. There were too many Senators in the Trade Federation’s pocket. Though taking over a whole planet was a very odd, if bold move. It didn’t really match what he knew of Neimoidians and the Trade Federation leadership in particular. They were greedy but cowardly. This invasion was out of character for them, especially since Naboo was a wealthy Mid-Rim planet. They didn’t have a standing army, though, only a small security force and local law enforcement. Perhaps that is why they felt safe making such a bold move.

Either way, Naboo was just the sort of planet Mandalore needed in their quest to become a galactic power, an empire that’s not an empire if you will. Though Jaster hated it when they said that, always yelling about how they were not conquerors.

Obi-Wan had wisely not told him that his council unofficially called themselves the Not-an-Empire Council.

“Leaving already, Kenobi?”

Glancing up from his datapad, Obi-Wan flashed Ventress a smile. “It seems that duty calls, my dear.”

Tall, pale, with shadowy tattoos over her head and face, Asajj was a unique kind of beauty. She put on a show of pouting, her cool gray eyes smirking. “I thought we were going to practice Tantric Meditation today.”

His smile widened into a matching smirk, but Obi-Wan tipped his head in regret. “I would love to, darling, but this really is time sensitive.”

The first time Obi-Wan had come to Rattatak and began training Ventress, they’d fallen into a sort of friends with benefits arrangement. It worked well for them since neither was looking for commitment and neither was particularly emotionally invested past being friends. Still he had been looking forward to the almost euphoric relaxation of a good Tantric Meditation session.

“Fine, then,” Ventress waved him off with no hard feelings. “Go take over another planet.”

“I’m not taking over planets,” Obi-Wan protested as he stood and stepped to her dropping light kisses on her cheeks. “You are still War Lord of this planet, are you not.”

Ventress accepted the kisses then gave him a shove toward the door. “You’re building an empire and you know it. Now get going.”

Obi-Wan went. There was no arguing with her anyway. She wasn’t exactly wrong, though it was all in how you looked at it. From a certain point of view one could make an argument for what they were doing as building an empire. Though many that would fear and object to a strong Mandalore also wouldn’t be smart enough to see the bigger picture. To see Mandalore’s less obvious motivations and goals.

Regardless, whatever you wanted to call it, empire or not, he had a job to do.

The journey from Rattatak to Coruscant would be a long one if Obi-Wan stayed to the hyperspace lanes, and he certainly wouldn’t get there in time to intercept the Queen. Luckily Obi-Wan was not taking the established hyperspace lanes. He was using a technique developed by the Sith during the Mandalorian Wars. What it all amounted to was navigating space at hyperspeed using the Force.

It doesn’t sound complicated but if you weren’t careful you could fly into a sun or through a planet. Obi-Wan had only had one close call, but that was all the motivation he needed to do it correctly every time after that.

Halfway through his journey to Coruscant, during a change in direction out of hyperspeed, he received another update from his council. Something had delayed the Queen. They lost tracking on her ship not long after she left the planet, but they picked it back up again a few days later leaving Tatooine. Must have stopped for repairs, he thought, reading the short report. If he estimated correctly he should make it to Coruscant either the day before or the day of the Queen landing as well.

Perfect timing, Obi-Wan nodded himself and sent off a personal text message to Coruscant. He might even have time to catch up with Bant.

*

Coming out of hyperspace above the city planet, Obi-Wan got in line with the dozens of other ships waiting for civilian authorization to enter the atmosphere. He wanted to stay under the radar as much as possible while he was here. Not only did they strongly suspect there was a Sith in or around the Senate, but he didn’t want anyone sticking their nose into his business and people would if it got out the Prince of Mandalore was on planet.

Since Jaster’s message to the Senate Obi-Wan had been to Coruscant twice. The first time he made a “diplomatic” visit to the diaspora living in Little Keldabe. He entered the planet in an official capacity and he’d been bothered by self-important politicians and nosy reporters the entire time. After that he resolved to never announce his presence again.

Finally he was descending into the atmosphere and docking at the spaceport closest to Little Keldabe where he was going to stay. And fortuitously no sooner had he finished the landing sequence and was preparing to disembark did he get a message from Bant demanding he meet her for brunch.

Chuckling to himself, Obi-Wan sent a reply, locked his ship up, paid the docking fee, and made his way to Little Keldabe.

As he walked through the community, some Mando’ade recognized his armor and pressed their fists over their hearts in greeting and respect. He of course reciprocated and because Mandalorians were a practical people, no one stopped him to fawn.

He took a room in the surprisingly upscale inn above the local cantina. There was a moment of debate on whether or not he should wear his full beskar’gam or just his vambraces and pauldrons over clothes. He was on a mission of sorts however and it didn’t feel right not wearing his armor while on Coruscant where he knew danger lurked.

Eventually he decided to wear his tabard over his brigandine covering most of the armor and toss on his knee length black coat. It was loose in the shoulders and arms, designed to be worn over armor so he wouldn’t draw quite so much attention to himself. Then he clipped his mask-cowl to his belt, made sure his lightsaber was concealed under his Sith mind trick shielding, and headed out to meet Bant.

She’d demanded his presence at a little outdoor cafe situated on one of the only mid-level terraces with any kind of park or greenery. It was a nice place, and judging by the plates he saw as he wound his way through the tables, the food looked good.

“Obi!”

Glancing up Obi-Wan grinned brightly and jogged the last few steps to swoop Bant up in a tight hug.

“It’s good to see you! Oof! Not so tight!” Bant was holding on just as tight though, her arms wrapped around his neck so he didn’t feel too guilty. “Are you wearing your armor under that?”

Obi-Wan pulled away and smiled down at her. He was taller than her, he realized. When they’d seen each other in person last, years ago before he’d left for the AgriCorps, she’d been taller by at least a couple inches. He couldn’t help thinking his friend had grown into a truly lovely Mon Cala woman.

“I’m pulling double duty, today,” Obi-Wan answered as they separated and took seats at their little table. “I’m expecting to meet with some planetary leaders later and I have to be official about it.” It was half true.

Bant smiled brightly at him. “Of course, because you’re a prince now.”

Chuckling, Obi-Wan shook his head though he’d missed her teasing. “My title is actually Ad’Alor, child leader or child of the leader, but not the future leader. Prince is just the closest in in Basic.”

“Well, Ad’Alor, I’m honored you graced me with your presence,” she drawled with a grin and a twinkle in her eye.

Obi-Wan’s chest grew warm and his smile turned soft. “I really did miss you, Bant,” he said reaching across the table to hold her webbed fingers in his gloved hands. “It’s not the same just seeing you over holocalls.”

She gave a little sniffle and squeezed his fingers hard. “Then you better make a habit of coming to Coruscant then. So we don’t go over ten years without seeing each other again.”

He nodded a little rueful, knowing he wouldn’t be able to promise that. “I’ll try my best.”

Bant expected that. Ever since she found out her best friend had become a Mandalorian she’d kept up on the news coming out of the sector. She knew that Mandalore was in the long process of rebuilding itself, of strengthening. And since Obi-Wan was part of the royal family, of course he would be in the thick of it.

“So,” Bant settled into her seat and grabbed the fancy caff she ordered sipping at its foamy top. “What’s the gossip on Mandalore? Is Jaster still hinting at you getting a foundling?”

“Ugh,” Obi-Wan dropped his head into his hand and muttered a thanks when the waitress set his tea down at his elbow. “I’m only twenty-five. I have plenty of time for a foundling, but Jaster’s got a serious case of empty nest syndrome. Jango and I keep telling him if he wants a youngling around so bad he should adopt another feral murder child and stop bugging us for grandchildren.”

“Feral murder child?” Her wide coral lips twitched and her large eyes glinted with humor as she nibbled on her fish stew.

Obi-Wan chuckled and nodded his head cutting into his waffles. “It’s been pointed out that between Jango and I,” and Maul though he doesn’t mention him, “Jaster seems drawn to a certain kind of foundling.”

Their conversation continued on. Obi-Wan catching Bant up on his life outside of helping to rule Mandalore and Bant catching him up on the internal drama around the Jedi Temple.

“And she is the sweetest little Togruta youngling, but just will not stay in the Creche. Not that Master Plo seems to mind. Apparently somehow she followed him into a Council meeting and he just let her sit on his lap the whole time.”

It was moments like this, talking with his Jedi friends, hearing about regular life in the temple that made Obi-Wan think he actually kind of missed it. He wouldn’t give up his home and family in Mandalore for anything, but still sometimes he missed being surrounded by so many luminous presences like those in the temple. So many beings with the same perception of the universe as him.

They were lingering over dessert, Obi-Wan and Bant both reluctant to go their separate ways. Probably not to see each other in person again for years to come. Unfortunately, Obi-Wan’s comlink went off with an alert from his Not-an-Empire Council.

The Queen had finally landed on Coruscant.

“You have to go?”

Glancing up Obi-Wan met Bant’s understanding but sad smile.

“Yeah, the leader I’m meeting with just arrived on planet.”

He felt it then, how Bant released her sadness and longing into the Force. It made his heart hurt a little bit.

Smile brighter once again, Bant stood up from her place and demanded another hug.

“Don’t be a stranger, Obi,” she ordered as she rubbed her coral pink cheek against his. “I still expect semi-regular holocalls.”

“Of course, Bantling,” he assured her, falling into their childhood nick-names easily. “I’d miss you too terribly if I didn’t call you once a month.”

She snorted, knowing full well he was exaggerating. Pulling away she studied his face for a long moment. His eyes were still a lovely blue-green and his hair was still red. He still had his birthmarks on his forehead and below his eyes and his chin was still dimpled. For all that he’d grown into a man, he was still her best friend Obi-Wan.

Stepping back she gave him a respectful bow. “May the Force be with you, Obi-Wan.” Straightening she gave him another smile. “And good luck with your meeting.”

In response Obi-Wan bowed his head and pressed his fist over his heart. “May the Force be with you, Bant.” He grinned and added, “Ret’urcye mhi.” Maybe we’ll meet again.

She surprised him by repeating his farewell in accented, but serviceable Mando’a, tacking on, “I’ll hold you to that.”

They went their separate ways, Bant back to the temple and Obi-Wan to Little Keldabe. It was on the way to the address his council provided for where the Queen was staying and he wanted to rearrange his armor back the way he usually wore it. With the tabard under the brigandine.

It didn’t take him long and with his mask-cowl securely sealed over his head, Obi-Wan walked out of Little Keldabe in full, painted and armed beskar’gam.

He garnered himself a lot of looks as he made his way upward to the wealthier, socially elite levels of Coruscant. When he arrived on the correct level people actually stopped and stared, pointed or even crossed the walkway away from him. It was a more extreme reaction than he normally received, but armed, armored warriors were a lot more rare in the upper levels of Coruscant than anywhere else.

Eventually he entered the high security building of Senatorial apartments and stepped up to the security desk.

“I am Ad’Alor Obi-Wan Kenobi, Clan and House Mereel, here to speak with Queen Amidala of Naboo on behalf of the Mand’alor, King of Mandalore.”

He knew the security in buildings like this was very tight, kept up to date on all the important political names and faces. They knew exactly who he was without him having to say, even with his mask-cowl on.

The slightly wary guard eyed him, his armor, and his openly carried blaster and sword. “I’ll have to call up to the Queen’s personal security.”

“That’s perfectly alright,” he said in the crisp syllables of his High Coruscanti accent. “I’ll wait.”

*

Padmé had been standing at the window staring out over the Coruscant skyline since Senator Palpatine left. Her heart was heavy and her mind was spinning with everything the Senator had told her.

The Senate was corrupt, bogged down with petty disputes and greedy delegates. At least that’s what he implied. And then outright said.

It was hard to believe that the Republic had fallen so far that almost none of the Senators will work toward the common good. Then again, Padmé had a rather rude awakening on Tatooine. The continued existence of slavery more than the corruption in the Senate had shaken Padmé’s faith in the Republic.

While Palpatine had been speaking with her, explaining in a mild tone just how dire their situation was, little Ani had been retrieved and taken to the temple by Master Jinn. She hoped he was accepted by the Jedi. He was a very sweet and intelligent little boy. He deserved to have a good life.

She wasn’t quite sure what to make of Master Jinn, however. His betting on sentient lives had not impressed her, though he had gotten their ship the parts they needed and freed Anakin from slavery.

The appearance of the masked, lightsaber wielding attacker was another thing she was worrying over in her mind. Master Jinn believed he was sent to kill her and she was inclined to agree. It made little sense, though. Surely if she was assassinated there would be an investigation no matter how negligent the Senate was. What was so important about her planet that the Trade Federation would go to such drastic lengths to occupy it? All this couldn’t possibly be only about their plasma exportation.

Not that it really mattered in the end. Somehow, someway she was going to free her planet and save her people. Whether she was going to have the Senate’s assistance and support was the real question. Apparently according to Palpatine it was not likely.

He’d advocated that a change in power would perhaps better their chances, but it still did not sit well with her. Chancellor Valorum had been their biggest supporter and calling a vote of no confidence on him seemed like a betrayal. Not to mention that he’d been the one that pressed for Jedi interference.

She had to think about her people though, Padmé sighed and wrapped her arms around herself, the arms of her gown long and thick, her headdress heavy. Her security were stationed outside the doors to her sitting room and her handmaids had retreated to another room to give her some privacy and time to think. She could allow herself this one moment of a lapse in her impenetrable facade.

Padmé was afforded barely fifteen minutes of solitude when her head of security, Captain Panaka stepped through the door with a serious, concerned expression. “My Lady.”

She turned to him and dipped her head, the beads on her headdress swaying.

“The security downstairs just called. Apparently there is a Mandalorian here to speak with you.”

Brow furrowing, “A Mandalorian?” she asked, in her normal tone of voice. Captain Panaka knew who she was, so she didn’t need to posture for him.

“Yes, my Lady,” he stepped closer and handed her a datapad showing a security holovid from downstairs. Sure enough there was an armored and armed Mandalorian standing patiently in front of the security desk. There was something about the armor. It looked familiar.

“What do they want?” She handed the datapad back.

Captain Panaka’s expression remained serious and cautious. “He said he’s here on behalf of the Mand’alor.”

She remembered now. When she was elected Queen she had to memorize the names and faces of the most influential, powerful, and important planetary leaders and galactic figures. The ones that stuck out in her memory the most was the Mandalorian royal family. The Mand’alor and his two sons.

Only the Mand’alor had ever publicly exposed his face, in a message to the Republic Senate some years ago. So she’d had to examine holo-stills of the two princes’ armor to pick out which was which. The eldest, the Ven’Alor she believed he’s called, wore the more traditional recognizable style of armor. The Ad’Alor, the second son, on the other hand had very unique armor. Or at least he looked unique compared to every other Mandalorian seen out in the galaxy.

It was the Ad’Alor that was requesting an audience with her on behalf of the Mandalorian king. It confused her, why the Mandalorians would seek her out and yet it intrigued her as well.

“Let him in,” she said, ignoring the dubious look Panaka gave her. “I would know what his business here is.”

“Very well, my Lady.” Panaka bowed and stepped away to comm the security downstairs. It was obvious he did not approve of this, but Padmé was Queen and he would follow her orders.

“Do you want to switch out?” Sabé asked as she and two other handmaidens entered and took up watchful positions around the room.

“No,” Padmé decided after a moment as she moved back to the sofa and retook her seat. “I’ll meet this Mandalorian myself.”

It wasn’t very long before the doors opened and the Mandalorian stepped through.

Up close his armor was indeed very strange for a Mandalorian. Perhaps the only elements that were truly Mandalorian was the diamond shaped insert on his gorget and the distinctive T-shaped visor of his mask. The Ad’Alor’s armor was also painted in such a way that Padmé knew it must’ve had some significance though she didn’t know what kind.

A queen does not stand to greet others so the Mandalorian stopped in front of her and bowed his head respectfully, pressing his fist over his heart in the fashion of his people.

“Thank you for seeing me, your Highness.” His voice was smooth and clear through the speakers in his armored mask and his accent was surprisingly High Coruscanti. She wondered if that was an affectation or if he came by it honestly.

“I am Obi-Wan Kenobi, Clan and House Mereel, Ad’Alor be Mandalore,” he introduced himself. “I have come on behalf of the Mand’alor to offer you assistance.”

It took Padmé a moment, but then she realized the Mandalorians were renowned for being bounty hunters and mercenaries. Even their king was the commander of his own mercenary company. Now wary that he was fishing for a desperate target to make some money off of, Padmé looked into his dark visor as she spoke.

“What assistance does the Mand’alor think he can offer me, Ad’Alor Kenobi?” She didn’t particularly like using her deep robotic, performative voice, but it was one of her protections. If no one knew what she truly sounded like then an assassin couldn’t pick her out of the crowd of look alike handmaidens.

The Ad’Alor didn’t show an outward reaction, but a slight tip of his head as if simply acknowledging her right to question him.

“Your Highness, in the last few years since my father has united Mandalore, we have been attempting to become more a part of the galaxy at large,” he said. “We have made many mutually beneficial alliances and trade agreements with a good number of planets along the Outer and Mid-Rim.”

For some reason she hadn’t been expecting a Mandalorian to be such a good politician, but the Ad’Alor had basically told her that his father was amassing connections and influence in the Republic, presumably to gain strength and cement Mandalore’s place as a galactic power. All without actually saying that.

“You have not answered my question, Ad’Alor,” she intoned giving him her best deadpan unimpressed expression through her heavy make up. “Why have you come here?”

Again his head tilted and he shifted on his feet. If it were anyone else she would have read that body language as being nervous or uncomfortable. But strangely she got the feeling he was… smiling, perhaps even amused at being called out.

“We have become aware of the situation on Naboo,” he finally replied, and there was the straightforward warrior she’d been expecting. “The Mand’alor is offering you an alliance. One of mutual protection and trade. In the present though, you need an army to take back your planet from the Trade Federation and we Mando’ade are the greatest warriors in the galaxy. I believe we can come to an agreement.”

He was the first person to actually state in words what she knew deep down in her heart. That she needed an army, that she’d have to fight to take back her planet and save her people. Her security forces were well trained but they were not an army. They were out of their depth and vastly out numbered. They wouldn’t be able to defeat the Trade Federation alone.

A single Mandalorian, she’d heard once, was worth a hundred foot soldiers.

Padmé was still reluctant to commit to marching to war, but she was not going to dismiss his offer out of hand. She didn’t become Queen at fourteen by being stupid and it would be very stupid not to at least hear him out.

“Take a seat, Ad’Alor Kenobi,” she gestured regally to the empty armchair on her right. “I will hear what you have to say.”

He moved to the seat with a gracious bow of his head, pausing only long enough to unbuckle the sword hanging on his left side. When he moved the sword onto his back, the sheath made a clicking sound when it connected to the back of his shoulder. Padmé thought there must be magnetic fastenings in the armor to keep it in place. He was indeed a very unique Mandalorian. She’d never seen one carrying a sword before. Usually it was just a wide array of blasters and vibro blades. All of which he carried visibly as well. Though he was the first Mandalorian she’d ever met in person so perhaps swords were more common than she thought.

When he was finally seated in the armchair, Padmé opened her mouth to prompt him again, but snapped it shut as he moved again. The Ad’Alor had his hands at his neck and she could hear what sounded like a seal releasing and clasps being opened. Then he leaned forward slightly and pulled off his mask and the chain mail cowl attached to it.

As he straightened up, he ran a hand through his short hair smoothing it back into a neat side part. He smiled at her and Padmé was very glad for the thick makeup plastered on her face.

It wasn’t often that she showed her age. That she displayed the attributes common to every other teenage girl in the galaxy. But she’d yet to be able to stop herself from blushing when a handsome boy- a handsome man smiled at her.

His hair was red, unique even for Humans, his eyes were a clear blue-green, he had a dimple in his chin and a birthmark under his eye. He was young too. Older than her, certainly, but he couldn’t be very far into his twenties. Still very young to wield the kind of power he does at the Mand’alor’s side. Ad’Alor Kenobi also looked nothing like his father.

She could only assume he was adopted and it intrigued her that the Mandalorians didn’t seem to hold bloodlines in any great importance even when it came to their monarchy.

“I was under the impression that Mandalorians never remove their helmets.” Padmé was still a little flustered by the charming smile he’d gifted her, but she’d been trained very well and her stoic expression and dramatic voice never wavered.

“Some follow a stricter Creed, only showing their faces to close family and clan,” the Ad’Alor replied expression relaxed and open as he clipped his mask to his belt and settled into the chair as much as he could while wearing full armor. “Clan Mereel is fairly relaxed in that respect. We only truly do not take off our helmets in combat, in enemy territory, or when we’re on a hunt. Though we’re discouraged from making ourselves vulnerable when formally meeting people that aren’t trusted or established allies, as well.”

Padmé raised an eyebrow at him to communicate her curiosity. “Yet you have taken yours off in my presence.”

The look the Ad’Alor gave her then was confident and a little knowing. “We may not have a formal alliance, yet, your Highness, but you are a good and honorable ruler for your people. By all accounts you care deeply for Naboo and her citizens. On that alone I believe I can treat you as a friend.”

Surprisingly touched, Padmé nodded her head in regal acknowledgment of his compliment, the beads on her headdress swaying with the motion. “I hope we may remain as friends, Ad’Alor. Even if we do not form a formal alliance.”

He tilted his head then as if listening to something, his gaze going a little distant for a moment. When he focused back on her, there was a wry quirk to his mouth and a glint in his eyes.

“Something tells me our friendship will not be misplaced.”

*

TBC...

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan knew that the Naboo tended to elect young leaders, but he hadn’t thought they’d be quite this young. Not that her age seemed to hinder Queen Amidala in any way. He has to wonder though. What did the Naboo people see in a fourteen year old girl that made them vote her into their democratic monarchy?

It could be the sharp analytical mind he’d been sparring with for the last hour. Or the totally sincere care and worry she has for her people. Either way, he has to admit, he is very impressed by this almost painfully young queen. He’d met a lot of planetary and system rulers since they started on this campaign to strengthen Mandalore with alliances. Queen Amidala is easily one of his favorites.

“You say that the preliminary factor in our alliance would be Mandalore lending military aid in our efforts to liberate Naboo,” Queen Amidala said in that monotone almost robotic voice. “How exactly will Mandalore benefit from this alliance if you are bearing the majority of the burden?”

Obi-Wan couldn’t help his mouth quirking into the beginnings of a wry smirk. “I think you underestimate just how much Mandalorians like to fight.” She gave him a look so deadpan and unimpressed he almost let his smirk become full blown.

“Truly, your Highness, resolving this conflict is actually one of the benefits we will reap from this alliance. Mandalore has only just become united under Mand’alor Mereel,” he told her, his tone and expression completely serious. “Giving our warriors and our pacifists a common cause for good, such as liberating an unjustly occupied planet and assisting their population in rebuilding, will continue to solidify our unity.”

Queen Amidala had a furrow on her white painted brow and Obi-Wan added, “It may not seem like we reap much benefit from this alliance on the outset, but our gain is less quantifiable. After you have taken back your planet and Naboo is stable once again, then we will benefit from trade and the like.”

He watched her as she silently picked his answer apart. She had a quick mind, but was thoughtful and took the time to choose her words wisely when it was warranted. Obi-Wan liked that about her.

“One of the terms you outlined for this alliance was mutual protection,” she said, and he nodded. “As I’m sure you know Naboo was a peaceful planet, we had no need for a standing military and so we do not have one. My security forces are well trained and our law-enforcement diligent, but if you call for aid, we will not be able to answer.”

It was rare for planetary leaders to point out their own shortcomings while discussing and later negotiating treaties and alliances. That she was frank about her planet’s perceived faults was very impressive. And, Obi-Wan thought slightly fond and rueful, very naive.

“Mandalore values strong allies.” She pursed her red and white painted lips, but let him speak. “One of the things we are offering you is training for the creation of a military, or,” he added when the furrow of her brow deepened, “a planetary protection force. So that something like this violation by the Trade Federation will never happen again.”

Of course there was also the stipulation that the Naboo, should they agree, would buy most of their weapons and heavy ballistics from Mandalorian manufacturers. But that was for a more formal negotiation.

“If we assist our allies in gaining their own strength, then if and when the time comes and we call upon them, they are more than ready and able to answer.”

Queen Amidala was quiet for a long moment, her eyes turned away from him though her posture and body language had remained almost disconcertingly stagnant throughout the whole conversation. Obi-Wan figured those who could not read the ebbs and flows of the Queen’s thoughts and emotions in the Force would be very stymied by her ultra stoic demeanor.

As it is, Obi-Wan has been reading her since he stepped into the room. She was worried, concerned for her people, of course. There was a little confusion and a heavy feel of indecision. But overlaying all of that was determination.

He had no doubt, whether she allied with Mandalore or not, whether the Senate answered her plea or not, that she would be returning to Naboo to do everything she possibly could to free her people.

It was beautiful to witness, truly, the way her presence in the Force, soft and almost quiet with her lack of Force-sensitivity, would shift and dance with her thoughts. Obi-Wan realized he could probably become enthralled simply watching the fluctuations as she pondered, if he let himself.

Her determination married with resolve, yet it was all still edged in indecision. She turned her warm brown eyes back on him. “I cannot in good conscience enter into such an alliance without giving it the thought and consideration it deserves. There is more at stake here than just my planet’s freedom, but our future as well. I cannot make such a decision hastily.”

She truly was, he thought with a smile curving at his lips, a wonderful queen.

“I understand, your Highness,” Obi-Wan replied with a deep respectful nod of his head. “If you make a decision or simply wish to continue discussing our offered alliance I will remain on Coruscant at least for a few more days. I’ll give your head of security my comm code and you can contact me anytime.”

He stood up and saluted her with a fist over his heart. Meeting her eyes with his, he told her, “You are a wise leader and I count myself fortunate to have made your acquaintance.”

There was a curious little flutter in her presence as he gave her a kind smile, but he paid it little mind. Unclipping his mask-cowl from his belt he slipped it over his head and fastened the seals in quick order. He left his sword on his back for now.

Turning his head back toward her he read her momentarily elevated heart rate through his heads-up-display. Well, his unique armor often garnered similar reactions of surprise and alarm, he was used to it.

“Thank you, Ad’Alor,” Queen Amidala spoke when his attention was again wholly on her, “for coming to offer your assistance. In this hour of need, we have learned that Naboo has less friends than we thought.”

Obi-Wan tipped his head in acknowledgment. “It’s as I said, Queen Amidala, whether you sign an alliance with Mandalore or not, I believe we at least can share a friendship.”

Her lips, grim and stoic throughout their whole conversation curled up just the slightest bit in a ghost of a smile. Obi-Wan counted it as a win and turned to leave. As he stepped out of the room the little whispers of pleasure and hopefulness in her presence were quickly swept away once more by her heavy thoughts.

*

Obi-Wan had some time to kill before he could holocall Mandalore and discuss his meeting with the Queen with Jaster and Jango. The time difference between Coruscant and Mandalore made it some time in the wee hours of the morning on Manda’yaim and he knew neither his father or brother would thank him for the early wake up call.

He visited the local Goran in Little Keldabe asking about the kinds of troubles and concerns their expatriates had brought to her. She was more than willing to give the very well respected Ad’Alor a report of what his people were experiencing in the heart of the Republic. Mostly it was suspicion, some discrimination, and a few false accusations of wrong doing to the local law-enforcement. Not anything he didn’t expect truthfully.

It was advantageous for Mandalore to have a population of Mando’ade so deep into the Republic, because Obi-Wan was also able to question the Goran on the gossip and inner drama of the Senate that wouldn't necessarily be apparent in a slicing expedition or a news report. He didn’t however, like that his people were not being treated as fairly and justly as they deserved. But Mandalore had no real power as of yet in the Republic much less the Senate. There wasn’t much he could do but assure his people that the Mand’alor had not forgotten them and would help and support them in any way he could.

The Goran was able to tell Obi-Wan that the Trade Federation’s blockade of Naboo had been minimized or outright ignored by the press and no one in the Senate seemed to be very concerned other than the Chancellor himself. Not even Naboo’s Senator had put a compellingly visible effort into garnering support or awareness for his planet.

This did not bode well for Queen Amidala’s plea to the Senate. Obi-Wan thanked the Goran for speaking with him then left her to her work. He spent the short trip back to his rented accommodations mulling over this information and contemplating how it would effect his efforts to ally with Naboo.

Now at a more reasonable hour of the morning on Manda’yaim, Obi-Wan punched in the code for the Mand’alor’s official comlink and waited.

The holocom made the tone for his call being transferred then the holo-projector flickered and Jaster and Jango’s faces appeared.

“Obi-Wan, I heard your visit to Rattatak might have been cut short. How is Asajj doing?”

Jaster, despite never having met Ventress in person, had taken a liking to her acerbic and direct manor the few times they’d conversed over holocom. She was lucky they’d never met or Jango and Obi-Wan were fairly sure their father would have tried to adopt her. Either officially or unofficially, as he’d pretty much done with Maul.

Obi-Wan replied after huffing an amused sigh at his father. He really did have an unbelievable soft spot for feral murder children.

“Asajj is doing well and sends her regards.” Not even a lie, Ventress thought it was hilarious that the Mandalorian king liked her so much.

Jaster’s smile brightened, but his oldest son spoke up before he could respond.

“What’s the situation on Coruscant?” Jango shot his father a look of annoyance as he moved the conversation along. He didn’t want any more troublesome little siblings, thank you very much. Obi-Wan was more than enough.

“I’m assuming my council briefed you on Naboo already?” He received serious affirming nods so he continued. “I was able to speak with Queen Amidala earlier this afternoon. She’s probably appealing to the Senate for intervention as we speak, but from what I can gather her chances of succeeding are minimal. The Trade Federation has quite a few Senators in their pocket and the media coverage on their unlawful occupation of her planet is almost nonexistent.”

Jango muttered something very uncomplimentary about the Republic and politicians in general. Jaster had a displeased expression on his face.

“What was her response to your offer of alliance? What terms exactly did you offer her?”

“I offered her our military support in retaking her planet,” Obi-Wan answered to his brother and father’s approval. “After liberating Naboo I stated we would help her organize and train a military or planetary protection force for her planet so this kind of attack would never happen again. We also touched on the assistance our pacifist factions would readily give her in rebuilding.”

“What did she say to that?” Jango asked.

Obi-Wan tilted his head a sign he was still formulating thoughts on it. “She stated that she couldn’t agree right away. That she had to think more about it since it would effect her people’s future as well.”

“What’s there to think about? We’re literally gift wrapping an army for her. Why would she not immediately accept?” Jango’s expression was disgruntled and disapproving.

Lips twitching at just how insulted his brother sounded, Obi-Wan explained, “She’s young, only fourteen years old. This is her first year on the throne. I got the impression that she is still very idealistic and even slightly naive. It wouldn’t surprise me if this whole affair has been one rude awakening after another for her.”

Jaster examined his youngest son’s understanding expression and nodded. “It shows wisdom that she didn’t immediately accept our alliance. Quite a few of the other leaders we’ve allied with didn’t think past our military might before agreeing to our terms.”

Jango scoffed though a sharp smirk came over his face. “They were lucky we’re so honorable. We could have screwed them over very thoroughly with how little or how poorly they negotiated the alliances.”

He wasn’t wrong either. More than once, Obi-Wan’s job had been made infinitely easier by planetary leaders failing to put more contemplation into an alliance beyond the immediate benefit of Mandalorian warriors solving their immediate problems for them.

“I assume you have not conceded the alliance completely.”

Nodding to his father, Obi-Wan said, “She was conflicted while we spoke. There were a lot of heavy thoughts on her mind. And I can’t rule out some of her hesitation being because we are Mandalorian and so have a historical reputation.” Jango expression darkened, displeased, but didn’t interrupt.

“But she was seriously considering our offer.” He paused and tilted his head again, his eyes going distant for a moment as if listening to something. It was an expression his father and brother had learned to recognize as when the Ka’ra- the Force was speaking to him. “I think she’ll contact me soon. Whether it’s to accept an alliance or for something else I’m not sure, but we’ll speak again before she returns to Naboo.”

Used to his son’s cryptic and unsubstantiated though accurate assertions, Jaster simply nodded once again. The Ka’ra spoke to Obi-Wan more than to anyone else he’d ever known. And it had never lead his son wrong.

“You have my support to perform any action you think necessary,” he told his son once his eyes were again focused on the present. “If you think it is really so important that we ally with Naboo.”

“I do,” Obi-Wan confirmed, serious and certain. “For all that they are in trouble and weak now, they hold influence in the Republic. Even for a relatively small planet, Naboo as a whole is well thought of and respected. Having them as an ally would open avenues to ally with more powerful planets. It would go a long way to gaining the kind of influence we are working toward.”

“What do you need from us, Obi’ika?” Jango knew when his brother had a plan or a hunch that would inevitably result in exactly the kind of favorable conclusion they needed.

Grinning at his older brother’s intuition, Obi-Wan told him, “We should go ahead and assemble a fighting force. Get ready to deploy to Naboo. If the Queen does seek our assistance it would be best to be prepared to move quickly.”

“We’ll be ready, Obi-Wan,” Jango assured him with a grim set to his mouth, mind already running with all that needed to be done. “We’ll be in space the moment you give us the call.”

“Good. If we leave about the same time you should beat us to Naboo by a day.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he assured his little brother with a predatory smirk curling at his lips. “My Supercommandos and I will have everything under control by the time you get there.”

“I’m sure,” he shared his brother’s smirk, because he knew that Jango was indeed very, very good at this sort of thing. “K’oyacyi, Jango.” Stay alive.

Jango’s eyes glinted sharply as he bared his teeth in anticipation for a fight. “Oya, vod’ika!”

He stood up then and left the holocall to begin his preparations. Jaster watched him go till the door closed then he turned back to Obi-Wan.

“How is being back on Coruscant, Tracyn’ika?”

Obi-Wan had given up years ago trying to stop Jaster from calling him that fond old nick-name. Little fire, Jaster had called him when they’d first met and hadn’t stopped since.

“I’ve been to Coruscant before, Buir,” Obi-Wan said, dismissing his father’s concern.

“Yes, and every time you have to hide yourself. That cannot be easy for you.” Jaster’s warm gaze was understanding.

Glancing away from his father’s scrutiny, Obi-Wan blew out a breath. He wasn’t wrong. Despite Yoda knowing that he wielded the Dark side, the rest of the Jedi Order did not. It was too much of a risk to travel to Coruscant without completely shielding himself. Nothing good would come of the Jedi catching wind of and investigating a Dark side user nearby. Not to mention they were more certain now than they had been five years ago that Maul’s old master, Sidious the Sith Apprentice, had influence and power in the Republic Senate. He couldn’t risk catching Sidious or his master Plagueis’s attention.

Stepping foot on Coruscant unshielded with the Dark side pooling inside him was a beacon for trouble that they did not need.

“It’s not that difficult, Buir,” Obi-Wan finally said, turning back to look at his father.

“That doesn’t mean it’s pleasant,” Jaster returned knowingly.

Sighing, he conceded. He’d grown so comfortable with the Dark side and had achieved such a powerful balance between it and the Light that cutting himself off was not something he liked doing.

“It’s not great, but I don’t have another choice. I definitely don’t want to alarm the Jedi and possibly gaining the Sith’s attention is not an option. So I will do what I must.”

“I know, Obi-Wan.” Jaster raised his hand to placate his son’s slight frustration. “I know, I just worry about you.”

Blowing out another breath, Obi-Wan nodded. “I know you do, Buir, but I’m fine. Even with myself cut off from the Dark I still have the Light, I can still touch the Force. That makes it more than bearable.”

They spent a few more minutes talking. Jaster catching Obi-Wan up on what he’d missed in the month he’d been gone from Manda’yaim, then Obi-Wan telling his father about his visit with Ventress - the parent friendly parts at least - and about seeing his childhood best friend for the first time in over a decade.

“Bant sounds like a sweet girl,” Jaster said with a kind smile. “And a good friend.”

“She’s always been the best,” Obi-Wan replied with utter sincerity.

They wrapped up their conversation then since Jaster had a meeting to attend and Obi-Wan was expecting a call from a certain monarch.

Not half an hour after he’d disconnected with Jaster did his comlink chime with an incoming call.

“This is Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

The voice that responded was that of the Queen’s head of security, Captain Panaka the man’s name was. “Queen Amidala requests your presence as soon as possible.”

His vindicated smirk was not audible as he replied in a serious tone, “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

*

Padmé didn’t wait longer than a minute after Senator Palpatine had left to turn to her head of security.

“Comm Ad’Alor Kenobi,” she instructed to her captain’s surprise. “Ask him here as soon as possible.”

“My Lady,” Captain Panaka protested, “you’re not going to accept his offer of alliance are you?”

“I’m not sure yet,” she confessed, but the burn of determination and grim resolve inside her said that this was the correct course of action to take. “But I will speak with him again. Perhaps we can come to another sort of agreement.”

“Very well, your Highness.” Panaka stepped away pulling out his comlink and dialing the code the Mandalorian had given him earlier that day.

Truthfully, Padmé wasn’t quiet sure what she would say to the Ad’Alor when he came. She still wasn’t decided on whether entering into a long term alliance and trade agreement with Mandalore would be to the benefit of her people. She knew too much about the Mandalorian’s violent and bloody history to trust that this offer was entirely in good faith.

But she’d had her handmaidens investigate after Ad’Alor Kenobi had left. They’d told her about the other planets that had allied with them since Mand’alor Mereel had taken the throne. They told her about how Mandalore had mysteriously stopped importing their food. How they’d steadily been diminishing their need to look outside their sector for anything essential.

Because the holovid Mand’alor Mereel sent the Senate after coming into power had been played in an official Senate assembly, her handmaidens had been able to find a copy of it in the public archives.

It sent a powerful message, Mandalore’s declaration of independence and their unspoken warning to the Republic about future interference.

And judging by their actions and the changes that were able to be seen by outsiders the Mandalorians were following through with their declarations.

Padmé was still wary though. She’d been burned of blind trust by the Senate’s refusal to help. This whole experience had taught her one thing. She could not trust in a supposedly august body such as the Republic Senate’s integrity in following their own principals and laws when there were other selfish interests at stake. And so she would not blindly trust this offer of alliance from the Mandalorians.

She needed an army though. Jar Jar’s belief that the Gungans would fight with them was heartening, but she wasn’t sure it would be enough. The Mandalorians, for all that their political motivations may be suspect, were a culture of bounty hunters and mercenaries. And the Mand’alor happened to be the leader of one of the largest mercenary outfits in the galaxy.

When her handmaidens had revealed that tidbit to her an idea, a thought, a distant possibility started to form in her mind.

The door opened and she turned from staring out at the nighttime skyline of Coruscant to see the Ad’Alor, still fully armored, stride toward her.

“Good evening, Queen Amidala,” he said and pressed a fist over his heart in respect. “How may I be of service?”

For a moment she got the oddest impression that he was not surprised at all by her abrupt call. That it had been completely expected.

Brushing the thought away she turned fully toward him. Staring into his dark visor was a good deal more disconcerting than looking into his clear blue-green eyes, but she didn’t let it show.

“The Senate has refused to condemn the actions of the Trade Federation,” she intoned, her queenly voice making her words even more disheartening to her own ears. “Naboo will receive no help from the Republic.”

This too did not seem to surprise the Ad’Alor. She wondered if she was the only one in the galaxy that had still held faith in the Republic.

“That is unfortunate, your Highness,” he said and she could tell his sympathy was genuine for all that his voice remained level and his mask inscrutable.

“It has been suggested that the Gungans, the native race of Naboo, would be willing to fight to free our planet,” she continued. “However, I fear this will not be enough.”

The Ad’Alor hummed thoughtfully. “What is it that you would ask of me?”

Straight forward, she thought in no small degree of relief. Padmé had grown weary of the twisting turning way politicians speak. “I have not yet decided if a long term alliance between our planets would be beneficial. However, we need help now.” Looking him straight in the visor, she felt a spark almost like she’d been able to meet his eyes despite their hidden nature.

“In the spirit of our tentative friendship, as you say, would you be willing to negotiate a more short term alliance?” Padmé tried through the confines of her dramatic make-up and her vocal affectation to communicate a sincere and heartfelt plea to this unreadable Mandalorian.

There was a moment of silence as the Ad’Alor contemplated her plea, his head tipped and his visor facing her. Perhaps he was attempting to read something in her body language and her expression. She wondered what he could see.

“Would I be correct in assuming that part of your hesitation is due to Mandalore’s historical reputation?”

Padmé’s stomach flipped unpleasantly at his question. If her reply insulted him had she lost any hope of his aid?

There was nothing of her concern apparent when she replied, “Mandalorians have a well deserved reputation for being some of the greatest warriors in the galaxy. They also have a historical reputation of conquest, subjugation, and war mongering.”

“That I cannot deny,” he said with a dry sort of humor in his High Coruscanti accent. “Though by your own words that reputation is historical. There has not been a true attempt at a Mandalorian Crusader movement since before the Ruusan Reformation. And Mand’alor Mereel has no intention to start one.”

There is more than one way to grow an empire, Padmé did not say. But from the details her handmaidens had been able to dig up on Mandalore’s other alliances and trade agreements made during Mand’alor Mereel’s reign so far, an empire - in the traditional sense, at least - is not what he appears to be building.

“Does this mean you are not willing to negotiate a short term agreement?” Gods’ she hoped not. The longer she thought about it the more she grew to believe that their chances of success will be very low without more assistance.

“In terms of an alliance, yes,” Ad’Alor Kenobi answered and Padmé’s heart sank. Then he continued. “However, I may have another solution.”

“Go on.” She nodded as regally as she could with her heavy headdress and her heavy concern.

“I’m sure you know that the Mand’alor is the founder of the True Mandalorian Mercenary Company.” He waited for her to nod before continuing. “The Ven’Alor, my brother and I are commanding officers in the company. I have the authority to accept and carry out any contract I see fit.”

“You would suggest that I hire you as mercenaries,” she realized, not sure what she thought of the idea. Though truthfully it had been crossing her mind, if fleetingly.

He nodded. “You get the fighting force and fire power to take on the Trade Federation and an opportunity to observe first hand how we conduct ourselves outside of legend and hearsay. If upon the liberation of Naboo your concerns are not assuaged and you decide not to enter into a long term alliance with Mandalore, we conclude our business and go our separate ways with no hard feelings.”

It was a neat solution she had to admit. An expensive one she was sure. If she signed an alliance they would help liberate her planet at no monetary charge, but she would have tied Naboo to an unknown entity for the foreseeable future. This idea of hiring the True Mandalorian Mercenary Company would cost in the short term, but leave the future unencumbered.

“What is the standard price for an army of fortune?”

His chuckle came out surprisingly clear and smooth through the vocorder in his mask. “For a battalion of one hundred and fifty Supercommandos,” he quoted a price and Padmé acknowledged that it was expensive indeed, but not unbearably so.

“Only one hundred and fifty?” she commented with a raised eyebrow. “The Trade Federation has thousands of battle droids on the surface.”

“Exactly,” he said and there was smirk in his tone. A slightly arrogant one, she thought. “Battledroids are not living beings. We will not be taking prisoners. No restrictions on lethal action reduces the number of soldiers needed on the ground by quite a bit.”

That seemed counter intuitive to her, but then again for all that she was trained in self-defense and a fair bit of hand to hand combat she was not a military strategist.

“I defer to your superior judgment,” she conceded and received another good-natured chuckle before he grew serious once more.

“Are we in agreement then, your Highness?” he asked. “Shall I fill out a mercenary contract for the liberation of your planet?”

Padmé was silent as she took one last moment to think over her decision. In the end, she realized that she had faith. She believed that this was a good course of action, a right course of action.

“We have an agreement, Ad’Alor,” Padmé answered, grave and monotone, her head held high, determination burning in her chest.

“Very good,” he drawled with a distinctly satisfied air. “When are you departing? I’d like to make the journey with you so we can discuss the assault and our possible alliance more.”

She’d like that as well, she thought. Having him there to answer questions and speak her concerns with eased just a little more tension out of her. “We leave at dawn.”

“I’ll meet you at your ship then. Good night, your Highness,” he pressed a fist to his chest in farewell and left her to her thoughts.

Padmé watched him go before turning back to the night sky, her mind heavy with worries and concerns once again. There would be no sleep for her that night.

*

TBC...

Chapter Text

The sun was just barely beginning to lighten the sky when Obi-Wan arrived at the platform where the Queen’s ship was docked. He shared cautious slightly suspicious nods with the Naboo guards standing watch and settled into wait patiently for Queen Amidala to appear.

He didn’t have to wait long. The Queen arrived with her entourage of three handmaidens and several personal security, the ever cautious Captain Panaka leading the way.

“Thank you for joining us, Ad’Alor Kenobi,” she intoned when he stepped forward to meet her.

Obi-Wan took in her heavy swaying headdress and the layers of fabric in her outfit. Not for the first time he considered that the Queen’s fashion and makeup was its own kind of armor. Not least because it all vastly obscured recognition of her face.

“It’s my pleasure, your Highness,” he greeted her. “Are we ready to depart?”

“Not yet,” she looked up at him, regal and commanding. “The Jedi have yet to arrive.”

Obi-Wan’s jaw clenched behind his mask and he felt a sharp flash of concern. “You also requested further assistance from the Jedi?”

“I do not have the luxury of turning down any aid offered,” she said with a slightly scolding edge. “Will your historical enmity be a problem?”

Obi-Wan silently huffed and rolled his eyes at the question. “Not from me, your Highness,” he answered plainly. “I hold great respect for the Jedi and they are formidable warriors. You are wise to accept their help.”

She nodded in acknowledgment of the compliment then the sound of a shuttle pulling up to the platform drew their attention.

When the door slid open and said expected Jedi stepped out, Obi-Wan almost didn’t recognize him.

Qui-Gon Jinn had aged in the decade and a half since they’d parted on Bandomeer. His hair was mostly gray now, though still worn long and slightly unkempt, and his robes were on the edge of disheveled. There were lines on his face and a full beard on his chin. He was still intimidatingly tall, though Obi-Wan realized not as tell as he remembered. Considering he’d been thirteen and barely four and half feet tall when last they’d met, that was not surprising.

The Jedi Master stepped off the shuttle then paused when he spotted Obi-Wan standing next to the Queen in his full armor, beskad and blaster on full display. He was glad he’d decided to shield his lightsaber from view while on Coruscant. He can’t imagine what Master Jinn would have thought if he’d seen it.

Resuming his walk toward them, the Jedi Master’s expression was forbiddingly neutral.

“Your Highness,” he bowed and after Queen Amidala had greeted him asked, “I was not aware you hired a bounty hunter.”

“My planet needed more help than I would find here, Master Jedi,” she intoned, stoic and uncompromising and Obi-Wan was impressed by just how unimpressed she sounded when speaking to a displeased Master Jinn.

“And I did not hire a bounty hunter,” she said perhaps with a little bit of smugness in her tone. “I hired the True Mandalorian Mercenary Company.”

That revelation seemed to surprise Master Jinn enough that his eyes widened before he schooled his expression again. “I see.”

“Your Highness,” one of the pilots called as he stepped closer. “We’re ready for departure.”

“I welcome your help, gentlemen,” she said looking from the Jedi to the as of yet silent Mandalorian. “We have little time.”

“It is the Jedi Order’s pleasure to continue to serve and protect you, your Highness,” Master Jinn said and gesture for her to precede him toward the ship.

Obi-Wan simply nodded his head to her and stepped to the side. She swept past him, elegant and regal and determined. The Jedi Master followed behind pausing only long enough to summon the small child that had been hiding in his shadow.

His surprise thankfully hidden by his mask, Obi-Wan watched the little boy rush toward Master Jinn and allow the man to guide him to the ship. How he’d missed the boy’s presence before now, Obi-Wan did not know.

He shined like an explosion in the Force, blinding and wild and burning hot. Never had Obi-Wan seen such a bright presence. Unshielded by anything more than natural emotional control, he was almost difficult to look at.

Even Master Yoda did not shine as brightly as this little boy.

Curious, Obi-Wan thought. He wasn’t wearing Jedi robes and he had no padawan braid. So not Master Jinn’s apprentice. What was his purpose here on this mission? The danger inherent in said mission was a concern as well, but Obi-Wan knew that the Jedi concerned themselves little with the chances of mortal danger if the Force was insistent enough, sometimes even in regards to younglings. It was something to contemplate and investigate later.

Dropping his duffle off in the tiny closet of a room he was given on the already crowded ship, Obi-Wan followed a handmaiden to the Queen’s makeshift audience chamber.

This meeting was sure to be interesting he thought as he stepped into the room to find the clumsy Gungan, Captain Panaka, and Master Qui-Gon Jinn already inside with the Queen perched regally before them, her handmaids stationed around her.

“I’ve been informed that some fear the Federation means to destroy me.” She had her back straight and her hands placed calm and still on the arms of her impromptu throne.

“The moment you step foot on the planet they will arrest you and force you to sign the treaty,” Captain Panaka said.

“I will not sign,” Queen Amidala asserted with resolve. “I will fight them if I have to.”

“I cannot fight a war for you, your Highness,” Master Jinn said. “Only protect you.”

Nodding, “I believe I have been able to acquire the means to free my people.” She turned to Obi-Wan then and he was once again aware that though she was so painfully young to be in a position of such burdensome power, Queen Amidala was still a formidable leader.

In a split second decision, Obi-Wan reached up and released the seals on his mask-cowl, pulling it over his head. Slightly disheveled hair fell across his forehead, his face now exposed he nodded to the Queen as he brushed his hair back from his eyes.

“I contacted my brother Jango Fett, the commanding officer for the battalion meeting us on Naboo. They should beat us there by one day.”

Open to the Force as he usually was during a negotiation or strategic meeting, Obi-Wan was able to follow Master Jinn’s reaction. First the Jedi was slightly curious as he took of his mask, then he was confused and disconcerted as his face was bared. The moment he spoke however, there was a flare of shocked recognition and alarm in the Force before the Jedi quickly shielded his thoughts and his presence from surface observation.

“Are your soldiers going to meet us before the blockade?”

“They will be on planet,” Obi-Wan answered Captain Panaka, still watching the severe expression of serenity now on Master Jinn’s face out of the corner of his eye. “Jango will order scouting parties to assess the situation and if possible begin the process of liberating civilians from the detention camps.”

The captain again was slightly skeptical, but there was also hope in his caution. “They will be able to destroy the battledroids?”

“Certainly,” Obi-Wan flashed the man a sharp grin. “Many of the warriors refer to B-1 battledroids as moving practice targets. We will have no issues taking out the infantry droids.”

The Queen requested Jar Jar Binks, the frankly suspiciously idiotic Gungan to help locate and recruit the Gungans to march to war with them. Obi-Wan attempted to question the enthusiastically agreeing creature about the size, weaponry, and capabilities of the Gungan army, but Binks proved himself to be the opposite of knowledgeable. Other than reiterating that the Gungans would fight and that Boss Nass, the Gungan leader was the one they had to convince, he had no useful information.

With little else to discuss until they dropped out of hyperspace and could receive an update from Jango on the planet, the meeting disbanded.

Master Jinn seemed reluctant to leave the room when it became obvious that Obi-Wan had further business with the Queen, but there was no reason for him to stay and so he stepped out the door, presumably to tend to the little boy that came with him.

“If you wish to review the contract, your Highness, then we can sign.” Obi-Wan lifted the datapad he’d brought into the meeting.

“Of course,” Queen Amidala held out an imperious hand. Stepping up her throne, he handed her the datapad.

“If I may ask,” he directed his question to Captain Panaka in case the Queen didn’t wish to be distracted, “do you know who the little boy with Master Jinn is?”

Curiously it was the Queen who answered, lifting her attention from the contract. “His name is Anakin,” she said and Obi-Wan felt the genuine fondness she held for him. “When we were stranded on Tatooine, he helped us acquire the ship parts we needed. Apparently he is Force-sensitive, because Master Jinn,” her mouth pinched and there was a flash of lingering disapproval in her presence, “assured his freedom and with the permission of his mother brought him to the Jedi.”

There was a lot to read between the lines and even more he could ask, but now wasn’t the time to grill a monarch about a little boy. He hummed in understanding, then nodded to the datapad. “Does everything meet your satisfaction?”

Looking back down at the contract, the Queen continued to read for a few more moments then turned her eyes on him again. “It does, Ad’Alor. The contract is very clear and concise.”

“We are a very pragmatic and straightforward people,” he said with a slight smirk on his lips. “Our business contracts would of course reflect that.”

“Of course,” there was the barest hint of humor in the Queen’s tone even as she wordlessly held up a hand and one of her handmaidens placed a stylus in her fingers. “Thank you, Ad’Alor Kenobi, for assisting my people.”

She signed with a flourish, Queen Amidala of Naboo traced out on the dotted line in swooping, regal script.

“It will be my and my soldiers’ pleasure, your Highness,” he said sincerely as he signed on the line beneath. With less flourish, but elegant in his own way nonetheless: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Clan and House Mereel.

The contract signed and all business, for now, completed, he saluted the Queen with a fist pressed to his chest and strode out of the room. He could feel her attention on his back until the door shut behind him.

*

He should have expected it, Obi-Wan thought to himself when he turned the corner to head back to his closet-room and found his path blocked by a painfully serene Master Qui-Gon Jinn.

They stood there staring at each other for a long moment and Obi-Wan felt the Jedi probe at him in the Force, searching and suspicious and rude. It might have been slightly petty, but he took a small amount of pleasure smacking Jinn’s presence away from him, sharp and reprimanding.

The Jedi didn’t have the grace to look apologetic, but he did cease his invasive prodding. His suspicion only grew however with that quick but demonstrably practiced use of the Force.

“Master Jinn,” Obi-Wan spoke into the tense silence between them, “is there something I can help you with?”

“What is your purpose here, Obi-Wan?”

Lips pursing, Obi-Wan allowed himself a sharp frown. “I believe the Queen and I both referenced my purpose here. She has hired the True Mandalorian Mercenary Company. I am one of the commanding officers.”

Jinn scowled before his expression smoothed out again, though Obi-Wan could feel his doubt and wariness in the Force. “I would not have expected you to abandon your path so much as to become a soldier of fortune.”

Very carefully, Obi-Wan did not let his anger swell in the way he’d learned best touched the Dark. “I believe I told you last we spoke, Master Jinn. I was not meant to be a farmer. The Force had a different path in mind for me and I would follow it.”

The Jedi opened his mouth to retort, but Obi-Wan cut him off. “I was under the impression that it was common knowledge that I’d become a Mandalorian,” he said and did not take perverse pleasure in Jinn’s reaction when he added, “After all, Master Yoda spent half a year on Mandalore teaching me the ways of the Force.”

Eyes widening, Jinn’s shoulders tensed. “Master Yoda is aware of this?”

“This being my life,” Obi-Wan raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him. “Yes, so is the High Council I would assume. I’ve had a few run ins with Jedi since leaving the Order. If the temple hasn’t changed over much since I lived there, I thought gossip would have made my circumstances known.”

“I have not spent much time in the temple,” Jinn said, with a stiff sort of demeanor. “I find I’m better able to follow the Will of the Force if I concentrate my energies out in the galaxy.”

In diplomatic speak, Jinn had been avoiding the temple for whatever reason. Considering that before Yoda forced him back during Obi-Wan’s last year there, rumor had it that Jinn had been avoiding the temple for any time longer than two weeks, it didn’t surprise him that the Jedi Master had continued that trend.

“Then let me assure you, Master Jinn,” Obi-Wan said with as neutral and non-confrontational a tone as possible, “Master Yoda and the High Council are aware of my circumstances and expressed their support in my following my own path away from the Jedi.”

He may be overstating it a bit, but Yoda had mentioned previously that Master Koon had expressed his well wishes. Master Dooku had also spoken to Yoda more than once about Mandalore and asked after Obi-Wan’s well-being. Both of those masters were on the Council, so he thought it was safe to assume it was general knowledge.

Jinn was quiet for a moment, his eyes narrowed at Obi-Wan. “You have been training in the Force.”

He didn’t scowl. “I am a Force-user, Master Jinn, and there are more Force traditions in the galaxy than the Jedi.” That only seemed to cause the master’s suspicions to gain a new level of alarm. Sighing, Obi-Wan added, “The Mandalorians have their own traditions which I’ve trained in and of course I mentioned Master Yoda tutored me for a few months as a teen.”

Mentioning Master Yoda seemed to only mildly calm Master Jinn’s suspicions. “Surely you know why this is alarming to me,” the Jedi said. “You must remember the destruction and misery Xanatos DuCrion caused on Bandomeer.”

Heart pounding for a moment of rage, Obi-Wan very, very carefully did not reach out to the vindicating fury of the Dark. He shared his emotions with the Force and let the Light sooth him until he was able to unclench his jaw and respond.

“I am not Xanatos DuCrion, Master Jinn,” Obi-Wan said, a measure of tension and insult in his tone. “I have not Fallen nor do I plan to,” true enough, from a certain point of view. “We are both here on this ship to assist Queen Amidala and I suggest we limit our conversations to such in the future.”

He resumed striding on his way stepping around the tall, stiff Jedi Master, but before he could pass by Jinn grabbed his arm.

Obi-Wan tensed and unbidden his hand settled on his lightsaber still hidden and shielded from outside eyes.

He met Jinn’s piercing blue gaze with a pointedly raised eyebrow and stared him down till the Jedi released his arm.

“You are correct that I am here to assist the Queen,” Jinn said and there was half a lie in the words, though Obi-Wan was sure the Jedi didn’t realize he’d let it slip into the Force. “So if you in any way endanger her or this mission I will stop you.”

While Obi-Wan was intrigued by the possibility of secret motivations, he didn’t let on to his curiosity. Instead he continued to look the Jedi dead in the eyes for a long heavy moment until Jinn shifted on his feet and put more space between them.

When he was sure the Jedi was aware of just how displeased Obi-Wan was by the threat, he spoke, “I am not the barely trained thirteen year old boy you last knew, Master Jinn. If you feel it is necessary to stop me from some imagined nefarious scheme, I invite you to try. It would be interesting to see which one of us will come out the better of that confrontation.”

With that he continued his stride down the hall, his steps a little more heavy and sharp than before. He felt Qui-Gon Jinn’s eyes on his back until he turned a corner and disappeared from his line of sight. The weight of the Jedi Master’s gaze was not anywhere as pleasant as the Queen’s had been.

*

Truthfully, Obi-Wan couldn’t exactly get angry at Qui-Gon for suspecting him of Falling. From the Jedi point of view he was actually Fallen. He used the Dark side of the Force and therefor must be up to no good.

Well, he was glad that Jinn didn’t know he was essentially a dark-sider.

He could take offense however at Jinn assuming he would in any way be using Naboo’s plight for some sort of self-serving scheme. It brought back unpleasant memories of the unfavorable and unwarranted comparisons to Jinn’s Fallen padawan. Xanatos DuCrion was a selfish and greedy Dark Jedi. He was also mediocre in wielding the Dark side.

When Obi-Wan had told Maul the first time they’d met that the only other dark-sider he’d been exposed to was lackluster at best in comparison he hadn’t been lying. Side by side to Maul, Xanatos was a tooka in the shadow of a nexu.

His personal insult at Jinn’s accusation aside, there was something else much more interesting in their exchange. The half lie the Jedi had told. He was of course there to protect the Queen, but that wasn’t his only purpose on this mission.

What his secondary, or perhaps primary, purpose was Obi-Wan resolved to discover. The Force whispered in his ear that it was important and so he changed out of the majority of his armor and headed toward the communal eating area. There were some talkative pilots and bodyguards he wanted to introduce himself to.

Stepping into the communal area, Obi-Wan noted that more than one person paused in their conversation to watch him make his way to gather food and find a table. He was in his Mandalorian clothes with his vambraces and pauldrons fastened over his casual kar’ta patterned navy blue jacket.

Many of these men hadn’t seen him without his mask-cowl on so he figured his put together and rather posh appearance would be somewhat incongruous with the scarred, battle-hardened reputation Mando’ade had out in the galaxy. Combined with his purposefully exaggerated High Coruscanti accent he was a bit of an enigma.

Turning away from gathering his food, Obi-Wan looked around the small dining room choosing his target carefully. He spotted Captain Panaka conversing with a couple pilots and almost made his way over but the Force prodded him in a different direction.

Sitting alone at a table was one of the Queen’s handmaidens. She was distractedly eating her meal while reading something apparently displeasing on her datapad. Like the Queen and presumably the other handmaidens she was young. And looked it in that form fitting, draped sunset colored hooded dress. For ease in eating her hood was lowered and her tightly braided brown hair was on display trailing down her back.

The Force whispered to him again and Obi-Wan made his way over to her. She looked up a little startled when he stopped at her table.

“May I sit with you, my Lady?” he asked with kind smile.

Her cheeks flushed for a split second and her presence in the Force fluttered then she smiled back and gestured to the seat across from her. “Of course, Ad’Alor. You’re welcome to.”

He slid onto the bench and flashed her self-deprecating kind of grin. “Please, I don’t particularly like hearing my title while I’m eating. Makes me feel like I’m at a boring state dinner.” The handmaiden’s smile brightened slightly at his humorous tone.

“You can call me Obi-Wan, since we are sharing a meal together.”

She flushed again and Obi-Wan held back a sigh, she appeared to be a shy one. However, she quickly regained her composure and nodded in acquiescence. “Then since we’re dispensing with formalities, I’m Padmé.”

His smile was more genuine then. “Padmé,” he repeated and gestured toward her datapad. “What has you frowning so?”

Looking back down at her now dark datapad, the frown returned creasing at her pretty face. “The news media in the Core is reporting nothing of Naboo’s trouble. There was barely even a mention of ‘some controversy about the Trade Federation pushing boundaries’. As if the death and imprisonment of my people was nothing.”

Obi-Wan hummed as he took a bite of his bland re-hydrated ration meal. “I dislike saying it, but it does not surprise me. The Trade Federation has a great many powerful people in its pocket. Manipulating the news media would be child’s play.”

Frown melting into something like despondency, Padmé asked, “Is the Queen the only person that had any faith in the Republic?”

Though he may be cynical and harshly realistic about the Republic and the Senate, Obi-Wan could still feel for this young girl’s crushed hopes and shifted world views.

“There are many politicians and businessman in the Republic that are good honest people,” he said. “Unfortunately, the dishonest ones are more proactive and therefore often more powerful.”

He could feel her heart sinking with the sadness reflected in the Force. It took him no longer than a moment to realize that he absolutely hated that dimming of her soft bright presence.

“Perhaps a change of subject,” he suggested and received a halfhearted agreement from the still subdued young girl. “I got the impression your flight from Naboo was eventful. What sort of adventures were you thrust into?”

That appeared to be the right thing to say if he wanted her sadness swept away. Padmé flashed through a series of emotions rapid fire before settling on sheepishly excited.

“I have never been off Naboo before,” she said as if it was a confession. “The Queen has no need to leave her people and so we handmaidens remain at her side.”

Obi-Wan nodded in understanding, making sure his expression communicated that he was in fact listening to her attentively.

“The Trade Federation fired on us as we broke through the blockade and damaged our hyperdrive. We had to make an emergency stop on Tatooine.”

Obi-Wan was sure Padmé did not know quite how much insight she was giving him into the hidden machinations of this play by the Trade Federation. Blockading a planet was one thing but firing upon an obviously diplomatic vessel with the intent to kill was something else. It lent more credence to Obi-Wan’s suspicions of there being a greater plot working in the background.

“I imagine Master Jinn was reluctant to allowed any of you off the ship on Tatooine,” he commented, off hand.

“Actually,” Padmé again seemed slightly sheepish, “the Queen wanted to know more about the planet so she sent me with Master Jinn to be her eyes and ears.”

Brows raising on his forehead, Obi-Wan blinked at the girl in surprise. Then started chuckling, sharp slightly vindictive amusement warming him. “Master Jinn must not have liked that at all.”

Padmé huffed and waved a hand dismissively at the thought. “He almost lost us our ship entirely so he has no room to judge.”

Curious, he prodded a bit at that. “How could he lose your ship?”

Another thoroughly unimpressed and slightly angry expression crossed her face. “He put the ship up as the collateral for a pod-race.”

“Sounds like there is much more to that.” And apparently there was. Padmé took that as impetus to vent her apparently severe disapproval of Master Jinn’s methods. Obi-Wan couldn’t really say he blamed her.

To a sheltered, idealistic, naive young girl, betting on a little boy’s freedom in a dangerous, often lethal, pod-race would be very alarming. That the gamble paid off, at least partially since the boy’s mother was left behind on Tatooine, and they got the parts they needed to resume their journey almost made her righteous indignation worse.

It would have been amusing if Obi-Wan wasn’t fighting a hot flash of anger himself. Though he was of the opinion that one should do what one must when in a tight spot like that, using a child in such a way, with parental permission or not, was treading very close to demagolka territory. Jinn was lucky the little boy, Anakin had survived the race without a scratch on him or Obi-Wan would have had to act on his Mandalorian Creed and issue a challenge.

Children were the future, the most important and though he hadn’t shared a single word with Anakin, Obi-Wan would protect him with his life. As all Mando’ade would.

Though from what he knew of the Maverick Qui-Gon Jinn, this tale of the “will of the Force” and games of chance actually tracked fairly well. While he’d still been at the temple he’d heard more than one master comment that Jinn was more of a Gray Jedi than was strictly proper.

Obi-Wan had no opinion on that, being Mando’ade himself and therefore having a code of ethics that most civilized places in the galaxy would consider amoral at best. But he resolved to watch Jinn and Anakin very closely. There wasn’t much he could do since it appeared as though Anakin had been accepted by the Jedi Order, but Obi-Wan had no problem making some very dark and utterly sincere threats should Jinn prove to be truly negligent.

“If I may ask,” Padmé began after the lull in conversation following her story and Obi-Wan’s suitably sincere if half truthful reaction to it. “How did a Mandalorian prince come by such a pure High Coruscanti accent? Is that something you put on when speaking with politicians and other leaders?”

Like Queen Amidala’s monotone robotic voice, Obi-Wan guessed she meant. It was clever of the Naboo to practice such effective and misleading deceptions for the safety of their leader.

“No, my dear, it’s not fake at all,” he answered with a smirk. “I actually come by this accent quite honestly.”

Padmé looked at him in surprise and intrigue. “You were raised in the Core?” she sounded doubtful and he figured normally she would be right to be.

“Before I became a Mandalorian, I grew up in the Jedi Temple until I was thirteen,” he answered not intending to reveal that much but the Force had prompted him. Though he was confused on why it mattered, he always followed the Will of the Force.

Her mouth opened in shock and Obi-Wan chuckled, endeared by her honest reactions. She flushed and quickly arranged her face into something a little more calm.

“How did a Jedi youngling become a Mandalorian?” she asked with a fascinated, eager light in her warm brown eyes.

He wondered as he thought over how much and what he should tell her, why the Force wanted Padmé to know he was a Force-user, and an ex-Jedi at that.

“Unfortunately, I was not chosen as a padawan before I aged out. I was assigned to the Jedi AgriCorps and left the temple to become a farmer.”

He couldn’t quite keep the grimace of distaste off his face as he remembered it. Though he’d found much amusement in the irony of his healing of Manda’yaim meaning that he’d run away from being a farmer only to essentially end up being a farmer, he could never forget the disappointment and heartbreak he’d experienced when he boarded that ship to Bandomeer.

Padmé, considering her rather bold demand of accompanying Jinn on Tatooine, gave Obi-Wan the impression that she was actually very fascinated with the idea of adventure.

So, he told her, “When I got to my assigned AgriCorps outpost I realized that I really did not want to be a farmer,” she nodded along in empathetic agreement, “and so I took the first opportunity to hitch a ride off planet and out into the galaxy. Which,” he said and shrugged in affected nonchalance, “happened to be with a group of Weequay pirates.”

She gasped, gaping at him again. “You hitched a ride with pirates?!”

Grinning amused and charmed, Obi-Wan confirmed, “And spent a year with them as part of the crew.”

“Oh Shiraya,” she blinked, then laughed incredulous and delighted. “I cannot believe that you were a thirteen year old pirate.”

“Upon my honor as a Mandalorian,” he said with a put on seriousness that amused her a good deal, “I’m telling the honest truth, I left the Jedi Order to be a space pirate.”

The grin on Padmé’s pretty face was wide and bright and Obi-Wan couldn’t keep from returning it.

“I hope you weren’t in too much danger though.” She calmed from her amusement. “I can’t imagine the life of a pirate is particularly safe.”

Expression softening in the face of her sincere concern, his lips quirked in a kinder smile. “I learned many things in my time with the pirates, and not all of them good, but I can honestly say that I wouldn’t give up my experiences for anything.”

Padmé looked down at her small delicate hands, deep in thought before responding. “I understand what you mean, Obi-Wan. This whole nightmare with the Trade Federation has taught me many awful disheartening things, but I can’t say that I would take back those lessons even if I could.”

“You are a wise young woman, Padmé,” he told her truthfully. “Without joining that pirate crew I may not have had to learn those hard lessons, but I also would not have met Jaster, the Mand’alor and I would not have become a Mandalorian. For that I will forever be grateful for my past hardships.”

“I-” she cut herself off then continued with her lips pursed, a subdued moue on her mouth. “Hopefully the Queen will one day appreciate the hard lessons she’s learned during all this as well.”

Considering that for a moment, Obi-Wan finally answered, “I think that given time to reflect the Queen will realize that this fight with the Trade Federation and all the hard lessons she’s learned from it will make her a stronger leader.”

Padmé looked up at him with halfheartedly hidden hopefulness in her eyes. “Do you really think the Queen is stronger for all this?”

He nodded and gave the young, unsure girl a reassuring smile. “I do. From what I know of her, the Queen has always been a wise, fair ruler, but now she knows what exactly she is willing to do and sacrifice for her people. She’ll recognize that this shows how strong she is truly capable of being.”

Lips flickering into a thankful smile, Padmé straightened her posture and appeared to pull a regal bearing around her. Obi-Wan carefully kept his own smile from turning triumphant.

“The Queen will do everything to save her people, I have faith in her,” Padmé said with renewed confidence.

“Good,” Obi-Wan nodded. “It is always best to have faith in your leader. Especially when they deserve it.”

They were companionably quiet for a moment. Padmé internalizing his words and her strengthened self-confidence, and Obi-Wan contemplating how he was going to gain an answer to his question about Master Jinn’s purpose without alerting her to what he was doing.

Thankfully, it seemed the Force was with him, because Padmé solved his problem for him when she next spoke.

“I noticed there was some tension between you and Master Jinn.” Her sharp intelligence was glinting in her eyes as she looked at him. “He didn’t seem to like your presence here very much.”

She must have been extremely observant to pick up on that since they’d only spent a total of twenty minutes all in the same room and didn’t even speak to each other.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan didn’t see a point in denying it. “He’s suspicious of my motives. He’s worried that I’ve strayed too far from the Jedi path and that I will endanger the Queen because of it.”

She raised an eyebrow in an expression very reminiscent to the Queen. “I’m not quite sure I understand what that means.”

He wasn’t inclined to give her a lecture on the aspects of the Force and Jedi dogma about Falling. Instead he simply said, “Master Jinn is concerned that in my time away from the Order I’ve become something like the Sith, the ancient enemies of the Jedi.”

“I was under the impression that the Sith were extinct,” she commented neutrally, her skepticism palpable to him in the Force. Obi-Wan felt somewhat touched that she didn’t seem to put much credence in the suspicion at all.

“They are believed to be no more,” he said of the Sith in a roundabout kind of truthful answer.

“Hopefully he will come to trust you,” her words plain and sincere. “Perhaps he’s just projecting other concerns onto you.”

“What makes you say that?” Obi-Wan asked casually, seemingly relaxed.

“When we were on Tatooine,” Padmé replied meeting Obi-Wan’s eyes, unaware of the seriousness of what she was about to say, “we were attacked by a Force-user with a red lightsaber.”

*

TBC...

Chapter Text

A Force-user wielding a red lightsaber, Padmé said. Obi-Wan’s mind was turning that over and over.

“You say this Force-user attacked you?”

Padmé nodded, though her brow furrowed as she seemed to realize from his reaction that the situation was perhaps more serious than she thought. “Master Jinn held him off while we installed the replacement parts for the ship and lifted off.”

“Did Master Jinn happen to comment on what he thought the attacker’s purpose was?” Hopefully, Jinn saw fit to not be the usual Jedi level of reticent when it comes to other Force-users.

“He told the Queen he was sure the attacker was attempting to assassinate her.”

Could even be the truth, Obi-Wan thought. If the Trade Federation was determined to take over Naboo, killing the Queen before she could reach the Senate was surely one way to accomplish that. He also knew there were currently several Dark Jedi and dark-siders that worked as assassins and bounty hunters. Maul being one of them.

He grimaced when a thought occurred to him.

“Did you happen to see the attacker? Could you describe him or his lightsaber?”

Padmé shook her head though she seemed a little confused by his reluctant expression. “He was humanoid, but he wore a hooded black robe and had a black mask covering his face. His lightsaber looked like any other, though I’ve never seen one with a red blade before.”

Not Maul then, if the attacker wasn’t wielding a lightstaff. Even with one blade activated a lightstaff hilt looked different enough to a standard lightsaber to be noticeable. Obi-Wan let himself relax. His old teacher and friend hadn’t planned on working as an assassin, but they haven’t spoken face to face in a year, his situation could have changed. He was glad to have his suspicions proven wrong.

“Jedi do not use red lightsabers,” he explained as he quickly packed away his relief. “Usually only dark-siders wield them.”

“Do you agree with Master Jinn?” Padmé’s gaze was sharp as it met his. “The attacker was there to assassinate the Queen.”

“Unfortunately,” Obi-Wan answered. “You should perhaps warn her, this dark-sider is unlikely to give up so easily. Especially if there is a sizable price on her head. We might encounter him on Naboo as well.”

Grim and frustrated, Padmé nodded. “I’ll tell her. Why do you think Master Jinn has not spoken more with the Queen about this threat?”

Because said threat is his primary objective, Obi-Wan thought darkly. Master Jinn is on this mission to draw out and confront the dark-sider. With the Queen as bait.

That stirred a surprising amount of anger inside him, but he shared it with the Force before it could build.

“Perhaps the Queen should ask him,” he said not feeling the least bit regretful for throwing the man under the speeder-bus.

Determined and displeased, “I’m sure she will,” then Padmé stood from her seat gathering up her plate and datapad. Lunch had long since ended and the dining area was empty except for them and another handmaiden sitting inconspicuously across the room.

“Thank you for speaking with me, Obi-Wan,” she said some of her demeanor lightened as she returned from disposing of her plate, a smile once more on her face. “I enjoyed our conversation. It certainly took my mind off things at least for a bit.”

“I enjoyed it as well, Padmé. I look forward to entertaining you again sometime,” he grinned at her and her cheeks flushed for moment. In the Force her soft presence fluttered with pleasure before she marshaled whatever thoughts were going through her head.

“I must return to my duties, have a good afternoon.” She started to move away, but Obi-Wan caught her attention before she could get too far.

There was a curious thought that he needed to ask her. “When we were speaking about Master Jinn’s suspicions of me, you were very skeptical of his opinion. May I ask why?”

Padmé gifted him a lovely, bright smile. “Because the Queen trusts you,” she said. “And I like to think she’s a pretty good judge of character.”

Blinking at her a little surprised, Obi-Wan finally returned the smile with a charming one of his own. He bid her farewell and watched her leave, the handmaiden standing up and following in her wake.

She was something else, he thought as he took his own plate to the washer, Queen Padmé Amidala. Though, he was a little surprised by just how much her explicitly stated trust meant to him.

*

Obi-Wan spent the rest of the afternoon holed up in his closet-room going over the information his council dug up on the Trade Federation, Naboo, and the complete clusterkark that is the invasion and occupation of a sovereign planet.

The Not-an-Empire Council consisted of a couple Mando’ad stolen from Jaster’s council that were particularly talented in analyzing political situations, a number of slicers, several skilled and ruthless contract lawyers, and a couple military commanders including Jango and Obi-Wan himself. His slicers were able to infiltrated the Trade Federation’s first few levels of cyber security and steal a look at their communications both internal and external.

What they found was not particularly surprising for all that it was frustrating. The Neimoidians were receiving holocalls from Coruscant. Encrypted and almost impossible to decipher from so far away as Mandalore, but the comm codes didn’t lie. After every call the Neimoidainas would make some sort of oddly drastic move that truthfully was both illegal and slightly illogical for their outwardly spoken goals.

It wasn’t hard to guess that whoever they were talking with on Coruscant was pulling the strings on this invasion and if Obi-Wan added the presence of the masked Force-using assassin, he felt it safe to assume that Darth Sidious and Darth Plagueis had their fingers deep in this. It was a bold play though. Attempting to destabilize Mandalore from the inside is one thing, but completely taking over a Republic planet was another. Even if it was by proxy of the Trade Federation.

The Sith had another goal with this move, he just wasn’t sure what it could be yet.

The other thing most sticking in Obi-Wan’s mind was the assassin. He felt it was safe to assume that this masked Force-user was a replacement Apprentice for Maul. And if not an apprentice than an acolyte, who were historically known to be if possible even more zealous than the apprentices.

All in all, Obi-Wan completely expected this mission to go to haran in a hand basket sometime after landfall.

He compiled his conclusions and any new information into a data package and set it to be sent to Jango the moment they exited hyperspace. His brother needed to be prepared to fight a dark-sider if he came across him.

Obi-Wan finished up his ration bar for late meal and settled down to meditate. He needed to clear his mind and settle his emotions if he was going to have to spend another four days on the same ship as Qui-Gon Jinn without letting on that he was a Dark side user.

It took him hours. He hadn’t realized just how stressed and off balance he was until he sank into the Force and let his mind go calm and silent. Eventually though he was able to begin rising out of his trance, his strong and negative emotions dealt with so they wouldn’t compromise his shielding.

He was just coming back to full awareness when something, a bright blinding light caught his attention. Focusing on it, he felt sadness, loneliness, longing. Opening his eyes, Obi-Wan debating with himself for a moment.

Then he sighed and stood up. He stepped out of his room and made his way toward the supernova Force presence beckoning to him.

Entering the droid bay, Obi-Wan immediately spotted him. The little boy, Anakin. He was wrapped up in a richly dyed Nabooan shawl and crouched on the floor next to a blue and white astromech.

“I know R2,” the little boy said with a sigh. “Maybe you’ll get to fly one of the Naboo star-fighters when we get into the palace. I heard they’re some of the fastest fighters ever made.”

The astromech made a series of beeps and chimes that Obi-Wan thought roughly translated to: I’m not being used to my full potential. Or something like that, his binary was rough.

Anakin giggled and patted the droid on the dome. “I’m sure if you asked nicely Padmé would ask the Queen to let you fly on your own.”

Obi-Wan’s lips twitched and he stepped further into the droid bay. “Hello there,” he said and his smile grew a little wider when the boy and the droid jumped in surprise.

Twisting on his knees to look at the newcomer, the little boy blushed and hurriedly looked down to the ground. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t mean to be in the way.”

“Oh, you’re not in the way,” Obi-Wan assured him with a smile when the boy darted his eyes up to his face. He came closer and pointed at a patch of durasteel floor nearby. “May I join you?”

At Anakin’s nod, he lowered himself gracefully to the floor, folding his legs in his customary meditation pose. Once he was settled he turned to the little boy to see him eyeing his vambraces and pauldrons with barely restrained curiosity.

“You’re a Mandalorian.”

“I am,” Obi-Wan nodded. “Have you met any before?”

Anakin shook his head. “One came into the shop once, but Watto made me hide in the back.”

If Watto was his slave owner, Obi-Wan expected he would indeed have wanted to hide Anakin away. No Mandalorian would have been particularly happy being faced with a child slave.

The only reason Jaster hadn’t started a campaign against Hutt Space yet was because they didn’t have the resources. Not that it didn’t still come up fairly often in council meetings. He knew his father had a whole file of battle plans on his datapad just for a potential future war to liberate Hutt controlled planets.

At Obi-Wan’s acknowledging hum, Anakin looked at him with fairly intent scrutiny for a little boy. “Are you going to help the Queen save Naboo?”

“I am,” Obi-Wan answered. “The Queen has hired me and some of my soldiers to help her fight the Trade Federation.”

“Well, that’s alright then,” he said and Obi-Wan had to school his expression to keep his amusement hidden. “I’m Anakin by the way.”

“Yes, Padmé has told me quite a bit about you.” He smiled as the little boy’s cheeks turned bright red and his smile widened in pleasure. “I’m Obi-Wan.”

Anakin took the hand Obi-Wan offered and gave it an enthusiastic shake. “What um-” he bit his lip a little bashfully, “what did Padmé tell you, exactly?”

It was really quite charming, Obi-Wan thought, that Anakin had such an obvious crush on the young Queen in disguise.

“Well, she told me that you’re from Tatooine. That they wouldn’t have been able to make it to Coruscant without you.”

“I just helped them get the ship parts,” Anakin said humbly. “It was Mister-uh Master Qui-Gon that fought off the angry creature with his laser- I mean, lightsaber so we could take off.”

That was an interesting description. Angry creature. “How could you tell he was angry?” Obi-Wan asked causally.

“I could feel it,” Anakin said, and Obi-Wan was struck then that he was very unselfconcious about speaking of his Force-sensitivity. “He felt kinda like some of the slave masters do before they beat one of us,” he paused and gave a little shiver tightening his hold on the shawl around his shoulders. “But I’ve never felt anyone quite that angry before.”

“Yes, I imagine not,” Obi-Wan murmured watching a little bit of fear leak into the boy’s overwhelming presence. “Did he feel a bit like a force of nature? Like a storm perhaps?”

Anakin nodded slowly, but his brow was furrowed. “He felt angry and violent like a sandstorm, but not a sandstorm like Lukka that makes the world anew,” he said and Obi-Wan was momentarily confused. “He was a sandstorm that brings only destruction and pain.”

Unfamiliar with Tatooine culture, Obi-Wan assumed Lukka was a legend of some sort, a personification of one of the most destructive forces on the planet, but he understood Anakin’s meaning. Forces of nature were destructive, yes, but also natural and more often than not cleansing in their own way. This attacker, this dark-sider, there was nothing redeeming about his destructive nature.

“Thank you for telling me, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said bringing the little boy out of his heavy, unpleasant thoughts. “It must have been scary to be confronted with that.”

The little boy’s expression turned determined. “I wasn’t scared. I did what Master Qui-Gon told me and ran on the ship to tell them to take off.”

Ah, the pride of youth, Obi-Wan thought. “And that was very well done,” he said with a smile. “You probably saved the Queen’s life by doing that.”

“You think?” he looked wide-eyed and a little doubtful.

“Most likely.” True enough. If they’d stayed on the ground and the attacker had gotten past Jinn, the Queen and everyone on the ship would be dead.

“I’m curious,” Obi-Wan changed the subject after a moment of Anakin contemplating his heroism. “How did you come to be here on this ship again, heading to Naboo?”

“Master Qui-Gon said I have the Force,” Anakin answered plainly and Obi-Wan was once again realizing that the boy had no concept of discretion. “He brought me to Coruscant so I could become a Jedi. But they need to make room for me so I had to stay with Master Qui-Gon for now.”

That, Obi-Wan thought, was very interesting. He’d suspected as much, but there was still something off. He’d contemplate it later, so he changed up his mode of questioning.

“They admitted you into the Jedi?” he asked innocently. “How old are you?”

Anakin’s face contorted in a mix of consternation and confusion. “I’m nine. Master Yoda and Master Qui-Gon said that normally I’d be too old.”

And he would be, Obi-Wan hummed. The cut off for Humans and beings of equivalent life spans was six years old. Very, very rarely were there exceptions made and only within a year at most of that age. He thought about his childhood friend Quinlan who was now a Jedi Shadow. He’d come to the Order at seven because his family had been killed and he’d had nowhere else to go.

“Yes, nine is normally too old,” Obi-Wan said. “But it sounds like they made an exception for you.”

“They did!” Anakin’s face brightened then. “Master Yoda said I have qualities that are important for a Jedi to have and that I’m um-strong in the Force.” He related that last part with a hint of a question mark on the end.

Obi-Wan smiled, it was obvious that while Anakin had been aware of his powers before meeting Qui-Gon he hadn’t known anything about the Force itself.

“I don’t think a lot of the Council Jedi liked me though,” Anakin added a little morosely. “Some of them felt very unhappy when Master Yoda said I could join the Jedi.”

They would, wouldn’t they. Obi-Wan knew that the High Council was made up of wise venerable masters. Masters that were very tightly tied to the traditions of the Order. It wasn’t surprising that they weren’t particularly pleased with this exception. Even if the boy was almost incomprehensibly strong in the Force.

Being a child of the Unifying Force and mildly prescient most days, Obi-Wan was able to see the clouding of Anakin’s future and the darkness left on him by his life as a slave. Both of which would have been more than enough reason for the Jedi to reject him, even if he wasn’t too old.

“The High Council don’t tend to be very approving of anyone,” he reassured the little boy with a wry sort of smile. “I wouldn’t dwell on it too much. Master Yoda apparently likes you just fine so you have nothing to worry about.”

“How do you know so much about the Council? I thought you were a Mandalorian?” Anakin asked with an open curiosity. Not yet so ready to be suspicious of almost perfect strangers.

“I am a Mandalorian,” Obi-Wan said and like with Padmé earlier the Force prodded him a little onward. “Before I joined the Mandalorians though, I was a Jedi youngling. I grew up in the temple on Coruscant.”

“Oh!” Anakin’s mouth opened on the drawn out vowel. “That’s why you’re so bright!”

Raising an eyebrow, Obi-Wan did a quick check, but his shields were in place. His presence in the Force should not reflect how powerful he was. He should appear just above average Force-sensitivity for most living beings.

“What do you mean by that?”

“It’s just that when I first saw you on the platform,” Anakin explained nonchalantly, unaware of the improbability of his observation, “you shined a bit like a fleck of quartz in sandstone.”

Strangely enough Obi-Wan understood the metaphor. He appeared bright to look at, like the sun reflecting off a crystallization in dull rock, but not blinding like the sun itself. He stood out glaringly among the low Force-sensitivity of the millions of beings on Coruscant, but still appeared a natural part of the whole.

He wondered just how bright he would be to this little boy’s eyes if he wasn’t shielding as heavily as he was now.

Out of curiosity, “How does my brightness compare to Master Jinn?” he asked.

Anakin frowned in thought and flicked his eyes to and fro across Obi-Wan’s form, obviously seeing more than the Human eye should.

“He shines bright like you, but different. You’re more colorful. He’s kind of gray and smokey looking.”

Huh. Food for later thought.

“Can I ask you something?”

Obi-Wan focused back on the little boy and saw an uncertain, nervous expression on his face. “Certainly.”

“What’s living in the temple like?” he asked. “I’ve never left Tatooine before and Coruscant seems really different.”

Ah, Obi-Wan thought. Here was a little slave boy separated from his mother and the only home he’s ever known. Of course he’s anxious about living in an almost completely foreign environment. And it wasn’t surprising that a freedman, an ex-slave, would find asking a question of an authority figure like Master Qui-Gon too risky. Obi-Wan on the other hand had no authority over Anakin other than that of an adult to a child.

“Well,” he began keeping his tone calm and soothing, “since you’re still a youngling you won’t be leaving the temple for a while yet. You probably won’t see much of Coruscant.”

Anakin seemed relieved at that. Coruscant, compared to a relatively low population planet like Tatooine must be very overwhelming, especially to one so strong in the Force as him.

“Is Master Jinn taking you as a padawan?” The question didn’t spark any feeling in Obi-Wan other than slight disapproval. Somewhere in the back of his mind Obi-Wan had almost been expecting himself to still harbor resentment for the man for not taking him as a padawan and thus sending him on a completely different path.

He didn’t though. There wasn’t any feeling inside him for Qui-Gon Jinn other than mild wariness and indifference. Perhaps a hint of thankfulness. After all, if he’d become Jinn’s padawan, he never would have become a Mandalorian.

“No,” Anakin shook his head. “The stern bald master,” Master Windu perhaps, if Obi-Wan’s memory serves him right, “he said that I’ll stay in the Kee-um the Creche. I have to go to lessons and catch up with everyone else my age.”

That was actually a bit of a relief. Obi-Wan couldn’t imagine how difficult it would have been for Anakin to adjust to Jedi life if he’d been thrown immediately into a padawanship. Especially with a master like the Maverick Qui-Gon Jinn.

“I lived in the Creche while I was in the temple,” Obi-Wan told him, then made a kind offer. “Would you like me to tell you a bit about that?”

“Please,” Anakin burst out his eyes wide and hopeful. “I didn’t want to say anything to Master Yoda or Master Qui-Gon, but I’ve never even heard of a Creche before. I-” he bit his lip and darted his eyes away before darting them back, “I’m kinda nervous about staying there.”

Obi-Wan smiled at him soft and understanding. “Of course, Anakin. Though I will tell you that it is perfectly normal to feel nervous or even a little bit scared.”

“Really?” his face and voice both held all the doubt and skepticism. “Because the Council Masters made it sound like being scared was a bad thing.”

They would, he thought slightly darkly. It had been a very long time since he’d believed or practiced any kind of emotional suppression like what the Jedi preached.

“It would be a bad thing if all you thought about was being scared. If you let your fear stop you from moving forward and living your life,” he told the little boy seriously. “The Jedi tell you to let go of your emotions, but what they really mean is to move past it. Not let it control you.”

Anakin was quiet for a long moment thinking that through. “That makes more sense,” he finally said. “Master Yoda said something like that too, but I wasn’t sure I really understood then.”

That was a surprise. Master Yoda had accepted Obi-Wan’s decision to not suppress his negative emotions when he was on Mandalore, but he hadn’t expected the Grand Master to have brought that philosophy back to the temple with him.

“Master Yoda is very wise,” Obi-Wan replied. “I’m sure he would be happy to answer any other questions you have when you get back to the temple.”

He didn’t know if Anakin would actually follow that advice, but at least he seemed to have a more positive impression of Yoda than the rest of the Council.

“Shall I tell you about the Creche now?”

Anakin’s face lit up with eagerness and he shifted to lean against the silently observing astromech, apparently settling in for a story.

Smiling, already fairly fond of this little boy, Obi-Wan began speaking in a low soothing voice. “They’ll assign you to a Creche Clan, which is a group of younglings that all live together. This is usually very fortunate because it’s easier to make friends that way.”

He talked about the Creche, about a childhood he hadn’t thought of in a very long time, for half an hour before Anakin began yawning too much to continue.

“I believe it’s time for you to return to your cabin, Anakin.”

“No, Obi-Wan,” the little boy moaned in protest, though it was cut off by another yawn. “You didn’t finish telling me about the Room of Fountains.”

“Another time, perhaps,” he said and rose gracefully to his feet, reaching down and helping the exhausted boy to his own. “Come, I’ll walk you back.”

“Okay,” he sighed then turned back to his astromech friend. “Goodnight, R2. I’ll come visit you again tomorrow.”

The droid gave a series of beeps that Obi-Wan thought was a return sentiment then it shut itself down to “sleep” as well.

Obi-Wan guided a slightly swaying little boy through the ship by a steadying hand on his shoulder. After he turned the corner onto the correct hall he almost ran into a scowling Qui-Gon Jinn.

“Anakin, there you are,” he said glancing down at the boy and none-too-subtly reaching to grasp his shoulder, forcing Obi-Wan’s hand to retreat. “What are you doing out of bed? You shouldn’t wander the ship during the night cycle.”

Obi-Wan was unmoved by the man’s concern, considering he’d been in the droid bay with Anakin for an hour. The boy had been there alone for who knows how long and Jinn was just now coming to retrieve him.

“I couldn’t sleep,” the little boy said, not seeming to notice the way Master Jinn kept casting Obi-Wan dark suspicious looks. “Wanted to talk to R2 and then Obi-Wan came and told me about the Creche.”

“I see.” Obi-Wan highly doubted that. “Well, off to bed with you. I’ll be there in a moment.”

“Okay,” Anakin turned and smiled sleepily up at Obi-Wan. “Goodnight, Obi-Wan. Thanks for talking with me.”

“It was my pleasure, Anakin,” he returned with a soft kind smile of his own.

At least the Jedi Master waited until his young charge was behind closed doors, before he rounded on Obi-Wan.

“You stay away from him.”

Raising an eyebrow, Obi-Wan made sure his expression reflected just how thoroughly he did not appreciate that. “It is a small ship, Master Jinn. And what exactly do you think I would do to him? He’s a scared little boy, he just wanted some reassurance.”

“Which I will provide for him. He is my responsibility.” Master Jinn’s eyes narrowed. “And you could have done any number of things to him. Don’t act like you didn’t recognize his strength in the Force. As you said he’s a scared little boy. I imagine dark-siders prey on those made vulnerable by such emotions.”

Obi-Wan was torn. He was very insulted by the implications that he would prey on a child for any kind of reason, but he couldn’t exactly take issue with Qui-Gon’s accusation of darkness. He was a Dark side user and he did use fear in his wielding of it. It was his own fear though. He wouldn’t use a child’s fear if you held a blaster to his head.

“I will remind you, Master Jinn, that whatever you suspect of my Force-use I am a Mandalorian,” Obi-Wan’s voice was low and dark with his anger, though the emotion was still contained away from the Dark.

“I swore to the Mandalorian Creed. We do not harm children.” There must have been something in his expression because Jinn took an involuntary step back. “And the next time you accuse me of such, I will take it as a slight against my honor and you will retract that statement or I will make you.”

He stared Jinn down hard and silent. For all that he was half a foot shorter than the Jedi, that was no obstacle in Obi-Wan’s shockingly effective intimidation.

Eventually, Jinn squared his shoulders, his face was a mask of serenity. “It would be best if we avoided each other until landing on Naboo.”

“I don’t disagree,” Obi-Wan said, voice still low. Then he turned sharply on his heel and marched back to his closet-room.

He would be getting no sleep tonight, he thought in frustration. The rest of the night cycle would be spent in meditation, sorting out his heightened emotions. He couldn’t afford to slip in his shielding and it seemed that Qui-Gon Jinn was determined to make that as hard for him as possible.

*

Though that first day and the trouble with the Jedi could have set the tone for the rest of the journey to Naboo, it didn’t. Obi-Wan spent the next four days getting to know the amiable pilots and security forces along with the rest of the Queen’s handmaidens. Her actual handmaidens.

They made a good effort in keeping the switch between Padmé and her decoy a secret, but Obi-Wan had them at a disadvantage. He’d known the moment he’d spotted her in the dining area. For all that Padmé was actually very weak in Force-sensitivity, well below minimum for the Jedi, she had a very distinctive presence in the Force.

It might be naturally diminutive, but it was also clear and sharp with her intelligence. It was soft and gentle with her care and pride in her people. Not to mention how it lit up and fluttered when around people she was especially fond of.

Obi-Wan felt honored to conclude that she was fond of him even though they’d known each other for less than a week. That was alright, he was rather fond of her too truth be told.

For a fourteen year old, Padmé was sharp and witty and an intimidating verbal opponent. They’d gotten into an intense debate about the benefits and pitfalls of pacifism and diplomacy but unlike his fractious arguments with Satine Kryze he didn’t feel the need to drink poison just to escape her conversation.

There was much they didn’t agree on, but there was also much they did, and she was willing to bend and consider other perspectives sincerely which only increased his respect for her.

Another figure on the ship that Obi-Wan found himself drawn to was Anakin. He was a kind, mischievous, dangerously intelligent little boy. Obi-Wan felt pity for his Creche Master and all his teachers at the temple. They had their work cut out for them with all the trouble he was assuredly going to get into, probably dragging the other younglings along with him. He was a little sorry he wouldn’t be there to witness it.

Qui-Gon Jinn had been as good as his word and avoided meeting Obi-Wan one on one. The only time they were in the same room was when Anakin would demand Obi-Wan’s attention. The Jedi Master would hover on the periphery “supervising” their interactions.

This of course was a double edged sword for Obi-Wan. He was at least pleased that Jinn seemed to be paying more attention to his charge, but there was uncertainty about whether his vigilance was a product of genuine care for Anakin or his suspicion of Obi-Wan. He had an unfortunate suspicion that it was perhaps the latter.

Either way, it mattered little because Anakin took no notice of his guardian’s dislike of his new friend. Once he’d figured out that Obi-Wan would give him his complete attention and answer to the best of his ability any and all questions he could possibly think of, Anakin found him at least twice a day.

And he asked a very wide variety of questions. Once he’d exhausted his anxieties about the temple and the Jedi he moved on to Mandalorians. Which Obi-Wan was of course happy to talk about. Though the spike of displeasure and alarm every time Anakin expressed interest in the Mandalorian way of life was rather entertaining.

Honestly, couldn’t the man see that Anakin was meant to be a Jedi? It was there plain as day in his presence and his future in the Force. Clouded his path may be, but that was the one thing that Obi-Wan could read loud and clear. The Force wanted Anakin Skywalker with the Jedi. At least for now.

Of course when he wasn’t answering a little boy’s questions or debating a young queen on politics, Obi-Wan was in his closet-room analyzing and theorizing on the Sith’s motivations for manipulating this invasion.

No matter what he concluded about the Sith’s ultimate goals, he was unable to do anything about it until he one: had more information, and two: was actually prepared to openly work against the Sith. Which he neither had and-or was at the moment.

The only element about this clusterkark that Obi-Wan could realistically do anything about right then was the dark-sider. The Force was telling him, and his own instincts agreed, that the assassin would be on Naboo. This possible Sith Apprentice would make another attempt on the Queen.

That made his placement during the battle obvious. He would have to leave directing the ground troops to Jango and join the Queen’s infiltration team in the palace. Though Qui-Gon Jinn is considered a very good duelist in the Order, a Master in Ataru, Obi-Wan knew that fighting a true dark-sider was a lot more difficult than fighting an errant Fallen Jedi.

He had a dreadful feeling that should he confront the dark-sider alone, Jinn would not be able to defeat the assassin and would probably die in the attempt.

No matter how tumultuous their relationship was, Obi-Wan wasn’t going to let the stubborn man die. Not to mention that fighting the dark-sider himself would give him a very good opportunity to learn more about him and the Sith. Perhaps even more than just his skill in fighting as well. If Obi-Wan could speak to the dark-sider during their inevitable duel and possibly get him talking that would be even better.

Obi-Wan had learned throughout the years that he was very good at getting his opponents to spill much more than they intended.

Five days through hyperspace and finally they exited far enough away from the blockade as to not immediately alert the Trade Federation.

Obi-Wan donning his full armor stood in the cockpit with the tense pilots and looked out of the view screen at the massive blockade ships and the beautiful blue-green planet they surrounded. His comm on his vambrace chimed with an alert that his data package for Jango had been received along with a return message of a string of coordinates.

“I have my troops’ position.” He leaned over and typed in the coordinates into the navigation computer then stood back to grab a hand hold on the wall. “Go in hard and fast. They’ll fire on us the moment they pick us up on the scanners.”

The pilot acknowledged this, took a deep steadying breath then punched the ship into full throttle. They sped toward the planet, blasting past the blockade and dodging heavy gun fire as they went.

*
TBC...

Chapter Text

When they touched down at the coordinates Jango sent them it was to the sight of the a very large and well organized Mando’ad camp. Obi-Wan kept his smirk behind his mask at the exclamations from the Nabooans around him as they took in the medical tent, the refugee barracks, and one hundred and fifty heavily armed and armored Haat Mando’ad verde. Jango was very, very good at the game of war, and they’d had almost a dozen other planets in similar situations to perfect their craft.

The look on the young Queen’s face when the ramp lowered and she took in the camp was a picture of awe and gratefulness. Padmé, in her handmaiden’s clothes, turned to look up at him standing at her side.

“How?” Her voice came out raspy. “How did they manage this in less than a two days?”

Obi-Wan turned his head to meet her gaze through his visor. “We’re a culture of warriors, Padmé. And we’ve had lots and lots of practice at every aspect of a battle campaign.”

“No.” She shook her head though a slight smile was curling at her lips. “How did you free so many of my people?”

He sighed then and looked out over the camp. “Unfortunately, we weren’t able to free all of them. Jango sent me an update when we dropped out of hyperspace. These were just the people in the worst of the camps around Theed. The ones with the worst conditions.”

“Still.” Padmé watched at the Naboo citizens, most the worse for wear, but still alive and very happy to see the Queen in her heavy, fanned headdress and distinctive makeup. “I cannot- The Queen cannot thank you enough even for this much.”

Jango, in full armor, stepped up to them then, where they’d been standing off to the side away from most of the commotion.

“Su’cuy gar, vod’ika.” He grasped Obi-Wan by the forearm in a warrior’s greeting and pulled him in for a quick, hard hug.

“Su’cuy gar, ori’vod,” Obi-Wan answered back when he was released from the embrace. “Jango, this is Padmé, handmaiden and trusted advisor to the Queen.”

Jango’s visor turned on Padmé and he gave her a once over before nodding respectfully.

“Padmé,” Obi-Wan turned to her. “This is Ven’Alor Jango Fett, Ad be Mand’alor, my older brother.”

The formality of Obi-Wan’s introduction made Jango dart a quick look toward him, though he didn’t question it. There was little his younger brother did not do without reason. Introducing his brother by his proper title to a handmaiden was odd indeed, and Jango was curious to hear the explanation for that eventually.

“Ven’Alor Fett, on behalf of the Queen, I thank you for all that you’ve done for my-our people.” Padmé’s voice started out on an odd stilted cadence that between one word and the next was quickly dropped for her natural tone.

Jango was quiet for a moment as he studied her, then thought, ah, that makes sense. Pressing a fist to his chest in a respectful salute. “No thanks needed, my Lady,” he said, attempting to sound formal and polite, the way Jaster and Obi-Wan kept harping on him about when speaking to foreign dignitaries. “We have a job to do and we will do it to the very best of our abilities.”

She nodded in acknowledgment, then Jango continued, “May I have a moment with my brother. There are some things I need to discuss with him before our strategy meeting with the Queen and the Jet-the Jedi.”

“Of course,” she graced him with a smile and turned a brighter one on Obi-Wan. “I’ll see you at the meeting, then, Obi-Wan.”

He agreed and waited until she moved out of ear shot before turning fully to his brother.

“So, the Queen likes to dress up as a handmaiden,” Jango drawled jerking his chin toward the Queen’s decoy where she was now speaking lowly with Padmé the handmaiden.

“It’s a very effective protection,” Obi-Wan drawled back. “If I hadn’t recognized her presence in the Force it might have taken a couple days into the trip here before I picked up on the switches.”

“Yeah, I noticed those handmaidens all looked suspiciously alike.” Jango crossed his arms and shifted to guide his brother further from the crowd. “Of course the elaborate costumes and heavy face paint probably help.”

Obi-Wan hummed, they were in the shade of the treeline so he turned to more serious business. “Have there been any new developments I need to know about?” Him, but not the Naboo or the Jedi, he meant.

“Not really,” Jango said. “I got your data package and thankfully we haven’t run into any Sith on the planet. Though if your theories are correct I don’t see that being the case for much longer.”

“Have you discovered anything more about the Trade Federation?”

“Other than that they are incompetent and this whole invasion wouldn’t have worked at all if the Naboo had even a decently trained part-time militia,” Jango’s sneer was audible through his helmet’s speakers. “No, the Neimoidians have taken over the palace, but haven’t made an appearance since touching down on the planet. It’s all droids patrolling the streets and rounding up civilians.”

That was to be expected, Obi-Wan thought. Neimoidians as a whole were not fighters. And the Trade Federation higher ups were cowards on top of that.

“So, this is definitely another plot by the Sith.” It wasn’t a questions and Obi-Wan nodded to his brother.

“Yes, I’ve gone over everything that we know on the flight here. All signs point to Sith manipulation and interference.”

“It’s not exactly their style, though, is it?” Jango commented. “With us they stuck to subtle maneuvering and easily overlooked inconsistencies. This blockade is really overt and high profile despite the Senate complicity and the media blackout.”

“Hopefully, once I confront the dark-sider assassin, I’ll be able to pry some clues out of him.”

Jango groaned and dropped his head in frustration. “Of course, you’re going to confront the possible Sith Apprentice.”

“Don’t worry, Jango,” Obi-Wan ordered lightly and put a mock comforting hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure the Jedi will be attempting to confront him as well so I’ll have some half decent back up.”

Scoffing, Jango knocked his hand away. “From what you noted in your message about this particular Jedi, that doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.”

“Nevertheless, if I want even hints of answers to our questions, this is what I must do.” His tone was resolute.

“Fine,” Jango grudgingly conceded then changed the subject. “What’s the deal with the alliance? Has there been any progress on that so far?”

“Well, you saw me with Padmé,” Obi-Wan said gesturing toward where the young girl was demurely standing at her decoy’s shoulder. “I’ve gained her trust as a person and your utter competency at rescuing her people has gone a long way to softening her to Mandalore as a whole. I think after we liberate her planet she’ll at least accept some trade agreements. She’s smart, analytical, and cautious, which I can’t fault her for, but she’s also strong and more than willing to fight for her people.”

Jango took a moment to eye his brother. Not exactly super helpful since both their expressions were hidden by their helmets, but he didn’t need to see Obi-Wan’s face to tease him.

“Sounds as though you like her,” he said and there was a tone in his voice that had Obi-Wan cursing indignantly.

“She’s fourteen, Jango!” Obi-Wan hissed at him, body language tense and overly defensive. “I respect her as a young planetary leader. Nothing more than that.”

“Alright, alright.” He held his hands up surrender. “I was just joking, vod’ika. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Sighing, Obi-Wan’s shoulders dropped. “I know, I’m sorry. Master Jinn already accused me of attempting to corrupt his young charge to the ways of the Dark side. It’s been unpleasant having that suspicion constantly hanging over me.”

“He knows you use the Dark side?” Jango asked, wary. He knew how serious his younger brother was about his shields and his secrecy in that respect.

“He doesn’t know,” Obi-Wan assured, though there was distinctly displeased tone to his voice. “He suspects simply based on the fact that I left the Order and joined the ancient enemy of the Jedi. He was of the opinion that I was destined to Fall even when I was a hormonal teenager.”

“You knew him when you were with the Jetiise?”

“He could have been my Master, my Baji,” Obi-Wan replied, and he sounded tired. “His previous apprentice had Fallen to the Dark side years before, however, and Jinn declared he would not have another. He also declared that I was too angry, too arrogant, and too violent. That I was too dangerous to train because I was predisposed to the Dark.”

“Sounds like a shabuir,” Jango grunted. “All teenagers are arrogant, angry little shits. What did he expect?”

“No idea,” Obi-Wan muttered as he looked over Jango’s shoulder to see said Jedi Master kneeling before his young charge speaking softly, kindly to him.

Jango followed his gaze. “Should I be prepared to explain to Jaster why you’ve kidnapped a Jetii’ad?”

Jerking his head back to his brother, Obi-Wan huffed. “No, he’s treating Anakin much better than he treated me. And from what I managed to get out of Anakin, Master Yoda seems to have made a good impression. After this is over, I’ll holocall Yoda and ask him to keep an eye on them.”

Though not exactly happy with this solution, Jango didn’t protest. Obi-Wan was their resident Jedi expert/liaison. Jaster had pretty much given him total authority on any and all matters pertaining to the mysterious space wizards.

There was the sound of footsteps coming toward them and both Mandalorians turned to see one of the handmaidens, not Padmé, standing at a respectful distance.

“Her Highness requests that the strategy meeting start soon, Ven’Alor, Ad’Alor. If you would please return to camp.”

The two men murmured acknowledgments and waited for the handmaiden to step away before speaking again.

“I guess we have a battle to plan,” Jango said dryly.

Obi-Wan swept his arm out in the direction their messenger came from. “After you, Ven’Alor.”

Said future ruler scoffed and stomped ahead. Obi-Wan followed with a slight smirk curling at his mouth behind his mask.

The war council, so much as it was, consisted of the Queen, her decoy and her handmaidens, the Naboo head of security Captain Panaka, and their main pilot. Obi-Wan and Jango along with Jango’s second and best friend Myles were there as well.

“Please, Ven’Alor,” the decoy said in that regal, monotone robotic voice, “what can you tell us about the situation on my planet?”

“Most of the civilians are in detention camps,” Jango began as he placed a projector on the table and turned it on to display a holographic map of the capital city of Theed. The droid posts were marked as were targets of interest and the aforementioned camps. “We’ve managed to liberate the people from the camps with the worst conditions, but haven’t had time to get to the rest.”

He gestured to the blue highlighted building that was the local law-enforcement headquarters. “Police and the remaining palace guards have formed a resistance movement. I’ve got a squad of soldiers assisting and arming them already. When we’re done here I’ll comm their captain and request the resistance leaders be brought here so we can coordinate.”

There was an impressed look on Captain Panaka’s face. The Queen, her decoy and the handmaidens were all stoic and expressionless, though Obi-Wan could read their excitement and relief in the Force.

“The locals,” Jango continued and when he received blanks looks rolled his eyes behind his helmet, “the Gungans,” he rephrased, “have been driven from their underwater cities and are holed up in the swamps. We haven’t been especially successful in negotiating an alliance with them, but their leader, Boss Nass has expressed interest in speaking with the Queen.”

The surprised and considering look on Padmé’s face had Obi-Wan’s lips curling in satisfaction. He knew his brother, for all his rough edges, would make a good impression on her as a fellow ruler, and a great example of a Mando’ad.

“My soldiers and I, with the help of the able bodied Naboo, can create a distraction for the droid army so you can sneak into the palace, but there would be heavy casualties without the help of the Gungans,” Jango said, serious. “I suggest you attempt to gain their assistance.”

“How did you know we were planning on infiltrating the palace?” Captain Panaka asked slightly suspiciously.

Jango just tilted his head at the man in the helmeted equivalent of his younger brother’s signature eyebrow raise. “Obi-Wan sent me a data package with your rough battle plan,” he said like it should be obvious, which in his opinion it should have been. “Also if you want to end this invasion and gain control of the blockade as fast as possible, capturing the Viceroy of the Trade Federation is the only way to do that. And he is keeping himself safe in the palace.”

Unable to argue with his logic, the captain nodded and turned toward the decoy Queen in deference.

Obi-Wan just barely caught the split second glance the decoy cast at Padmé and the barely distinguishable nod she gave in response.

“You’re advice has merit, Ven’Alor,” the decoy said. “I shall go to speak with the Gungans while we wait for the leaders of the resistance to arrive.”

Jango nodded and typed out a quick message on his vambrace. “I should know within the next half hour when to expect the resistance.”

“I request an escort through the swamps, now, Ven’Alor.”

True to Obi-Wan’s expectations of his brother on campaign, Jango had things moving quickly. Their makeshift war council was guided through the swamps and met up with one of the Haat Ad verde at what appeared to be the entrance to the Gungans’ camp.

“Boss Nass is waiting for the Queen, Alor,” the verd said as he stepped up to their group. “He’s not exactly happy, but he doesn’t seem hostile.”

Jango turned to the decoy and the Queen standing behind her shoulder. “The Gungans are proud, Boss Nass especially,” he told her. “For all that they seem like silly creatures they are very intelligent and from what we’ve been able to observe, good warriors. Treat them as equals and you’ll get better results.”

Obi-Wan felt a flash of irritation and insult from Padmé. That Jango would assume she wouldn’t treat a fellow leader as an equal. It faded quickly however and was replaced by a tinge of chagrin. Obi-Wan thought it was safe to assume she was remembering that the Naboo and the Gungans had long been at odds. The Gungans often looked down on and seen as primitives despite their technology being just as advanced and innovative as the colonizers’.

“I will take your words under advisement,” the decoy intoned after a quickly almost hidden touch on her wrist from Padmé.

Naturally when they were lead to the Gungan leader he was looking down at them from atop the massive head of a fallen statue, a rather displeased, unimpressed expression on his face.

After Jar Jar Binks greeted Boss Nass and was summarily dismissed, the large Gungan turned his attention on the decoy.

“I am Queen Amidala of the Naboo, I come before you in peace,” she intoned, and Obi-Wan could feel her slight nervousness in the Force, though it didn’t show on her painted face or in her body language.

“Ah, Naboo biggun,” Boss Nass drawled. “Yousa bringen the machineeks. Yousa Naboo issa all bombad.”

That sounded very definitively negative, but Obi-Wan had faith in Padmé. He knew if the Gungans were to ally with them she would find a way of convincing them. The Force whispered in his ear that it would be so.

Before the decoy could reply, Padmé stepped forward revealing the ruse sending a wave of confusion through the spectators and alarm through her security and handmaidens.

Obi-Wan felt his smirk grow behind his mask as he traded a glance with Jango, his brother unfazed by the development. Master Jinn was only mildly surprised, more exasperated. And Anakin was staring at Padmé in open mouthed incredulous awe.

“Our great societies have lived in peace,” Padmé told the Gungan leader. “The Trade Federation seeks to destroy all that we have worked so hard to build. We come before you asking for your help protecting our home. Your Honor, will you help us?”

Boss Nass eyed her, scrutinizing. “Yousa not be beggins for meesa help.” It was not a question.

Padmé nodded her head regally as she stayed standing, back straight and shoulders firm. “We are both great leaders of our people, your Honor,” she replied. “We are equals. I thought we should speak as equals.”

Boss Nass hummed low and rumbly as he continued to examine this young girl standing before him. After a long tense moment, he began to grin. “Yousa no be thinking yousa greater than the Gungans,” he said. “Meesa lika thees. Maybe, weesa being friends.”

There was a way of relief through their group and considering murmurs through the Gungans as Boss Nass stepped off his impromptu dais and strode over to them.

“Come, Naboo biggun,” he waved for Padmé to walk beside him. “Yousa bringin meesa to yousa bombad generals. Weesa be talkin’ battle.”

“Of course, your Honor,” Padmé said with a smile as she lead the way toward Obi-Wan and Jango, Captain Panaka and Qui-Gon Jinn joining them.

“I believe you’ve spoke to Ven’Alor Jango Fett and have been in discussions with some of his soldiers. This is his brother and co-commander of their troops Ad’Alor Obi-Wan Kenobi.” She gestured to the Mandalorians in turn, Boss Nass humming and nodding along. “And this is Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and my head of palace security Captain Panaka.”

The large Gungan turned a very unimpressed expression on Jinn. “Weesa having met before.”

“I wish that we could have met again in better circumstances,” Jinn replied diplomatically, giving the frowning Gungan a polite bow.

Boss Nass just grumbled at that and turned back to the rest of the group. “How yousa thinkin weesa be fightin the machineeks?”

Their camps were combined in short order. The Gungan warriors traveling out of the swamp to join the Haat Ad verde and the noncombatant Nabooans traveling into the swamps to hide with the civilian Gungans.

Strategy talk made real progress once the resistance leaders appeared.

“The True Mandalorians and the Gungans will keep the majority of the droid army occupied away from the city,” Padmé explained as she gestured to the holo-map displayed over the table in the command tent. “I will take a small group to infiltrate the palace through the tunnels and capture the Viceroy. Once we do that we can shut down the droid army and end the blockade.”

“I’m sending a small squad with you to the palace,” Jango cut in before the others could add their own thoughts. “Obi-Wan expressed concern about an assassin targeting you. Not to mention there will be a fair number of droids stationed in the palace not just around it. My brother plus four of my soldiers should be enough to get you in and to the Viceroy without much trouble.”

Padmé frowned. “I do not need extra protection. My security, my handmaidens, and Master Jinn will be accompanying me.”

“Your Highness,” Captain Panaka spoke up, “I would be a lot happier if you have more guards. My man and I are more than ready and willing to protect you, but any advantage would be appreciated.”

“Alright,” she conceded gracefully in the face of his captain’s concern for her. “Your assistance will be gladly accepted.”

Just as graciously, Jango simply nodded his head and moved on to discussing battle strategy with the Gungan generals since they would be the ones holding off the largest most dangerous force.

After everyone knew exactly what they’d be doing the next day, the resistance leaders were ferried back into the city to start preparing for the assault. It was their job to clear the droid checkpoints in the city while the Queen’s group took the palace. The Gungans dispersed to begin their own preparations and Qui-Gon Jinn wandered off to make sure his charge wasn’t getting into trouble.

Jango and Obi-Wan were left alone with the Queen. Her handmaidens standing a respectful distance away.

“What kind of firepower are you and your handmaidens carrying?” Jango asked, or more accurately demanded.

Padmé blinked at him for a moment then drew a small hold-out weapon, an ELG-3A blaster handgun. A weapon better used for short range personal protection, no matter that it packed a fairly good punch.

He looked at the weapon then back at her and she got the distinct impression he was rolling his eyes. “It’s not bad, but you can do better. I’ll take your handmaidens and raid the armory.” With that he marched toward them and after a nod from Padmé the handmaidens allowed him to usher them to the Haat Ad traveling armory.

Turning back to Obi-Wan, Padmé had a slightly amused if bewildered look on her face. It smoothed out as she looked up at him through his visor.

“You don’t seem so surprised at my identity.”

Obi-Wan shrugged. “I already knew.”

“How?” Padmé was genuinely curious if a little disgruntled.

“I’m a Force-user,” Obi-Wan said with a hint of amusement in his tone. “Every person in the galaxy has a unique presence in the Force. You’re presence is very distinctive to me. I knew the moment I saw you in the dining area the first day of our journey.”

Thankfully she didn’t seem too put out by this explanation. After all it wasn’t something she could control. Or could she? A thought for another time.

Padmé studied the unchanging expression of his mask. “You didn’t treat me any differently and you kept up the ruse.”

Obi-Wan nodded, his voice nonchalant when he spoke. “Mandalorians are a pragmatic people, Padmé,” he said. “We rarely stand on ceremony if it’s not strictly required of us. And it wasn’t hard to figure out the purpose for your deception. I wasn’t going to put that in danger by giving away the secret.”

Her cheeks flushed and her presence brightened with pleasure. “Thank you, Obi-Wan. That means a lot to me.”

“Of course, my Lady,” he said and bowed his head toward her, his smile audible in his tone. “We are friends after all. What’s a little secret identity between friends?”

Padmé laughed with him, her presence light and happy. Obi-Wan admired it while it lasted before she packed the levity away and became the serious determined Queen once more.

*

The night before the battle was spent in sleeplessness, preparation, and meditation.

Obi-Wan wouldn’t be able to fight at his full Force potential since he would be in close proximity to Qui-Gon Jinn. He didn’t want to confirm the man’s accusation of his Dark side use, that could only lead to trouble and so Obi-Wan was going to meditate most of the night to make sure that his emotions were level, his mind was centered, and his shields were impenetrable.

Of course if this confrontation with the dark-sider assassin proved to be problematic he was prepared to reveal himself. He just really didn’t want to have to deal with the fall out.

Jango spent this time making sure the Nabooans were as ready as they could be and well armed. The Gungans, in a display of surprising friendliness spent time getting to know the verde since they would be fighting alongside each other. It was a good strategy to build trust and Obi-Wan approved.

Eventually though morning came and it was time to march to battle.

Jango and Obi-Wan said their goodbyes in their normal fashion.

“Don’t do anything too stupid, vod’ika.”

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. “Right back at you, ori’vod.”

Snorting, Jango pulled his little brother into a hard hug. “K’oyacyi, Obi-Wan.”

“K’oyacyi,” stay live, he returned as they pressed their armored foreheads together in a sign of brother affection.

Pulling back from their mirshmure’cya, Obi-Wan called, “Oya!” loud and proud.

“Oya!” Jango answered, his call to hunt echoed by all the nearby verde.

Moving to the transport carrying the Queen’s entourage and the Jedi, Obi-Wan was amused to see that the handmaidens, Padmé included, were all carrying large assault blasters.

“I see Jango was able to provide you with satisfactory arms,” he commented wryly as he climbed into the transport.

One of the handmaidens, Eirtaé, he thought her name was, huffed and rolled her eyes. “He wouldn’t let us go until we all had a second hold-out blaster and a hidden vibroblade as well.”

“That’s my protective older brother for you,” he said unsympathetic.

“So, he wasn’t just being overbearing because we’re young females?” Rabé, he recognized, looked at him with a dubious expression.

“Certainly not. A quarter of the True Mandalorians on the ground here on Naboo are females. It’s not about your sex or even your age,” he explained plainly. “Most Mandalorians are considered adults at thirteen with the completion of their first solo hunt. No, I’m afraid Jango’s protectiveness is an ingrained personality trait.”

He sighed very put-upon and only partially exaggerated. “I still catch him double checking my kit most missions and I’ve been considered a fully fledged warrior for almost a decade.”

The handmaidens chuckled and laughed at this, which was the point. Padmé’s tight expression and tense shoulders had loosened with the humor floating through the transport.

“We’re ready to move out, your Highness,” Panaka called from the front.

“Let’s be on our way, then, Captain,” Padmé ordered and the transport began to move, driving through the forest and toward the edge of the city.

Obi-Wan listened to the soft conversation being held around him and spent the relatively short ride in a light meditation. Preparing himself for what was to come.

*
TBC...

Chapter Text

Jango did not like using the Gungan army as bait, but he knew that this strategy was the better play. He and a large number of verde were hiding out in the treeline on the edge of the open battlefield. All of them equipped with either jet-pack rocket launchers or shoulder mounted launchers primed and ready.

There were several squads of verde and most of the combatant Nabooans mixed in with the Gungans attempting to keep a low profile.

The plan was to take the droids by surprise, so to speak, since droids didn’t feel emotion or panic like living beings. If the droids underestimated based on the Gungans’ obvious forces out in the open it would make it that much easier for the Haat Ade to effectively assault them from the side.

The march of the Gungan army out to the middle of the field was a slow one. Since they were hauling their large ammunition carts and their catapults along with them. As they reached their optimal position in the field and launched their energy shields, however, a very large convoy of droid transports and armored tanks crested the hill and drove to a stop not very far away.

The armored tanks immediately opened fire on the Gungan shields.

“Steady,” he called to his soldiers as a few shifted impatiently. “Not yet.”

The command droid ordered a cease fire then suddenly the droid transports rolled forward and began unloading inactive B-1 battledroids.

“Tra’cyar mav!” Fire at will, Jango yelled as he targeted a transport and the racks of droids it was carrying with his heads-up-display then leaned forward and launched his jet-pack rocket.

The verde in the trees with him promptly followed suit, shoulder launchers and jet-packs firing in a stream of destructive explosives.

The battledroids inactive and helpless and the transports slow and cumbersome were very easy targets with their long range attack. They put a very sizable dent in the opposition. They didn’t get all the droids however and the armored tanks were still operating. So Jango drew one of his blasters and palmed a grenade from his belt.

He took to the air with his jet-pack, his other flight capable verde following suit.

“Ib’tuur jatne tuur ash’ad kyr’amur!” he shouted as encouragment as he entered the battle. Today is a good day for somebody else to die.

The remaining droids had been activated and were now breaching the Gungan’s shields. The verde on the ground and the Nabooans with them opened fire as the Gungans launched their odd if surprisingly effective blue ballistics balls.

“Oya!” his soldiers cried in response. Some of the Nabooans and the Gungans echoing the call with battle cries of their own.

“Oya Manda!”

*

Obi-Wan felt the disturbance in the Force when the large distraction battle in the Great Grass Plains began. He sent a prayer up to the Force and to the Ka’ra1 to protect his brother, their verde, and their allies.

They were already in the underground tunnels well on their way to breaking into palace. Obi-Wan and his Haat Ad squad taking the outer edges of the group for protection letting Captain Panaka lead the way.

Soon they exited the tunnels and quickly breached the palace walls. Their group split in two. Captain Panaka’s half moving to hopefully meet up with a squad of resistance fighters waiting at one of the palace grounds’ side entrances. Obi-Wan, Padmé, Jinn, and their assorted entourages went the longer and better hidden way. Eventually, though they were able to sneak as close to the entrance to the star-fighter hangar as possible. Of course there was a troop of droids and a couple armored tanks blocking the way.

Padmé moved up to the front of their group and flashed her signal penlight to Captain Panaka hidden on the other side of the courtyard. Panaka returned the signal and without fanfare a couple of resistance fighters drove into view in a gun-mounted speeder and opened fire on the droids.

“Let’s move,” Padmé ordered as she darted out firing her large assault blaster. Obi-Wan kept ahead of her his blaster in one hand firing at the droids and his beskad in the other slicing through any that got too close, even occasionally deflecting bolts off its beskar blade. Jinn was rapidly deflecting blaster bolts with his lightsaber on the front line as well, Anakin keeping close to his back and relatively out of danger.

Between the Queen’s people, the verde, and the very well armed handmaidens the droids in the courtyard were destroyed fairly quickly and they were able to run to the star-fighter hangar with no more trouble. The hangar was attached to the main palace and would be the least guarded entrance. Padmé and her people would attempt to make it to the Viceroy from there.

There were droids in the hangar guarding the fighters, though. Immediately, they opened fire and it was a familiar chaos of blaster bolts and small explosions. Obi-Wan and his verde stayed toward the front with their protective armor, taking out the droids.

“Get to your ships!” Padmé shouted as she dropped behind cover and fired upon the droids.

The pilots scattered and scrambled up into their fighters as quickly as possible, while everyone else attempted to cover them.

“Ani, find cover!”

Out of the corner of his eyes, Obi-Wan saw Anakin dart behind some crates and crouch down even as a blaster bolt exploded against the pillar in front of him not a foot above his head. Cursing under his breath. Obi-Wan kept fighting, but cast part of his attention into the Force to monitor the little boy. Jinn was a whirl with his green lightsaber deflecting shots and slicing through droids, but he was no longer near Anakin.

So when Obi-Wan felt the flare of alarm and heard the yelp of fear from the little boy he didn’t waste a moment launching himself toward him.

He leaped with the Force, controlling his momentum with a flip in the air as he landed between a frightened Anakin and two battledroids about to fire on him.

Obi-Wan deflected a blaster bolt with the blade of his beskad and shot one of the droids in the head. He sliced the other in half with ease. They were only made of durasteel and not particularly high-quality durasteel either.

“That was wizard!”

Turning around, Obi-Wan saw Anakin looking up at him wide-eyed and awed. “Come on, Anakin.” He holstered his blaster so he could grab the boy’s arm and haul him to his feet. “You need to get off the ground.”

Fortunately there was an unmanned star-fighter nearby. He pulled Anakin toward it, the blue and white astromech the boy made friends with following along. The hangar was mostly automated so when the droid got close enough an arm came down and hauled it up into the fighter’s droid compartment.

Well, that was fortuitous, Obi-Wan thought as he ushered the boy up the step ladder and into the fighter.

“Stay there, Anakin. Keep your head down,” he ordered and waited until he got a shaky nod in agreement.

“Okay, Obi-Wan. I’ll stay here.”

Obi-Wan didn’t respond because he heard one of his verde shout in pain. Spinning towards the sound, he pulled his blaster and shot the droid that had gotten in a lucky shot between the beskar plates of its target’s armor.

Jogging over, Obi-Wan covered the injured verd until she had her wits about her and began firing again. “Me’vaar ti gar?”

“Naas, Alor,” the verd replied as she shot the head off a droid. “Kih’shupur.”

Glancing back Obi-Wan could see that the blaster bolt had hit her high on the shoulder. Like she said it was minor, nonfatal, and not bleeding over much. “Jate.” He went back to fighting.

The skirmish was intense for all that it was relatively short.

The hangar was clear of droids and almost empty of star-fighters, the majority of them already breached atmosphere and doing battle in space above the planet. Hopefully attempting to take out the Droid Control Ship.

Captain Panaka issued instructions and they all began jogging toward the entrance to the palace.

“Anakin, stay there!” Jinn ordered as he strode past Anakin’s fighter. The boy of course protested but he glanced at Obi-Wan watching the exchange and relented with a small pout as he sat back in the pilot seat.

They were before the large doors leading to the palace when Obi-Wan felt it. The Dark side, strong and wild and full of violent, gleeful rage. The Dark presence in the Force and the feelings seeping from it were not unlike how Maul had felt the first night they met, when he attempted to assassinate Jaster. But it was also not as elegant. Not as refined even. Not as natural.

The doors opened and in their way stood a tall male humanoid being in a long black robe. His face was covered in a black expressionless mask, his clothes matching his presence. Dark and menacing.

“I’ll handle this,” Jinn declared as he stepped through the frozen group, drawing his lightsaber.

“We’ll take the long way,” Padmé agreed and then the Nabooans scattered leaving Jinn, Obi-Wan, and the dark-sider behind.

The assassin tilted his head toward Obi-Wan seemingly curious at his continued presence. Jinn glanced fleetingly back toward him, a frown on his face.

“Alor?”

“Shekemir Naboo’alor.” He ordered the verde hesitating at his back to follow the Queen, while he faced the assassin. “Ni akaanir dar’Jetii.2”

That seemed to clear up any confusion with his soldiers because they hurriedly agreed and moved to follow the Naboo, firing on the droidekas that had rolled in to impede them. After all, they knew just how well their Ad’Alor could handle Force-users.

“I do not need our help, Kenobi.”

“Nevertheless, Master Jinn, you have it,” Obi-Wan replied plainly as he drew his beskad again. He briefly considered drawing his lightsaber as well, but he didn’t want to give away any advantage of being underestimated. For all this dark-sider knew, he was just a Mandalorian. The moment he pulled his lightsaber, his illusion of mundanity would vanish.

The dark-sider however gave a fleeting, minute reaction to his name in Jinn’s mouth. His presence flickered with interest and another surge of anger. He knew him, Obi-Wan realized as he watched the assassin drop his hood revealing wavy black hair. Then his robe fell to the floor in true dramatic fashion and he drew his lightsaber from his belt with a flourish to match. This dark-sider recognized his name and did not like him. Hated him in fact.

Interesting.

The assassin’s blade ignited and the corrupted crystal inside screamed with pain and hate and rage. It was not a pleasant sound, but nor was it the strongest he had heard. Maul’s Bleeding kybers had a more powerful call in the Force, all rage and defiance and very thinly leashed violence. This possible Sith’s kybers sounded almost selfish, as if their pain was less directed at the galaxy at large, and more cried out for their own benefit.

Odd, Obi-Wan thought. He hadn’t realized that Bleeding kyber could have different personalities. He’d assumed they were all mostly alike. Though really he’d only been exposed to his own rehabilitated Mando’ad crystal and Maul’s. His sample size was not that large.

All thoughts on kybers were shelved as the dark-sider lunged and attacked.

Of course Qui-Gon Jinn met him head on and Obi-Wan was forced to hold off lest he get in the way and either take a hit from Jinn on accident or interfere with an attack on the dark-sider.

He fought fast and aggressive. It was plain that Jinn was not exactly used to fighting another Force-user actually attempting to harm him. This lead to the dark-sider pushing Jinn further into the hangar.

Seeing an opportunity with the attacker’s back to him, seemingly having forgotten about Obi-Wan, he swung at him in a Mando’ad attack form. The dark-sider was fast indeed because he spun and blocked with ease though the fact that Obi-Wan’s metal sword didn’t yield to the heat of the red plasma blade seemed to surprised him for a moment. Grinning behind his mask, Obi-Wan followed the attack up with a flurry of hits and strikes powerful and lightening quick.

The dark-sider was back stepping now, his frustration and rage growing black and furious in the Force. Jinn used an Ataru flip to get behind their opponent and attack him again.

Shoving at Obi-Wan with the Force was perhaps not as effective as the dark-sider would have preferred. Mostly due to his Ka’ra muffling beskar armor mitigating a great deal of the Force exerted on it. Still he gained enough space to meet Jinn’s attack with an audible snarl.

“You’ll have to try harder than that, old man,” the dark-sider taunted through the unnatural voice distortion in his mask.

He grabbed a droid’s dismembered head with the Force and threw it at a door mechanism about twenty feet behind him. The door slid open to reveal the palace power generator’s plasma extracting chamber.

Obi-Wan cursed as the dark-sider allowed Jinn to press him back until they passed the threshold and took the fight onto the walkways. He followed them and heard the dark-sider taunt the Jedi Master again.

“You’re weak, old man. I am so much stronger than you now.”

Jinn faltered for a heartbeat, Obi-Wan lunged forward and struck at the dark-sider so hard that he growled, only barely blocking and redirecting his blows.

“Stay out of this, you mouth breathing Mando, or I will kill you.”

Obi-Wan parried the red blade with a deliberately lazy twist of his beskad infuriating the dark-sider further. “You don’t seem to be doing a very good job of it so far.”

He was arrogant this possible Sith, Obi-Wan thought as he traded strikes with him, making sure not to let the dark-sider catch him in a blade lock. His beskad may be able to withstand hits from a lightsaber, but prolonged contact with a plasma blade will still heat the beskar and weaken the metal.

“What’s your stake in this fight, Mando?” the dark-sider asked blocking Obi-Wan’s hits with more precision and ease the longer they fought. “You’re supposed to hate Jedi, why fight me when we could be allies?”

Weak, Obi-Wan sneered behind his mask. “Mandalorians hate wanna-be Sith much more than the Jedi.”

He growled and kicked Obi-Wan in the chest sending him flying with the force of it. “I’m not a wanna-be of anything!” he shouted twirling his red blade and Force-jumping to the next level walkway. “The Dark gives me strength and I will gain victory!”

That was a maxim paraphrased from the Sith Code. Definitely a Sith then, Obi-Wan used the Force to flip mid air and land in a crouch. He jumped to the higher walkway to follow.

The Sith lunged a strike at Obi-Wan the moment he landed, but was blocked by Jinn, the grave faced determined Jedi having joined them again.

“The Dark only corrupts,” he said as he parried the Sith. “It gives nothing. Only takes.”

“You would like to believe that, wouldn’t you?” the Sith hissed through the distortion in his mask. “You blind, self-righteous fool!”

He knew Jinn, Obi-Wan decided as he trailed the fight across the walkways between the plasma extracting shafts. The Sith wasn’t able to keep his negative emotions utilitarian and distant. His hatred was personal.

An idea came to him. An odd one, he granted, but once he thought it he couldn’t not act on it.

Pulling his lightsaber from his belt, Obi-Wan twirled it in his hand till the spiked mace pommel was at the ready. He watched the fight closely for an opening and didn’t have to wait long.

Jinn was tiring. His chosen form of Ataru was not optimal for fighting another lightsaber wielder and the Sith took advantage of that. The Jedi stumbled and the Sith swiped at him viciously. Jinn jumped back to avoid the blade, which fortunately gave Obi-Wan the chance he needed.

With Force assisted speed, Obi-Wan was between the Sith and the Jedi catching the Sith’s lightsaber with his beskad and forcing the blade toward the ground. Then, before the Sith could disengage, Obi-Wan smashed his spiked mace hard across that black face mask.

The Sith shouted in pain and rage as he stumbled away, just barely keeping a hold of his lightsaber in his shock.

The mask was shattered at the point of impact exposing a fair Human face now marred with shallow slashes from the beskar spikes. Locks of black hair fell over the bare half of his face, but they did nothing to hide the bright sickly yellow eye glaring at them.

A sharp intake of breath, Jinn gasped, “No!” staring at their opponent with wide eyes.

Obi-Wan flicked his gaze toward him then darted back to the Sith, preoccupied with attempting to figure out where he’d seen him before.

“What?” the Sith demanded as he reached up and ripped the rest of the mask from his face revealing a handsome sneering visage. “Did you really think you killed me in that blast all those years ago, my old master?”

Ah, Obi-Wan twirled his beskad up in a ready stance and firmed his grip on his lightsaber, the spiked mace still in prominent position. That’s where he knew that face. Xanatos duCrion, Qui-Gon Jinn’s Fallen padawan. The man that had put a bomb collar around Obi-Wan’s neck and consigned him to weeks as a slave on a deep sea mining rig on Bandomeer.

“Xanatos, stop this now!” Jinn shouted. “I will not let you get away this time.”

“You are no match for me, Qui-Gon,” Xanatos snarled at his old master. “I have spent the last decade learning the forbidden arts of the Dark side. I am much more powerful than you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Obi-Wan shot back, not the least bit intimidated when the Dark leaking out of Xanatos grew heavier and more vicious.

“And what would you know of power, little Obi-Wan Kenobi? That’s right, I remember you. Qui-Gon’s would-be apprentice. You’re nothing but a pathetic Jedi wash out.” Xanatos smirked, mean and satisfied. “I guess my old master did reject you after all. Since you’re apparently a Mandalorian now. Though, the Mandos must have really been scraping the bottom of the barrel when they let you join.”

It was meant to be hurtful, but Xanatos’s words shot past Obi-Wan without touching him.

“I’m not the only wash-out here,” Obi-Wan returned calm and firm. “I seem to recall that you never made it to Knighthood. Perhaps, take your own past into account before you start exaggerating your talents.”

“There is no exaggeration!” Xanatos’s handsome face really did not wear a snarl well. “I was already strong in the Dark side when my master found me and I am even more so, now.”

Yep, this was the apprentice that replaced Maul. Obi-Wan was about to attack, but Qui-Gon made an angry sound of protest and stepped forward.

“What do you mean, ‘your master’?” the Jedi demanded, tense and almost anticipatory. Which only further confirmed Obi-Wan’s guess about Jinn’s true assignment from the Council.

“That’s right,” Xanatos shot a nasty grin at the scowling Jedi. “My master is strong in the Force and beyond cunning. He is powerful in every possible way and far outstrips you as a more talented teacher. How does it feel? To know that I replaced you so very easily?”

Obi-Wan cursed as Jinn abruptly attacked Xanatos, blocking his way.

The Jedi was fighting with increased intense focus and energy. He hit at his former padawan with hard, powerful strikes and when Xanatos locked blades with him, he backhanded the younger man with enough strength to send him flying off the walkway.

He landed back on the main walkway, where they started. Jinn didn’t hesitate to jump after him and continue the fight. Gritting his teeth in frustration, Obi-Wan quickly followed after them, but not quick enough to keep the gap between him and the other two fighters from widening.

Jinn was fighting Xanatos with such a ferocity that it would have been impressive if he wasn’t in the process allowing his former padawan to lead him closer to the plasma disintegration shaft.

Even from this distance Obi-Wan could see Xanatos’s mouth moving, obviously spitting more taunts and insults at his former master. Jinn had gone back to stoically battling his failed apprentice, not rising to the verbal hits for all that he was in serious danger of losing his temporary upper hand.

Obi-Wan was running toward them, but he didn’t make it in time. Xanatos backed up into the laser door passageway, Jinn readily chasing after, then the doors activated behind them. Sliding to a stop just before the first laser door, Obi-Wan saw that at least Jinn and Xanatos were separated by the laser doors at the end of passage as well.

“Master Jinn!” he shouted catching the Jedi’s attention if only just. “Wait for me! Don’t fight him alone!”

Xanatos just grinned wider when Jinn replied, “He’s my responsibility, Kenobi. I will do what I should have done twenty years ago. Send him back to the Force and end his stain on the galaxy.”

“You can try, old master of mine, you can try,” the Sith mocked.

“Atin or’dinii’la Jetii3,” Obi-Wan muttered as the laser fields deactivated and Jinn and Xanatos clashed blades again moving further into the disintegration chamber. He ran, but still didn’t make it. The last laser door closed on him before he could enter the chamber after them.

He watched behind the red laser field as the two fought furious and angry. Jinn was barely holding onto his Jedi serenity in the face of Xanatos’s stream of cruel words.

Obi-Wan remembered facing Xanatos on Bandomeer. He remembered just how good the older man was at getting into your head with his sharp tongue. The longer he was trapped behind this laser door the more he could see Jinn’s cool slipping.

Then it happened, Jinn’s Ataru failed him and Xanatos used a gap in his form to stab his former master in the stomach.

Obi-Wan punched the laser door in frustration with his beskar gauntleted fist as he watched Jinn’s face go slack with shock before he collapsed to the floor. Badly wounded, but still alive.

Xanatos let out a deranged laugh as he stalked toward the fallen Jedi. “Look at you, my old master. Weak, pitiful, and at my mercy.” He hovered over Jinn and twirled his lightsaber dramatically. “I have been waiting a long time for this.” Raising his lightsaber high, ready to finished the job, he looked his old master in the eyes wanting to relish the fear and disbelief in that blue gaze. “Goodbye, old man.”

Obi-Wan heard the Force whisper in his ear. He flipped his lightsaber around in his hand to wield his beskar blade guards. Gathering the Force around him, he kept his eyes on Xanatos and prepared. Then the laser door opened and he Force-sped across the distance.

Xanatos was momentarily thrown when his blade came down on Obi-Wan’s beskad instead of Jinn’s neck. He took the advantage of surprise and stabbed the Sith Apprentice with his sharpened blade guards.

Yelping, Xanatos jumped back bringing a gloved hand up to press at his punctured shoulder. He hurriedly dropped his now blood slick hand to grip his lightsaber again as Obi-Wan attacked him hard and fast and unrelenting.

Obi-Wan blocked his lightsaber and jabbed at him with his blades again. He parried a furious slash and swiped with his saber guard. Unfortunately he didn’t get another hit in on Xanatos so easily, but his unconventional dual weaponry kept the Sith off balance.

“He rejected you! He destroyed your life, too!” Xanatos shouted in angry frustration. “Why are you defending him?”

Obi-Wan stabbed him in the same shoulder again before he replied, “Because I’m not a petty little bitch, like you.”

Such inelegant insults were beneath him, but Obi-Wan allowed himself this one. Xanatos had been the cause of one of the most difficult and traumatizing moments of his life. He thinks he’s entitled to at least one juvenile jab.

Either way it worked to his benefit, because Xanatos lost his composure and yelled with rage. His hits and strikes were much more powerful, much more influenced by the Dark side, but they were also sloppier.

It happened in an instant. Obi-Wan deflected Xanato’s over hand strike past his shoulder, reached across his body to shove the Sith’s arms down with his lightsaber hand and swept his beskad up fast and strong and devastating.

The screech Xanatos let out when his hands were severed above the wrist was piercing even through Obi-Wan’s insulated mask-cowl. Unlike dismemberment with a lightsaber, a beskad doesn’t cauterize the wounds and the pain is not delayed since the nerves aren’t burned dead. It’s a much more immediately traumatizing mode of injury, not even mentioning the spurts of blood shooting from the abrupt end of Xanatos’s forearms.

He staggered backward staring wide and disbelieving at his severed limbs. Then he pinned Obi-Wan with a look of such hatred that he felt the burning heat of it in the Force.

“I’m going to kill you!” he screamed, releasing a wave of the Force that sent Obi-Wan sliding back on his feet.

Arresting his momentum, Obi-Wan pushed off the floor and lunged back at him slashing Xanatos across the belly with his blood smeared sword. The Sith let out another enraged shout and thrust one hand-less arm out toward Obi-Wan.

He felt his throat close even through his armor and Obi-Wan cursed in his head as the Force-choke tightened painfully. On instinct he slashed his beskad through the air between them emphasizing the swipe of the Force he used to break Xanatos’s hold on him.

“Kenobi!” the Sith shrieked even as his intestines struggled to slip through the wound on his belly and his forearms continued to spurt blood with every heartbeat.

“I hate you!”

Obi-Wan heard the words as an echo in the Force coming from somewhere far away and yet too close by. Suddenly he felt immense heat from all around him, smelled ash and sulfur even through his mask’s air filter. The weight of his armor was gone replaced by light linen and his lightsaber fell about a pound lighter in his hand. His surroundings darkened illuminated only by the bright orange glow of what seemed like rivers of fire.

It wasn’t real, he knew, long familiar with being subject to the unknowable whims of the Unifying Force and its visions. He was brought abruptly back to the present when he felt another Force-choke begin compressing his throat.

Returning to the disintegration chamber was disorienting and on instinctive reflex he brought one leg up and kicked Xanatos square in the chest. The Force-choke vanished and the Sith was tossed back into the disintegration shaft. He didn’t stop screaming until his body disappeared down its abyssal depths.

Panting for breath, Obi-Wan ruthlessly shook off the lingering effects of the Force-vision. Now was not the time, he thought with frustration. Then he heard a groan and the sound of a body shifting on the floor.

Jerking his head toward it he saw Jinn was half hanging over the edge of the shaft, having watched his Fallen apprentice hopefully fall to his death.

“No,” it came out of the Jedi slightly mournful and yet still angry.

“Master Jinn,” Obi-Wan hurried over and yanked him back from the edge before he could slip and fall as well. “How badly are you injured?”

Jinn didn’t protest but he didn’t exactly help as Obi-Wan tore his robes open to get a look at the hole in his torso. He was dazed either from the wound or from seeing the man he’d once thought of a son being killed.

Humming dissatisfied, Obi-Wan was finally able to see that the wound went all the way through Jinn’s body.

“It’s too late for me, now,” the Jedi moaned as he weakly lifted his head to see his wound. “He finally got what he wanted.”

And killed his former master, Jinn meant. Obi-Wan fought not to roll his eyes. “You’re not quite dead yet, Master Jinn.”

“There is no death, there is the Force,” was his only reply.

“Truly, I never took you for a fatalist,” Obi-Wan shot back as he dug around in the pouches on his belt for what medical supplies he carried with him.

His jaw tensed when he came up with a coagulation pad to stop bleeding, a tube of bacta, a packet of pain killers, and a roll of bandages. It was not enough. Jinn wouldn’t make it till help got to them.

“If it is my time to return to the Force, then so be it,” Jinn rasped out staring blankly up at the ceiling.

Obi-Wan figured he had two options now. He could save Jinn’s life, surely exposing his true nature and confirming Jinn’s dark suspicions, or he could let the man die.

Sighing resigned, he wryly thought, well he did promise the High Council that if there ever was a Jedi in need he would not turn away from them. He figured it would be better to get the inevitable reveal over with either way.

He typed out a request for medical back-up into the comm on his vambrace, then he unlocked the clasps on his mask-cowl. Pulling it off he clipped it to his belt next to his re-hidden lightsaber. He needed to see the wound with his naked eyes if he was going to get this to work.

Flicking his gaze up to meet Jinn’s hazy expression he ordered, “Try not to move, Master Jinn, I’ve never tried this on someone quite as close to death as you.”

Then he dropped his mental shields and let the Dark side flood into him.

*
TBC…

Chapter Text

Immediately as the Dark side filled Obi-Wan, the air around them became chilly and charged. Jinn began to struggled, his eyes wide and his face paling.

“Stop moving,” Obi-Wan ordered annoyed as he shoved the Jedi back down flat on the floor and held him there with a strong hand on his chest. “You’ll make it worse and then you really will be one with the Force.”

“You-You’re-”

“Yes, yes,” Obi-Wan drawled dismissively as he reached for his beskad. “You were right. I’m a big bad dark-sider. Oh no.”

Truly he was being perhaps ruder than he needed to be, but he was just so done with this day and the furious whirl of the Dark inside him brought his frustration closer to the surface.

He held his bloody beskad in front of him and shot Jinn a warning glare. “Now keep still or I will use the Force to keep you still.”

The Jedi Master’s breathing was faster than he would like in terms of his health, but he couldn’t really do anything about that. Taking his hand off Jinn’s chest he paused to make sure the man wouldn’t try to move again. When he didn’t, Obi-Wan fully immersed himself in the Sith ritual that would save Qui-Gon Jinn’s life.

Swiping the fingers of his right hand through the dripping blood on his beskar blade, Obi-Wan brought his sticky, gloved fingers to Jinn’s exposed torso. Despite the man’s choked off protest he began painting specific Sith runes around the wound in the blood of his former padawan.

“Stop! What are you doing?” Jinn tried to turn his head away when Obi-Wan gathered more blood and moved to his face.

“I’m saving your life, Master Jinn,” he replied blandly and used the Force to hold the man’s head steady since he wasn't cooperating.

A rune was pained on his furrowed forehead and high on his cheeks above his graying beard. Obi-Wan traced a last one over his heart and absently wiped the blood off on Jinn’s torn tabard. Preparation done, he placed his beskad on the floor next to him to free up both hands. His right hand went to Jinn’s head and he pressed all five of his gloved fingertips to the Jedi’s face his palm hovering over his eyes, nose, and mouth. His left hand went to press his fingertips around the wound.

Runes and chants were not strictly required to perform the feats of Force rituals. But they helped focus and direct the Force. Obi-Wan could perform the ritual without the words and runes, but it would take a whole hell of a lot more concentration, fine control, and emotional intensity than he could readily muster at the moment.

“I demand that you stop this!” Jinn protested. Though he was now held immobile as the ritual began, he attempted a weak shove at Obi-Wan with the Force.

“Do shut up, Master Jinn,” Obi-Wan muttered then he bowed his head and started chanting.

I have been wounded by my enemy, he intoned in ancient Sith.

But I will not be defeated. He gathered the Dark inside him and began pouring it out through his hands and into the bloody runes.

For I have struck them a blow. The runes glowed bright ember orange but felt cold like ice.

My weakness will become theirs and I will have my victory. The Dark pooled in the wound and began knitting the flesh and muscle back together slow and sluggish.

It won’t completely heal the wound, Obi-Wan thought as he continued repeating the chant concentrating on controlling the eager flow of the Dark side. Jinn was too close to death and Xanatos, who is the unfortunate victim of this Wound Transference ritual, was only barely holding onto life at the bottom of the seemingly bottomless shaft, his presence in the Force flickering tellingly.

Blood began bubbling up from the wound, the cauterization gone with the healing. Jinn gave a shout of pain as his nerve endings came alive again.

Obi-Wan reached the limit of the ritual and stopped chanting. It was enough. He carefully pulled the Dark side back into himself. He blinked the after images of the Force currents from his vision and saw that Jinn’s blood was pouring from the whole in his belly and pooling on the floor under him.

Blowing out a long breath, he grabbed the coagulation pad and pressed it hard and unyielding to the wound. Jinn made another pained exclamation and found the energy to try shoving Obi-Wan’s hands off him again.

“Get-get away,” he groaned weakly, disturbing Obi-Wan’s hold on the pad and renewing the blood flow from his wound.

Ungrateful, Obi-Wan grumbled silently and took a hand off the pad to shove Jinn’s head back down, his palm flush against the man’s blood smeared forehead.

“That’s enough of that.” He gathered the Force, the Light, and told the panicked Jedi Master to, “Sleep.”

*

In a display of fortuitous timing, a medical team came racing through the temporarily over ridden laser doors only minutes later. Obi-Wan stepped back and let them work on the still unconscious Jedi Master, the Force-suggestion powerful enough to keep him under as they got him stabilized.

He cleaned his beskad, his lightsaber guard blades, and the spikes on his mace with a shop cloth from a pouch on his belt. Then he moved to follow the medic team as they rushed Jinn to the palace infirmary.

An agonized whisper in the Force caught his attention. Pausing he turned toward the call and spotted Xanatos’s severed arms discarded on the floor. A few inches from the right hand, escaped from nerveless fingers, was the Sith Apprentice’s lightsaber.

For a moment he was tempted to kick it into the shaft after its wielder, but then he felt a primal drum beat pulse from his own lightsaber. His lightsaber which was home to a Mando’ad converted Bleeding kyber. Well, he thought wryly, Yoda had wanted him to do more research and experimenting on rehabilitating corrupted crystals.

He reached out and the lightsaber was summoned to his gloved palm. Obi-Wan took a moment to look it over. Solid design, not a bad saber. He frowned, the Bleeding kyber wasn’t exactly a piece of artwork, but what do you expect from a dark-sider with master-issues like Xanatos. In comparison Maul’s Bleeding crystals were elegant, refined in their hatred and rage. The crystal song Obi-Wan was listening to now was almost like a handful of extreme negative emotions thrown together slapdash, something akin to a piece of High Republic modern artwork. Objectively ugly, only the artist seeing beauty in the mess.

Shrugging, Obi-Wan clipped the saber to his belt next to his own and extended his Sith mind trick shield over it.

Trailing after the medical team, he separated from them in the star-fighter hangar when he spotted a couple of his verde milling around apparently looking for him.

They gave him an update on the battle. Apparently someone had destroyed the droid control ship shutting down every Trade Federation droid on the planet and the Queen was able to capture the Viceroy and the other hangers-on attending him in the palace.

Splendid, Obi-Wan thought as he began stalking in that direction, his verde falling in behind him. By the time he made it to the palace throne room, Jango had arrived from the Great Grass Plains battlefield as well.

The Ven’Alor took one look at his little brother and cursed.

“Obi’ika,” he grabbed Obi-Wan by the shoulder, yanking him off his path toward the Queen and over to a shadowed corner. “Gar sur’haai!” Your eyes, he was saying.

“Me’ven?” Obi-Wan blinked at his brother bewildered.

“Gar werde tengaanar,” Jango hissed at him, that his darkness was showing.

“Oh,” Obi-Wan brought a his fingers up to his eyes as if in a daze. He’d forgotten. It had been almost an entire week without letting the Dark side inside him. Feeling it again was more disorienting than he’d thought. His eyes must still be yellow.

“Vor entye, ori’vod,” he murmured as he closed his eyes, breathed deeply and brought his shields back up. Opening his eyes again, he asked, “Jate’shya?”

“N’entye¹,” Jango grumbled. “And yeah, they’re wholly blue again.”

Obi-Wan gave a full body shiver as he got used to half his connection to the Force being cut off.

“Do you need a minute?” Jango asked as he eyed his brother in concern. “Why were your shields down?”

“No, I’m good,” he assured him. “I had to use the Dark side to heal Master Jinn. We need one of our slicers to get the security footage from the palace plasma generator. I don’t want a Naboo guard or anyone else seeing that.”

Jango tapped away on his vambrace communicator. “It’ll be done within the hour.”

“Good,” Obi-Wan sighed, then straightened, on to business. “Let’s go debrief the Queen.”

Much to Obi-Wan’s disbelief it was revealed that Anakin had been the one that blew up the droid control ship. According to the boy, once they’d finally gotten him on the ground and out of the star-fighter, the autopilot had been engaged. By the time R2-D2 had gotten control of the fighter he was already in the middle of the fight with nothing else to do other than blow up the ship.

Obi-Wan took a moment to be thoroughly amused by the amount of trouble the Jedi were in for with this particular youngling.

Padmé and her guards related how they were able to get past the droids with the Mandalorian soldiers’ help and apprehend Viceroy Nute Gunray without much trouble.

Jango gave a concise summary of the battle and their casualties. Which, thank the Ka’ra, were minimal. With the Haat Ade and the Nabooans assisting the Gungans there would be few funeral pyres to light in the coming days

Obi-Wan reported on his and Jinn’s confrontation with the dark-sider. He explained that the assassin was a Fallen Jedi and was previously known to Jinn. That he was in the employ of some unknown interested party. At the end of his explanation he assured everyone that the assassin was dead. Which he was sure he was. He’d lost awareness of Xanatos’s flickering life sign after he’d finished the transference ritual.

The Neimoidians under lock and key and the droids neutralized, they were able to reestablish galactic communications. Queen Padmé Amidala took great pleasure in informing the Senate that the crisis on Naboo had been taken care of and could they kindly come take this Trade Federation scum off her hands.

Then it was time to call the High Council. Not only had one of their Jedi been severely injured, but dark-siders and rogue Force-users were Jedi Order jurisdiction on most Republic planets. They needed to be informed that there had been developments on Naboo that required their immediate attention. Obi-Wan felt obliged to make the call in place of the Queen, since he was the one that knew the most about the situation.

“Su cuy’gar, Jetii Alor’tsad,” he greeted the moment the blue tinged images of Master Yoda, Master Windu, and four other presumed Council members, including Master Plo Koon, appeared. Apparently not all the Council members were able to make it to the holocomm on such short notice.

“Su cuy’gar, Ad’Alor Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Master Yoda replied with a calm if slightly concerned expression on his wrinkly face. “Surprised, we are, to hear from you, Obi-Wan. And from Naboo, you are calling.”

“Yes, Master Yoda,” he nodded his head respectfully. “Queen Amidala hired the True Mandalorian Mercenary Company to assisted her in liberating Naboo. I’m here in my capacity as a commanding officer of the company.”

Yoda hummed understanding, though Master Windu’s brow was pinched. In a headache or disapproval, Obi-Wan couldn’t tell. The other Council members had a range of expression from confusion to obvious disapproval.

“Why have you called us, Ad’Alor Kenobi?” Master Windu asked, gruff, but not rude, using Obi-Wan’s title deliberately.

“I thought it might be prudent to give you an update about the situation on planet as well as on your people,” Obi-Wan replied plainly. “Since I’m the most informed on relevant events.”

“Tell us, you should,” Yoda cut across some murmurs from his fellow Council members. “Master Jinn and young Anakin, how are they?”

“Anakin is fine,” Obi-Wan was sure his wry half smirk was disconcerting to some masters. “He’s had a bit of an adventure, but other than a few scrapes and bruises he’s fine. It’s Master Jinn that was injured.”

The Council members cast each other quick speaking looks, and Obi-Wan considered that even further confirmation. They’d definitely sent Jinn here to draw out and confront the mysterious dark-sider.

“Know what happened, do you?”

“Yes, I was witness to the events.” Obi-Wan kept his face as nuetral as he could make it. “Master Jinn was injured while confronting the dark-sider Xanatos duCrion.”

There was silence in the Council chamber so thick Obi-Wan could almost feel it from across the galaxy.

Finally Windu spoke, breaking the tension. “Was duCrion defeated?”

“I killed duCrion after he severely wounded Master Jinn,” Obi-Wan answered unequivocally.

“More, there is,” commented Yoda after he didn’t say anything else.

“Perhaps, Master,” he conceded. “I’m sure Master Jinn will be more than happy to explain everything in detail when you come to retrieve him.”

Windu and several other Councilors didn’t appear to appreciate his heavy handed suggestion, but Yoda simply nodded.

“To Naboo, the High Council will travel,” the Grand Master declared. “Perhaps, speak with you more, we will upon arriving.”

“I look forward to it, Master Yoda.” Obi-Wan pressed a fist over his heart in a respectful salute and signed off with the High Council.

Well, he thought with a long sigh when the holo-projection disappeared. This should be interesting. He’ll have to wait until the Jedi get there to get an idea of what kind of trouble lays on the horizon.

*

The journey from Coruscant to Naboo took five days. So Obi-Wan had almost a week to kill before the Jedi High Council was to appear and he’d have to fancy talk his way through not getting arrested or killed for being a dark-sider. He didn’t think Yoda would allow the Council to actually attack him, but for all that Yoda was the Grand Master of the Order and held a lot of weight, his obvious attachment to his lineage and former students did not make him objective. At least that’s one of the arguments Obi-Wan imagined the rest of the Council would make to convince him to recuse himself from the issue.

Fortunately, Master Jinn was still in bacta and wasn’t expected to be released until the morning of or the day before the Council and newly elected by emergency vote Chancellor Palpatine were due to arrive.

Which, speaking of an interesting development. Obi-Wan had been aware of the Vote of No Confidence and had been duly puzzled by it. Queen Amidala was an intelligent and loyal young woman. Surely she would have known that a change in Chancellor would have done little to nothing to improve her situation. Not to mention Velorum had been one of her staunch supporters.

That wasn’t his business however. Obi-Wan was more preoccupied trying to figure out what the Sith’s angle was for interfering in or even instigating the Invasion of Naboo. The only thing he, Jango, and Jaster had come up with so far was destabilization, possibly even setting a precedent for similar future plays, or something else they just weren’t seeing. It could be any, all, or none of these things. They just didn’t have enough information. Especially since their only lead, Xanatos, was now decomposing at the bottom of a plasma disintegration shaft.

As per the contract signed between the Queen of Naboo and the True Mandalorian Mercenary Company, the Haat Ad verde would stick around on planet for a standard week to ensure all hostilities were well and truly ceased. Which in this case was more of a formality than anything else since all the droids were as good as scrap now and the Neimoidians were by no means warriors in their own rights.

On the second day after the Liberation of Naboo, as the locals were calling it, Obi-Wan was summoned to the Queen’s private audience chamber.

He entered the room in full armor, but with his mask-cowl clipped to his belt next to his invisible lightsabers. The job was all but done and he’d established trust with the young queen. He saw no need to guard his face from her.

“Thank you for coming, Ad’Alor.” Obi-Wan kept his expression neutral in the face of Padmé’s robotic tone. She was in full regalia, makeup, headdress, and gown. Perhaps it was just an ingrained habit now to speak in the “Queen’s voice”, regardless of the fact that he knew who she was.

“It was my pleasure, your Highness,” he returned with a fist pressed over his heart in respectful salute. “How may I be of service?”

“I wish to discuss the issue of payment,” she said, her posture on her throne perfect, her gaze piercing and yet distant as she looked upon him. “The True Mandalorian Mercenary Company has more than fulfilled your end of our agreement. Now I must fulfill mine.”

Obi-Wan was quiet for a moment. He knew that the Naboo had the monetary funds to pay them. That wasn’t a problem. He wanted to know if the Queen had made up her mind on an alliance and trade agreement with Mandalore.

“Before we discuss exchange of payment, your Highness, may I ask. Have you made a decision on our planets’ future relations?” Since she was determined to be formal, he figured he should as well. At least until he figured out how the rest of this conversation was going to go.

The Queen didn’t answer immediately. She studied him intensely and Obi-Wan let her, not feeling intimidated or impatient. She’d earned his respect and so he would allowed her all the time she needed to find her words.

“And if I had?” she asked, Obi-Wan thought wisely. “Would that effect Naboo’s agreed upon amount of payment with the True Mandalorians?”

“Unfortunately not,” he answered. “The True Mandalorian Supercommandos may almost all be soldiers in the Mandalorian military as well, but they are here in their capacity as private contractors. They are not here defending an ally of Mandalore, they are here working a job. This is their livelihood and so they will be paid as such regardless of any future alliances or agreements Naboo enters into with Mandalore.”

He wondered if his answer would be received negatively and was both relieved and pleased when the Queen’s warm brown eyes shined with approval.

“It is a rare politician or planetary leader that would not use their private enterprise as leverage or incentive when negotiating such alliances.” The Queen minutely tipped her head in respect. “That you would not compromise your citizens’ rights and livelihoods to accomplish your political goals has only reinforced my decision.”

It had been a test, he thought amused and intrigued. Would his answer have truly effected her final decision? He looked up at the Queen, young and still idealistic and brave. Yes, he thought so. She would have rejected an alliance based on his own personal scruples. Perhaps not the soundest political strategy and certainly more naive than most every other leader he’d met, but it was refreshing as well. It made a wave of affection rise up inside him to almost match his respect for her.

Obi-Wan bowed his head in acknowledgment of her statement and waited for her to continue speaking.

“Naboo will accept Mandalore's offer of alliance and trade agreements, pending further negotiation and discussion.” Queen Amidala made the announcement with all the seriousness and decisiveness afforded her by her office.

A smile curled at Obi-Wan lips as a wave of triumph and satisfaction surged through him. “On behalf of the Mand’alor and Mandalore, I welcome our alliance, Queen Amidala. I look forward to working with you to unite our two planets in friendship and protection.”

He would have missed it if he hadn’t been paying such close attention, but Obi-Wan as gratified when he saw Padmé’s lips curl just the slightest bit in a return smile.

The days following and leading up to the arrival of the Jedi and the Chancellor were spent with Obi-Wan, Padmé, and her council in negotiations. It was perhaps one of the most difficult and thorough negotiations he’d ever been involved in and it only increased the young queen’s worth in his eyes. For all that she was inexperienced in terms of the ways of the galaxy at large and she was exacting in her drive to do the best for her people. Obi-Wan couldn’t begrudge her the pain in the ass it was for him. Not when he kept thinking that should they ever meet, she’d be in real danger of Jaster trying to adopt her as well.

The alliance and trade agreements they finally settled on were built on the terms as follows:

An agreement for mutual protection. Until Naboo had a fully functioning standing military, which it would not have for upwards of a year yet, if Mandalore was attacked they would provide sentient aid and support resources and if needed, sanctuary for civilian refugees. Mandalore would of course come to the military aid of Naboo should anything like the Trade Federation blockade happen again.

Which Obi-Wan did not foresee being an issue since not even the Trade Federation was stupid enough to try something with the threat of incurring the wrath of a whole army of Mandalorian warriors.

Mandalore, as Obi-Wan had originally outlined for Padmé in their discussion on Coruscant, would provide the trainers and military consultants necessary for Naboo to build and train a standing military of their own. In conjunction with this Naboo would agree to only buy their foreign produced arms, ballistics, and war machines from Mandalorian manufacturers.

Boss Nass, the Gungan leader, had been consulted during this part of the negotiations since the Gungans and the Naboo had entered into an alliance of their own and they of course shared the planet. When he’d provided his very blunt opinion there had to be some amending of the terms.

The Gungans having their own army, manufactured their unique weapons and ballistics themselves. Preventing the Naboo from trading with the Gungans in any respect would only undermine that alliance so the terms of the alliance with Mandalore were amended to say the Naboo and the Gungans would only purchase offworld supplementary manufactured arms, ballistics, and war machinery from Mandalorian manufacturers.

Jango was not one to sit in on negotiations of any kind if he could help it, but he’d been at the table for that discussion. He’d expressed an interest in perhaps purchasing some of the Gungan tech to add into the Mandalorian weapons circulation. Obi-Wan had to admit to being surprised by this. Jango was notoriously difficult to impress when it came to weaponry.

“Those blue plasma boomas they flung at the droids were very effective,” Jango said upon seeing his brother’s surprised expression. “The electrical charge they put off had a wider range than our EMP grenades and the larger ones could blow massive holes in the armored tanks. Not to mention their personal energy shields actually deflect blaster bolts similar to the way lightsabers do.”

He shrugged seemingly unconcerned in the face of the Nabooan politicians’ dubious expressions and Boss Nass’s proudly pleased grin. “I’d be interested to see how we can add them to our own arsenals.”

So, the trade agreements were amended to include Mandalore’s pledge to primarily purchase plasma weaponry from the Otoh Gunga Defense League that manufactured all the weaponry and military machines for the Gungan Grand Army.

Boss Nass was very happy with this and declared, “Yousa Mandos being bombad armored warriors. Meesa thinks Gungas and Mandos bein’ good friends. Weesa Gungas be joinin da Naboo army too, weesa like workin closa to da Mandos.” Then he imperiously strode from the room.

He left many of the politicians alarmed at the threat of a friendship between the Mandalorians and the Gungans, but Obi-Wan spotted an amused twitching of Padmé’s lips. She was of course quick to school her expression and call the meeting back to order.

The culmination of the negations were mutual military assistance and protections, mutual sentient aid, trade of plasma for energy, arms and ballistics, and other none combatant goods, and open protected travel between their systems.

The final documents were of course much more complicated and detailed, but that was the general gist. It was finally time to sign the morning that the Jedi Council and the Chancellor were due to arrive.

“Ven’Alor Fett,” the governor of Theed asked when Jango didn’t move to stand with the Queen and his bother during the signing. “Do you not need to sign the agreements as Crown Prince?”

“No,” Jango stated plainly. “I may be the heir, but our father has given Obi-Wan full discretion over this alliance. My brother signs with the authority of the Mand’alor.”

That was certainly a statement. It said a great deal about how much the Mand’alor trusts and values his youngest son’s opinion and advice.

This time when signing a binding contract between their peoples, Obi-Wan signed with his full official title:

Ad’Alor Obi-Wan Kenobi be Mandalore, Ad be Mand’alor Jaster Mereel.

And the Queen signed with her full undisguised identity:

Her Royal Highness, Queen Padmé Amidala of Naboo.

Just like that, Naboo and Mandalore become allies and trade partners.

*

Obi-Wan and Jango were standing off to the side in the main courtyard, helmets on watching the landing and procession of the Jedi High Council and the Chancellor of the Republic with dubious interest.

“Are you sure you don’t need me to stay?” Jango asked through their private comm channel in their helmets.

“I’m sure, Jango,” Obi-Wan muttered rolling his eyes while keeping his body language completely neutral. “I’m in no danger from the Jedi.” I think, he didn’t add.

“That shabuir Jinn won’t try and convince them you’re the second coming of Darth Revan?” He really couldn’t blame Jango for his disbelieving tone. The moment Qui-Gon Jinn had come out of bacta he demanded that his young charge Anakin be kept away from the Mandalorians on grounds of ancient enmity.

Obi-Wan was just glad he hadn’t said that in front anyone other than Obi-Wan himself, the medical staff, and Captain Panaka. Jango and their verde would not have taken the insinuation of potential harm to a child well. As it is the Jedi had severely lowered his own standing in the eyes of the Naboo who had declared the Mandalorians something of heroes to the people for liberating them from the Trade Federation. Regardless of whether they were being paid for it or not.

The Queen especially had not been impressed, but had assigned a rotation of her own handmaidens to supervise and watch other Anakin until his guardian could do it himself.

Obi-Wan hadn’t protested, not wanting to make the situation even more tense and volatile than it already was. Though Anakin had complained bitterly of being denied opportunity to interrogate his new armored friends.

“I’m sure he’ll try,” Obi-Wan allowed in response to Jango’s question, “but Yoda knows me. He knows I’m a Dark side wielder and Master Windu has been aware of my controversial Force-use for years as well. That’s the Grand Master and the Master of the Order that know and if not approve at least don’t disapprove of my wielding the Dark side.”

Jango made a dubious sound and Obi-Wan sighed.

“For all that innumerable wars that have been waged between the Republic and the Sith, using the Dark side is not actually illegal. I have not broken any laws so even if they wanted to the Jedi can’t touch me,” he said.

“At least not if they don’t want to start a war with Mandalore,” Jango muttered darkly and Obi-Wan clenched his jaw even though he knew his brother was right. That more than anything was what would keep the Jedi off his back if Jinn managed to convince them Obi-Wan was a threat.

The Jedi were long removed from the days of commanding their own Army of the Light. They would not fair well against the might of Mandalore as they were now. Especially because Mandalore was rapidly gaining strength and influence in the Republic itself. Starting a war with the Mandalorians over what amounted to one Force-user’s difference in religious ideology would not endear them to the Senate or the Republic at large, much less benefit them in any way.

“It won’t come to that.” Obi-Wan was sure of that much at least. “You don’t have to chaperone me, Jango.”

He could still feel Jango’s tension even through the muffling of his beskar helmet before his brother finally conceded. “Fine, but I’m leaving a squad of verde with you. Just in case.”

That brought a fond smile to Obi-Wan’s face hidden by his mask. “Alright, Jango. Thanks.”

Jango just grumbled under his breath about stubborn little brothers. Turning his attention back on the procession, he grunted in disgust. “Ugh, I hate politicians.”

Obi-Wan looked back to the procession as well in time to see that the new Chancellor of the Republic was making his way toward them.

“Ven’Alor Fett, Ad’Alor Kenobi. I am Chancellor Palpatine, former Senator for Naboo.” The man was middle aged, perhaps a little younger than Jaster. His smile was affable, his body language open and sincere.

Just looking into his eyes through his visor sent an unpleasant shiver up Obi-Wan’s spine. He was immediately wary.

“A pleasure to meet you, Chancellor,” he greeted politely, exaggerating his mellowed High Coruscanti accent as he pressed a fist over his heart in a respectful salute.

“Oh, it’s my pleasure entirely,” Palpatine said with a grin. “You are the men that helped liberate my home planet after all. I cannot thank you enough.”

“Just doing our job, Chancellor.” Jango’s voice was gruff and held the bare minimum of respect.

Palpatine either didn’t notice or more likely chose to ignore it. “Even so, we, the people of Naboo and I, will forever be grateful.”

“The True Mandalorian Mercenary Company is simply glad we could help,” Obi-Wan cut in before Jango could grumble at the most powerful man in the Republic again.

“Of course, of course,” Palpatine chuckled and nodded almost conspiratorially as if Obi-Wan was being coy. “Well, I must attend to some business so I’ll let you two gentlemen go, but I hope you will both stay for the celebration ceremony so I can thank you again.”

“Perhaps, your Excellency,” Obi-Wan replied and watched feeling cold and stiff as Palpatine moved away glad handing and smiling genially at other politicians and persons of interest as he made his way into the palace.

“Draar ruusaanyc nuhunar aru’e,” Jango muttered suspiciously across their private comms.

Never trust a laughing enemy. Obi-Wan couldn’t help but agree to that statement. Palpatine for all that he seemed like a kindly, amiable man, was a career politician first and foremost. A former Republic Senator and now arguably the most powerful man in the galaxy. Any who trusted him at face value were either naive or stupid.

“Good it is, to see you, my former student.”

Obi-Wan was pulled from his thoughts by that familiar pebbly voice coming from somewhere around his knees. Looking down he saw Grand Master Yoda smiling up at him.

“You as well, Master Yoda,” Obi-Wan gave him a much more genuine and respectful salute than he’d given the leader of the whole Republic. “I hope your journey from Coruscant was not too trying.”

Yoda just hummed. “Longest journey I have taken,” he said, “since come to you on Manda’yaim, I did.”

That was not exactly surprising. Yoda was very busy with the Order after all. It was rare indeed when he could take time off to go anywhere that required such a long period of time in transit.

At his side, Jango shifted drawing Yoda’s attention. The ancient master’s genuine smile widened with mischief.

“Good it is, to see you as well, young Jango,” he said causing the Councilors behind him to mutter curiously to one another. “Learned, have you, since last we spoke, to dodge when firing on a lightsaber, basters are?”

There were a few amused coughs from the verde standing at attention at their backs, the ones that had been around the Keldabe palace when Yoda had been in residence. They remembered the little green creature’s sassy nature and friendly rivalry with the their then younger Ven’Alor.

An annoyed growl came through Jango’s helmet speakers as he responded, “Perhaps you’d like a demonstration of how well I’ve learned to use blasters in a lightsaber fight.”

That elicited a nervous twitter from the Jedi High Council and more smothered chuckles from the Mandalorians. For his part, Yoda lightly cackled, nodding agreeably.

“Perhaps a spar we should have, while on planet, we are.” the Grand Master of the Order suggested, evoking several scandalized expressions from his colleagues.

Jango let out a grudging chuckle as well. “Unfortunately, I’m leaving this afternoon with most of our forces. But I know Jaster invited you back to Manda’yaim any time. Maybe next time you take a vacation on the home planet of your ancestral enemy we can spar.”

Yoda’s cackle grew in earnest, his long ears quivering with mirth. Obi-Wan couldn’t help but chuckle as well.

“Perhaps, perhaps,” the small being nodded as he quieted. “Safe journey, I wish you, Ven’Alor Fett. Ret’urcye mhi.”

“Ret’urcye mhi, Ba’Alor Yoda.²” Jango pressed a fist to his chest in genuine respect. This was his little brother’s first and wisest teacher after all. Even though he still sometimes had nightmares of a little green goblin hunting frogs in the nightime palace gardens, Jango held great respect for the ancient leader of the Jedi.

Turning back to Obi-Wan, Yoda’s expression grew more serious. “Speak with Master Jinn, we must now, but later, find you I will. Much to catch up on, I feel we have.”

Obi-Wan felt that was a somewhat ominous statement but didn’t protest. “Of course, Master Yoda. I look forward to it.”

*

TBC...

Chapter Text

Yoda was both disturbed and not exactly surprised to feel the Force on Naboo was almost as clouded as the Force on Coruscant. The whole planet had after all been steeped in the despair and death of its citizens for the better part of three weeks. As well as played host to a massive battle for liberation. Of course the dark emotions and feelings would permeate the air for some time even after most of the suffering had been alleviated.

But this was more than just lingering darkness from sentient distress. Yoda felt it safe to assume the cause for the heavy atmosphere of the Force was the presence of the dark-sider assassin Qui-Gon had informed them of.

And now he was going to his grandpadawan to discuss just that topic. Master Windu walked at his side, his brow furrowed in the beginnings of a headache as well as his own seriousness.

“What do you plan on discussing with Kenobi?”

Yoda glanced up at his young protege. “The dark-sider, I will discuss with him,” he answered. “Mandalore’s knowledge of this possible Sith reemergence, I will discuss with him also.”

Mace hummed thoughtfully. “I did not sense any darkness in him except that which is expected of a warrior such as a Mandalorian.”

“Perhaps, ask him about that, I will as well,” because he was equally curious.

He’d looked for the darkness in Obi-Wan when he’d first seen him in person upon arrival. Presences in the Force could not be examined through holocalls, and this was the first opportunity Yoda had to see his student in person after he’d apparently been instructed in the Dark side. That his presence outwardly read as only marginally Jedi levels of Force-sensitive and mundanely Light was puzzling when he knew that touching and wielding the Dark left a mark. Even Master Windu had some shading on his presence from his development and wielding of Vaapad.

Obviously the down playing of Obi-Wan’s strength in the Force was due to shielding, but could shielding truly hide the nature of one’s own inner soul?

They made it to the palace infirmary and stepped through the door to see young Skywalker sitting on the end of Qui-Gon’s bed waving his arms in enthusiasm as he regaled his guardian with some tale or other.

“And then Prudee said she’d teach me to fire a blaster and Marv said I could learn to throw battle stars,” Anakin stopped to take in a breath and Qui-Gon took his chance.

“I thought I told you I didn’t want you interacting with the Mandalorians.”

The boy’s entire face creased with anger and frustration. “Why not! They’re really nice and don’t mind if I ask a bunch of questions.”

“I just don’t think you should-”

“Is this because you don’t like Obi-Wan?” Anakin demanded, unbeknownst to him raising eyebrows on Yoda and Mace’s foreheads. “He won’t tell me why you don’t like him so much, but I can tell.”

Qui-Gon sighed, frustrated, “Ani, that’s not what-”

“Anyway, I was doing what you told me to do! Rabé was with me the whole time. She didn’t leave me alone with them.” A dark look crossed the injured master’s face with the interruption and said young handmaiden quickly stepped forward from where she’d been observing the interaction at a discrete distance.

“It is true, Master Jedi, the other handmaidens and I are watching over Anakin. We would not let anything happen to him.”

Qui-Gon’s expression smoothed out to cold neutrality when he replied, “I’m sure you and your fellow handmaidens are very diligent, but I am Anakin’s guardian and I do not want him around the Mandalorians.”

There was a flash of burning hot anger in the young boy’s presence and Qui-Gon tensed. His own expression had grown much darker than it had been with just his frustration.

Yoda stepped forward and banged his gimer stick on the floor before whatever outburst the boy was working up to could overflow.

The three original occupants startled at the sound and turned to see the newcomers.

“Master Yoda!” Anakin’s anger was swept away in a tide of childish excitement and more fondness than any of the Jedi were expecting. He jumped off Qui-Gon’s bed and skipped over to the small master.

“Did you hear what I did? I got to fly a Naboo star-fighter and I blew up the Droid Control Ship!”

Yoda’s eyes widened in appropriate surprise. “Hear this, I have not. Exciting, that must have been.”

“It was completely wizard,” Anakin gushed with a bright grin on his golden tanned face. “I tried to ask Padmé if I could borrow one of the fighters to fly again, but she said no.”

The handmaiden gave a discrete cough in amusement and Yoda silently agreed with her. “Disappointed you must be,” he said in sympathy, then patted the little boy on the shoulder. “Though, perhaps better it is, for now. Many more lessons in flying, you must have, before a true starship pilot, you can be.”

Anakin’s eyes widened. “Really? Jedi teach flying too?”

Yoda hummed agreeably. “Good pilots, all Jedi must be,” he told him. “Never know, when fly in a space battle, we must.”

Master Windu sighed in exasperation at the old master’s teasing, but Anakin giggled.

“Now, speak with Master Qui-Gon, Master Windu and I will,” Yoda told the young boy. “Tell me of your adventures later, you can.”

There was some grumbling, but at Rabé’s gentle urging Anakin allowed himself to be lead from the infirmary. Which left Yoda and Mace alone with a tense, serious Qui-Gon.

“There is much I have to tell you, Masters.”

Yoda hummed as he limped toward Qui-Gon’s bed and jumped to sit in Anakin’s place. Mace took the guest chair next to them.

“Some, we are aware of,” Yoda said, laying his gimer stick across his lap. “Contact the Council, Obi-Wan Kenobi did.”

Qui-Gon’s expression turned dark and troubled. “You should know, Master Yoda, Kenobi is-”

Yoda held up a small clawed hand to stop him. “Most concerned with Obi-Wan, I am not,” he stated. “Of this mysterious dark-sider, we need to know. Unknown entity, he is.”

The injured master grimaced, reluctant, but he didn’t protest. “I imagine you already suspected, Master,” Qui-Gon started looking defeated. “The violent Dark side user that attacked the Queen was Xanatos duCrion, my former padawan.”

Mace sighed and rubbed at his forehead while Yoda just nodded solemnly. “Relate to us, your confrontation with Xanatos, you will.”

And Qui-Gon did. He told the Grand Master and Master of his Order how they’d been confronted by the masked dark-sider. How he and Kenobi engaged the dark-sider in a fight that lead through the palace’s plasma energy generation chambers and finally ended in the disintegration shaft chamber.

He tried to relate as faithfully as possible what Xanatos had said after his identity was revealed. What Xanatos had let slip.

“I do believe he was a Sith Apprentice, Masters,” Qui-Gon concluded. “He spoke about his new master being powerful with the Dark side though I do not know what motive a Sith Master would have for interfering in a trade blockade.”

“Was Xanatos more powerful in the Dark side than the last time you faced him after the temple bombing?” Mace had been quiet examining all the shatterpoints surrounding this incident. Surprisingly only one of them had burst, a small one surrounding Anakin Skywalker’s training.

“He was more powerful,” Qui-Gon answered sounding defeated. “He was more practiced and trained in wielding it as well. The whole time I was fighting him it was a struggle not to let the anger, hatred, and icy chill in the Force distract me.”

“And dead, Xanatos is?” Yoda asked not unsympathetically. It was always hard for one to lose a former padawan, no matter how dark their path had become.

“Yes,” he rasped staring down at his tightly clenched fists in his lap before turning his eyes back on the masters. “Kenobi cut off his hands, sliced through his stomach, and kicked him down a generator shaft.”

Mace raised an eyebrow. “That seems a little excessive.”

The injured, grieving master looked away, but grudgingly admitted, “Xanatos did not go quietly. From what little I witnessed after my injury, he appeared to be attacking Kenobi with the Force even after his hands were cut off.”

They would have to get Kenobi’s side, Mace thought undecided on whether he was dreading it or not. Still, Kenobi was not a Jedi, he was not constrained by Jedi mores.

“One with the Force, Xanatos now is,” Yoda intoned after a moment of quiet. “Grieve with you, we do, but rejoice, you should. No longer suffering, he is.”

Mace flicked his eyes in Yoda’s direction, but didn’t say anything.

“You said you were stabbed in the stomach,” he spoke up after Qui-Gon had a moment to center himself. “You seem to be healed remarkably well.”

Puzzlingly, a deeply disturbed look crossed Qui-Gon’s face then. “I should have died, Masters,” he told them. “Kenobi did something.”

“Something, he did?”

“We cannot allow Kenobi to endanger the rest of the galaxy,” he said, instead of explaining, his eyes burning with conviction. “He’s a dark-sider.”

The Grand Master and Master traded looks.

“You have confirmation of this?” Mace’s expression gave nothing away.

“It’s how I’m alive,” Qui-Gon claimed, seeming incongruously unhappy about that fact. “After he killed Xanatos, Kenobi did some kind of dark ritual on me and half healed my wound.”

“Know it is Dark, how do you?”

“I know what the Dark side feels like. But even if I couldn’t feel the Force, I saw his eyes.”

“His eyes?” Mace straightened in his seat, curious.

“They turned bright yellow,” Qui-Gon said. “Like Xanatos’s eyes.”

Yoda hummed. “Describe this ritual, you must.”

Qui-Gon was reluctant, disturbed even by the memory, but he did as requested. And he was right to be disturbed. Having the blood of your Fallen padawan painted on your face and belly would be disturbing to anyone.

“He was chanting?” Mace asked, when that part of the retelling came up. “What was he saying?”

“I don’t know.” Qui-Gon scowled. “It was in some tongue I’ve never heard before. I can only guess it was a dark-sider language.”

“Feel, how did it?” Yoda pressed, his expression inscrutable throughout the entire retelling.

A far away look came over Qui-Gon’s face as he thought back to those terrifying moments in the generator chamber. “When he started chanting the runes felt like ice burning into my skin. And the Force was wild, it seemed almost uncontrollable as it entered my wound. When it started to heal me it was agonizingly painful, it felt like I was being stabbed by a lightsaber again. But I was paralyzed, I couldn’t move or speak while he was performing his dark ritual.”

Well that didn’t sound pleasant, Mace thought. And just from this second hand description he could safely say that it was indeed a Dark ritual. Perhaps something even on par with the ancient Sith Sorcery.

“Did he say anything to you before or after you were healed?” Mace inquired. No matter how confident Yoda was in Kenobi’s pure heart, they needed to know his motivations for revealing himself this way.

“He said he was trying to save my life, that he’d never done the ritual on someone so close to death.” The uneasy implications being he’d in fact done that ritual before. “After the ritual seemed to be done he Force-suggested me to sleep.”

There was quiet as the three masters sat with contemplating this, then Yoda hummed thoughtfully. “Saved you life, Obi-Wan did,” he said. “Exposed himself as a dark-sider, he has. For him, little benefit in this, I see.”

Qui-Gon eyed the Grand Master. “You can’t be seriously suggesting he did this with purely altruistic intentions.”

Grimacing, Mace added, “Unfortunately, I agree with Master Yoda. Kenobi gained very little from saving your life. You said it already, you’ve been suspicious of him and his intentions since the beginning. The smart thing would have been to let you die and keep his true nature a secret from the Jedi.”

Making a frustrated sound, Qui-Gon slashed a hand through the air. “It doesn’t matter what his no doubt nefarious motivations are. He is a dark-sider, I have witnessed this myself, we must do something.”

“Do, what should we?” Yoda demanded, pinning his grandpadawan with an expectant look. “Saved your life, Obi-Wan did. Slayed a Sith, he has. The first in nearly a thousand years.”

“He’s dangerous!” Qui-Gon growled. “He’s shown a disconcerting interest in Anakin. He needs to be neutralized.”

“Kill him, we should?” The frown on Yoda’s face was pointed and unimpressed. “Fear, you do, that corrupt your charge, he will. Reason for this, he has given you? Speak of the Dark side with Anakin, does he? Attempt to turn him against the Jedi, has Obi-Wan?” He paused expectantly. “Your answer, I await, Qui-Gon.”

Said younger Jedi hissed angrily and scowled at the Grand Master. “No, Master Yoda. I supervised nearly all their interactions on the ship coming to Naboo. Kenobi did not do either of those things.” He hesitated and finally added, “Apparently, since the battle Obi-Wan has been too busy in negotiations with Queen Amidala to speak with Anakin.”

Yoda let out a tellingly neutral hum. “No evil deeds, have you witnessed. No proof of wrong doing, can you provide.”

Qui-Gon’s mouth opened indignantly. “He used the Dark side, Master Yoda. I saw him myself. That is proof enough.”

“Use of the Dark side, illegal it is not,” the ancient Jedi declared boldly. “Condemn him for saving your life, we will not.”

Mace cut in when the man’s face creased with incredulity. “He has broken no Republic laws so we have no justification for action, Qui-Gon. And even if use of the Dark side was not a purely philosophical and moral quandary, it would be fool hardy to do anything about it.”

“What could you possibly mean by that?”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi is the adopted son of the Mandalorian king,” Mace stated. “If we acted against him simply over an ideological difference, we would be declaring war on Mandalore.” He sighed gravely and met the other master’s eyes. “And as the Order stands today, that is not a fight- that is not a war we would win.”

“So you’re saying we should just let Kenobi go? Even though he is a confirmed dark-sider allied with one of our most ancient enemies.”

“Our enemies, the Mandalorians no longer are,” Yoda declared unequivocally. “Our enemy, Obi-Wan is not. A Jedi, he is not. Nor bound to our Code and our restrictions, is he. Unique in the galaxy, the Jedi are not. Other Force traditions, there are, and not so prejudiced against the Dark, are many of them. No right do we have, to judge him so.”

Qui-Gon studied the uncompromising, stony expression on Yoda’s face for a long tense moment. Truthfully he knew that Mace and Yoda were right. If for no other reason, risking war with Mandalore was enough of an incentive to leave Kenobi alone. He didn’t like it, not at all, this was sure to blow up in their faces some time in the future. But without the support of the Grand Master and Master of the Order, there was nothing Qui-Gon could do.

At least not about Kenobi’s use of the Dark side. Qui-Gon would still do everything in his power to keep Anakin away from similar such corrupting influences.

“Very well, Masters,” Qui-Gon finally conceeded. “I will defer to your wisdom on this matter.”

Mace was disbelieving on how sincere Qui-Gon was in calling their decision wisdom, but as long as they didn’t have to worry about him attacking Kenobi then it wasn’t worth worrying about. The three masters spent a few more minutes discussing the implications of the possible return to of the Sith, but soon it was obvious that Qui-Gon was seeking some time to hopefully meditate and rest.

Yoda and Mace bid him farewell and walked out of the infirmary in silence.

Then when they stepped into an abandoned sitting room, Mace turned to the ancient master. “What are we going to tell the rest of the Council? Even if he won’t go haring off to fight Kenobi, Qui-Gon’s not going to keep this quiet. We can’t hide this any longer.”

Humming, Yoda leaned his weight on his gimer stick, one hand on top of the other while he contemplated Mace’s words. “Speak to Obi-Wan first, I will. But right, you are. Conceal his use of the Dark side, I no longer can.”

“I wasn’t lying when I told Qui-Gon it was a stupid move for Kenobi to reveal himself.” Stupid and much too confusing for Mace’s comfort.

“Pure heart, I told you, he has,” Yoda replied as if that explains everything. “Allow a Jedi to suffer, he could not, when able to help, he was. Not the first time, this is either.”

“Right.” Mace pressed between his eyes as his headache started worsening. “That Sith summons ten years ago that nearly ensnared Plo. You’re definitely sure that was Kenobi? And only at age what, fifteen?”

“Told me of the summons, Obi-Wan did.” Yoda nodded. “Pure, his intentions were then.”

Mace sighed and eyed the small shatterpoint flickering into view. “Alright. I’ll go brief the Council on Xanatos and the Sith. Are you going to speak with Kenobi now?”

Yoda hummed, and turned from his protege in answer. “Long overdue, our reunion is. With my former student, much to catch up on, I have.”

Watching the ancient master limp to the door, Mace shook his and followed him from the room. Yoda definitely gave himself the easier conversation.

*

Obi-Wan watched the majority of their soldiers loading up on the large troop transport parked in the Theed Palace’s industrial hangar. Jango at his side waiting for him to respond.

“I don’t like it, Jango.”

“I know, Obi’ika, but I have to at least check it out.”

Turning to face his brother, Obi-Wan scowled behind his mask. “This doesn’t sound like a good idea. Especially since the bounty is a Dark Jedi.”

Apparently, Master Dooku’s bitchy padawan, Komari Vosa hadn’t reached Knighthood before she left the Order and somehow joined a Dark side cult called the Bando Gora. She’d been dangerous as an arrogant padawan, Obi-Wan didn’t think she’d gotten any less so since Falling to the Dark side.

Jango’s helmet tilted in a way Obi-Wan knew to be an eye roll. “I’m not going for the bounty. If I end up capturing her, then great, but I’m looking for Montross.”

Montross. Jaster’s second in command that betrayed him on Korda VI and left him to die at Tor Vizsla’s hands. Their father wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for Jango getting suspicious and going to search for him when Montross came back alone. Obi-Wan would not have even met Jaster, if Montross’s treachery had been successful.

“And you’re sure he’s on this hunt?”

“One of my contacts in the Guilds said Montross took the bounty puck.”

The Force whispered indecipherable warnings in Obi-Wan’s ear and his shoulders tensed. “I have a bad feeling, Jango. I don’t think you should go.”

Jango studied his younger brother’s stiff posture, then sighed. “Obi-Wan, I have to go. Montross is dangerous and he betrayed Jaster. He’s the reason I almost lost my Buir and you almost never had one. I’ve been hunting him for over a decade and this is the first real lead I’ve gotten.”

Huffing, Obi-Wan felt his stomach tighten as he looked down, taking deep calming breaths. “You’re determined to go through with this.”

“Yes, vod’ika,” Jango murmured and put a gloved hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “And I promise I will be careful. If I get even a hint that something isn’t right, I’ll bail.”

“You swear,” Obi-Wan demanded grabbing Jango’s opposite shoulder in return. “You swear you’ll be careful and you’ll get out of there?”

“First sign of things going to shit, I’m back on my ship and headed straight home. I swear,” Jango assured him, his voice confident and fond with his brother’s worry. “Haat, ijaa, haa’it¹.”

“Haat, ijaa, haa’it,” Obi-Wan repeated and pulled Jango in until their armored foreheads met in a brotherly mirshmure’cya.

Ka’ra bal Manda, cabuor ner utreekov’la ori’vod². He prayed silently for the celestial forces of the galaxy to protect his foolish brother. Then he prayed aloud just to make Jango huff at him.

“Ne’johaa!³” Jango indeed huffed. “Before I stay just to kick your ass.”

Obi-Wan scoffed at him as they separated. “You can try.”

There was that eye roll helmet tilt again. Then one of the verde shouted that load up was finished.

Jango stepped back and took Obi-Wan’s forearm in a warrior’s salute. “K’oyacyi, vod’ika.”

“Koyacyi, ori’vod,” Obi-Wan replied and he watched his bother make his way onto the True Mandalorian Company ship. He stayed watching until the ship had lifted off and disappeared out of atmosphere.

“Troubled you seem, my young student.” Obi-Wan turned to find Yoda had somehow appeared at his side without him noticing and was looking up at him thoughtfully.

Obi-Wan sighed. “Jango’s going on a dangerous hunt without me. I’m worried about him.”

“Think, you do, that need your protection, he does?” The little green master gave him a pleasant, pointed look.

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes with a tilt of his mask-cowl covered head. “Jango is more than able to take care of himself, Master. I just have a bad feeling about this hunt. It’s making me uneasy.”

Yoda nodded sagely. “Vague premonitions in the Force, difficult they can be.”

“I don’t think you came and found me to talk about my brother’s bounty hunting.” Obi-Wan knew his mask was wholly inscrutable, but Yoda would have no trouble feeling his pointed attention in the Force.

“Correct, you are,” Yoda replied with an innocent smile. “Much to discuss, I feel we have.”

Obi-Wan knelt on one knee before the ancient Grand Master. “Shall we find somewhere private?”

There were a number of Nabooan engineers and mechanics milling around the hangar not to mention Obi-Wan’s four man protection squad Jango insisted on leaving with him. The things they needed to discuss couldn’t be done so in such mixed company.

Yoda, as he’d done all those years ago upon their last reunion, used Obi-Wan’s knee as a step stool and hopped up until he was seated on the young man’s armored shoulder. Settling comfortably on his perch, Yoda patted him on the head.

“Know a good place to talk, I’m sure you do. Take us there, you will.”

Obi-Wan snorted and ignored the confused whispers from his verde as well as any nosy bystanders. Rising easily to his feet, he answered, “As you say, Master,” before he started walking.

Yoda huffed and grumbled before they’d gone more than five feet. “Too tall, you are. Rocks, I should have put on your head. Too late now, it is.”

Chuckling, Obi-Wan reached up and patted the old master’s knee consolingly. “If it makes you feel better, I’m pretty sure I’m done growing now.”

They spent the rest of the walk through the palace to a private sitting room in idle chitchat. When they reached the door, Obi-Wan turned and ordered his verde to stay out in the hall. Once they were in the sitting room and were sure they were alone and unsurveilled, Obi-Wan went to one knee allowing Yoda to hop back down to the floor.

He figured it was much like ripping off an adhesive bandage, so the moment Yoda was steady he said, “I assume you’ve spoken to Master Jinn already.”

Yoda hummed in response as he looked up into his still kneeling young student’s expressionless mask. “See you, I would, before other discussions we have.”

Though it was rude to ask a Mandalorian to take off their helmet if you weren’t intimately familiar with them, Obi-Wan knew insult was not Yoda’s intention. And he didn’t see any harm in obliging him either way.

He reached up unclasping his cowl from his gorget then dipped his head to more easily pull the whole thing free. Raising his face once more, Obi-Wan swept a hand through his disheveled hair and clipped his mask-cowl to his belt.

There was a long moment where Yoda studied his face, though Obi-Wan felt as though the Grand Master was looking through him, looking down into the center of him. He fought not to shift where he knelt.

“See you, I asked.” Yoda met Obi-Wan’s gaze with a serious intent expression. “The whole of you, I would see.”

It took an uncomfortably long moment for Obi-Wan to understand what his old teacher meant. Then he realized it’s been almost ten years since they’ve seen each other face to face. He’s since learned how to wield the Dark side and Yoda knew that. If Yoda had spoken to Qui-Gon, then he knew that Obi-Wan used the Dark side to heal him. So then he also knew that Obi-Wan is hiding himself, his whole self.

He had to take a couple deep breaths, before he eventually gathered the courage to drop his shields. The ones concealing the changes in his presence in the Force.

Allowing a very small amount of the Dark side to trickle into him, he knew that at the very least, Yoda was now able to see the shadows on his presence and the yellow staining his eyes.

Yoda for his part watched silently as his Mando’ad student lowered some of his truly impressive shields. He watched as dark shadows crept over Obi-Wan’s bright shining light. He watched a rich golden yellow seep into his blue-green eyes, a thin ring around his pupils like a solar eclipse.

The young man must not have opened himself fully, because Yoda was only able to feel the Dark side like a slight chill in the air, a cool spring breeze. Though he did catch the faintest scent of ozone, of static charge.

He studied his student silently, noting absently that the longer he stayed silent the more tense and expressionless Obi-Wan became. Finally Yoda reached forward and placed a clawed, green hand on the young man’s fair cheek.

“Proud, I am, of my last student,” he said. “Much you have learned and accomplished, since leaving my tutelage, you have.”

Taken aback by the kind words and the gentle gesture, Obi-Wan’s brow furrowed. “Master, can you not see the Dark side inside me?”

Humming, he took his hand back to lean both palms on his gimer stick. “Darkness, I do see inside you,” he confirmed, “and yet still your light shines. Like storm clouds covering the sun, it shines through the darkness. For the contrast, the light infinitely brighter and more beautiful, it is.”

Throat suddenly tight, Obi-Wan swallowed thickly. “Thank you, Master Yoda,” he replied, voice raspy. “That-that means a great deal to me.”

“Faith, I have in your kind heart,” Yoda reminded him with a small smile. “Misplaced, my faith was not.”

Nodding, Obi-Wan felt warmth and affection for his old teacher well up inside him. “Thank you,” he said again. “I’ll endeavor to continue not to disappoint you.”

Yoda scoffed at Obi-Wan’s suddenly cheeky demeanor. “Disappoint me, you just may,” he accused raising a pointed eyebrow at his student. “The return of the Sith, you knew of. Tell me, tell the Jedi, you did not.”

Sighing, Obi-Wan raised his shields again, unwilling to leave himself unshielded on Naboo for very long. His eyes were once again completely blue-green when he retorted, “Would you have believed me, Master Yoda? The Jedi believed the Sith extinct. Would you or the Council have believed me if I holocalled you six years ago and told you the Sith were alive?”

Yoda’s face creased in a grudging frown. “Believe you, we would not,” he conceded. “Yet even try, you did not.”

“Do or do not, there is no try,” Obi-Wan said deadpan.

And received a hard walking stick to the shin where his greaves didn’t cover. “No time for joking, this is. Reveal what you know, you now must.”

Grimacing at the sharp pain, Obi-Wan blew out a breath and nodded. “You’re right, Master Yoda. I’m sorry.”

With a pebbly hum, Yoda accepted the apology. “Discover the Sith, how did you?”

“At first we didn’t know it was the Sith,” Obi-Wan began and then retold the conspiracy of genocide that was the background machinations of Galidraan. Yoda listened to the reminder of Master Dooku’s report from a decade ago, sitting down on the floor partway through, crossing his legs with his gimer stick over his lap, Obi-Wan following his lead.

“Troubling, this is,” Yoda hummed after a recounting of the money trails and the holocall records and the Senate corruption. “Review Master Dooku’s report, we will, when return to the temple, we do. Not enough, this is however, to imply resurrection of the Sith.”

“We weren’t even thinking Sith after Galidraan,” Obi-Wan confirmed. “We didn’t find out about the Sith until we were approached by the New Mandalorians, after the Senate offered them a contract of occupation in all but name.”

Yoda had read a copy of said alliance contract. Obi-Wan having sent it to him out curiosity for his thoughts. He knew what the Senate had tired to do to the New Mandalorians and through them, Mandalore as a whole.

“The alliance between the Haat Mando’ade and the New Mandalorians was almost ready to be signed when I had a dark vision one night,” he told his old teacher. “I saw a conspiracy to assassinate Jaster and bring the New Mandalorians under the Republic thumb. It woke me up and I just barely made it in time to save Jaster’s life.”

Then incongruously, an amused, almost sheepish expression came over Obi-Wan’s face. “That’s actually now I met my second teacher,” he confessed. “He was the previous Sith Apprentice sent by his master to kill the Mand’alor.”

Yoda’s eyebrows rose on his wrinkly forehead. “Trained by a Sith, you were?”

“Um- yeah,” Obi-Wan shrugged letting out an awkward cough. “Of course we had to fake his death before he could take me as a student. Apparently his master’s master was still alive and my teacher would have been killed just so the true Sith Master didn’t find out that his Apprentice broke the Rule of Two.”

Turning grave, Yoda asked, “Rule of Two, hm? Banite Sith, these Sith are? Banite Sith, you are?”

“Ah, no.” His smile turned sharp. “My teacher and I decided that while the Banite Sith are surely intelligent and powerful to have remained hidden all these centuries, they are also, shall we say, short sighted. They do not embody the true nature and values of what it means to wield the Dark side.”

Very curious, Yoda was tempted to ask more about this. About the implication that Obi-Wan and his Dark side teacher had essentially created their own Order of the Sith. He decided however that there were more immediately important things he needed to know.

“Your teacher’s former master,” he prompted, “know about him, what do you?”

“Unfortunately, not much,” Obi-Wan said. “We know he’s the Apprentice, or at least he was. Considering Xanatos attacked us so openly, there doesn’t appear to be any attempt to conceal a new apprentice like there was with my teacher. I get the feeling that perhaps the previous Sith Master has gone the way of all the Banite Sith before him.”

Contemplating that silently, Yoda thought it was a sound assumption. Not exactly a comforting one, but logical. “All other information, you have, from your teacher, it came?”

“Mostly, though my teacher couldn’t tell us his master’s civilian identity. He wasn’t even allowed to see him without his face covered.”

“Know his Sith name, you do?”

“Yeah,” Obi-Wan nodded and opened his mouth, “the Sith Master’s name is Darth-”

The Force blared with alarm and his voice cut off so abruptly it was like he Force-choked himself.

*

TBC...

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan choked on his words and took a second to gather himself from the shock of the Force’s warning. Then he scowled, frustrated and turned his attention to the Force to listen closer. Why did it not want him to tell Yoda the new Sith Master’s name?

The Force didn’t respond in words so much as cautionary chimes and the feeling of dread thick in his belly. Once he paused to think it over, Obi-Wan had to concede that it made sense.

“Obi-Wan,” Yoda called, frowning in concern. “Sense what, did you?”

Sighing, he turned his attention back on the ancient master. “The Force warned me against telling you the Sith’s Master’s title, and I think I have to agree.”

Yoda’s frown deepened whether in disapproval or more concern, Obi-Wan couldn’t tell. He could only explain his rationale.

“The attempted assassination on Jaster was not the last time the Sith tried to interfere with Mandalore,” he said. “When we attacked Death Watch and Jaster fought Tor Vizsla in single combat, we found out that Vizsla was a Force-user. Not a particularly skilled one, but he’d been instructed in the ways of the Dark enough to use it to augment his fighting abilities.”

“Think the Sith Master taught Tor Vizsla, you do? Many Force sects in the Galaxy, there are, that use the Dark side.”

“I know, but after we sliced into Death Watch’s system we discovered that Tor Vizsla had been making and receiving calls from Coruscant, he’d still been accepting financial support through Trade Federation money laundering. Just like he had on Galidraan.” He looked Yoda in the eyes, expression serious.

“That’s why I don’t think it wise to tell you the Sith Master’s title. We know the Sith is on Coruscant. That he has powerful allies in the Senate if he’s not in the Senate himself. There’s no other way to manipulate Senate briefings and alliance proposals the way he did. The risk of your exposure to him is too great.”

“Shielded, my mind is,” the ancient master pointed out. “Know, I would, if attempts to penetrate it, there are.”

“Yes, Master,” Obi-Wan nodded solemnly, however unyielding. “But did you see my Darkness at all before I voluntarily showed it to you? If you didn’t already know that I’m a Dark side user, would you have any clue from what you can read in my Force presence right now?”

Scowling, Yoda had to admit that Obi-Wan was correct. “Hidden completely, your Darkness is. Think you do, that know the Sith Master on sight, I would not.”

“I know it, Master Yoda. My teacher taught me how to hide my true nature. He learned it from his master. I fear that you could have shaken the Sith Master’s hand and you would not have known it.” The thought sent a chill up their spines. “It would be too dangerous to tell you his name. Names hold power for the Sith. If you do not know it, then he will not be tempted to look into your mind.”

Yoda knew little about how the Dark side or the Sith worked. If Obi-Wan was correct and simply knowing the Sith Master’s name would draw the Sith Master’s attention then it was safer if he did not know.

“Safe is it, for you to know?” he asked, concerned once more.

“Safe enough,” Obi-Wan answered. “I’ve learned ways to guard my mind from other dark-siders, even other Sith. And the only others that know are Jango and Jaster. The possibilities of them crossing paths with the Sith Master are slim. Not to mention their beskar helmets make reading farther than the very strongest of surface feelings almost impossible.”

Nodding, Yoda was quiet again thinking through everything that Obi-Wan had told him. It was grave. Grave indeed to think that the Sith could have infiltrated the Senate could be living on the Jedi’s home planet and yet the Jedi themselves were ignorant to it.

Though, the Force on Coruscant is clouded and has been growing darker for years. He’d thought it was simply a result of being so close to the Senate and all the greed and corruption that politicians engage in. If it was actually a result of Sith manipulation, then…

“Prepare, we must,” Yoda announced. “Prepare, you have been. Stronger, Mandalore is now. Anticipating war, you are?”

“I’ve had visions, Master.” His words came out low, serious. “The Force as told me that war is coming. The Sith have been working towards it for too long to completely avert it, but if we prepare, if we strengthen ourselves, the Sith will find their evil goals not so easily achieved.”

“Warriors, the Jedi no longer are,” Yoda pointed out with a hint of regret, which surprised Obi-Wan. “Resistance, there will be, if begin to prepare for war, we do.”

“And I suppose most Jedi will assume you’re gearing up to fight us, the Mandalorians, I mean. Since, you know, we haven’t exactly made our efforts of self sufficiency discrete.” He flashed the old master a wry smirk.

“Another Dral’Han, some will fear.” Yoda didn’t return his student’s humor. He was too preoccupied with thinking about just how blindsided the Jedi would be by war. “But do nothing, we cannot.”

“I don’t think the war will be for a while yet,” Obi-Wan attempted to comfort his troubled old teacher. “I think you have some time to plan, to strategize.”

Yoda was only mildly relaxed at this revelation. It was disconcerting, worrying, to him that he hadn’t even caught a hint of this mysterious war on the horizon in the ten years since his trip to Mandalore. He’d begun meditating much deeper and more targeted in the Unifying and Living Force both, when he’d realized that the cloudiness on Coruscant was effecting his decision making.

He’d succeeded in gaining clearer insight on issues in the now, but he’d yet to be given visions or hints of such major events in the future. Maybe Obi-Wan had received these visions, these warnings because he was on Mandalore, far away from the influence of the Sith and the Senate. Or, Yoda considered wryly, maybe the Force just liked Obi-Wan better.

He wasn’t too put out by the thought. After all, Obi-Wan was one of his favorites as well.

“Discuss this more with the Council, I will. Consult with our seers, as well. Master Sifo-Dyas, dark visions he has. Perhaps clues to this future he has seen, and too dismissive we have been.”

“Perhaps,” Obi-Wan agreed. Though he didn’t know Master Sifo-Dyas, he knew that if he was having dark visions the chances of the other Jedi dismissing and ignoring them outright were very great.

Force Visions have always been looked upon with suspicion since the Padawan Massacre, where five Jedi Masters shared a vision of the fall of the Republic and the Order and decided to kill their padawans in an attempt to avert this future. The Jedi are wary of visions for good reason, they can be misleading and confusing. If one does not take the time to analyze and question a vision from the Force, horrible tragedies can occur. Like innocent Jedi Padawans being slaughtered by their masters.

“Ask you, I feel I must,” Yoda began, changing tact for a moment. “Notice anything, discover anything, about Xanatos, important it could be?”

“Other than he’d definitely been trained since I fought him as a wet behind the years thirteen year old. Xanatos was powerful in the Dark side,” Obi-Wan answered with a frown. “He didn’t reveal much about his master other than that he was powerful and cunning. He was more concerned with taunting and eventually killing Master Jinn than revealing all of the Sith’s plans.”

“Arrogant, Xanatos always was.” It was stated with a displeased frown and a tinge of regret. “Curb his arrogance, we did not. Set him a test, we did instead, unfair and cruel, it was. Produce the creature that you killed, this negligence did.”

Obi-Wan didn’t have much to say about that. He only knew the bare bones of Xanatos’s story. And truthfully he didn’t have any desire learn more. It was a moot point, since the man was dead now.

“Speaking of, what exactly did Master Jinn say to you?”

There was a pointed expression on Yoda’s face now. “Demand we arrest you, he did. A dangerous dark-sider, he claimed you were. Stupid it was, to reveal yourself to him. Know you do, that feared you Falling even as a child, he did.”

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. “Yes, I know. Even before I performed the Wound Transference ritual and revealed myself, Qui-Gon was convinced I was haran¹ incarnate. He actually insinuated that I was preying on Anakin.”

That last was said with a tight jaw and a dangerous scowl. Sighing, Yoda reached across and patted one of his tightly clenched fists. “Know you, I do. Know Mando’ade, I do. Hurt a child, hurt Anakin, you would not.”

“Yes, well, his suspicion of me probably wasn’t helped when I threatened him if he ever said something like that again.” Obi-Wan was unrepentant as Yoda raised an eyebrow at him.

“Perhaps overestimate your intelligence, I have,” he commented dryly.

Huffing, Obi-Wan shared his lingering anger and frustration with the Force. He replied, “If my intelligence was not what it is, Master Jinn would be dead.”

“Well, overestimate your kind heart, I did not,” Yoda shot back, with a hint of smugness. Then he sobered. “Spoken with Anakin, you have. Sense his clouded future, did you?”

Serious himself now, Obi-Wan nodded. “Yes, Master. The boy could be very dangerous. His future has many paths leading into darkness.”

“Think he should not be trained, do you?” he asked the young man, curious.

“No,” Obi-Wan shook his head assuredly. “The Jedi Order is the best place for him. The Force was very clear on that. His path, at least for now, is with the Jedi.”

Humming in agreement, Yoda continued, “Emotional, he is, filled with fear. Fear of the unknown, fear for his mother. Unable to learn our emotional detachment, I fear he is. Difficult, this will make his education.”

Wrinkling his nose at the reminder of the Jedi emotional suppression, Obi-Wan declared, “Then don’t teach him to let go of his emotions. He mentioned that you spoke to him briefly about that. He was very confused. He didn’t understand the concept of letting one’s emotions go. You’re going to have to do some research, some deep thinking, to figure out how to teach him effectively. He’s very different from the other children that have only known the Jedi Temple.”

“Different, he is,” Yoda agreed. “Special, he is. Powerful in the Force.”

“Very much so, Master,” Obi-Wan replied wryly. “The Order has their work cut out with him.”

“Any suggestions, you have for now? Immediate ways, to help him adapt?”

“Free his mother,” were the first words out of Obi-Wan’s mouth and they caused Yoda’s eyebrows to rise on his forehead. “A great deal of his fear is from worrying about his mother. That won’t go away if she is still a slave while he is free. Free her, give him proof that she is freed and safe at least from slavery, that I think will go a long way to settling him in with the Jedi.”

Not to mention it will build a massive amount of trust with the world weary child. He couldn’t imagine the resentment that would steadily build in Anakin if the Jedi let his mother remain a slave on top of him having to leave her to her fate.

“Good advice, this is,” Yoda finally said after a moment. “Think on this, I will. Discuss it with the Council, I will.”

“It’s no problem, Master.” Obi-Wan gave him a smile, though it turned slightly self-deprecating. “I’m always willing to assist the Jedi. I believe my healing of and subsequent Dark side outing to Master Jinn proved that.”

Yoda’s expression was gentle when he looked upon his young student. “Selfless, that action was. A Jedi act, it was. Say, did I not, that the soul of a Jedi, you will always have.”

For the second time in their conversation warmth and fondness swelled inside him and he beamed at his old teacher. “I believe you did say that, Master Yoda. And I am honored to hear it once more.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Obi-Wan’s comm beeping on his vambrace. He lifted his arm and answered the call.

“Ad’Alor, mesh’la cabur’ika sirbur Naboo’alor copaanir jorhaa’ir ti gar²,” one of his verde informed him of a summons from the Queen.

“Ni suvarir,” Obi-Wan acknowledge. What could the Queen want to speak to him about? They’d already signed the alliance, so it probably wasn’t business.

“Mesh’la cabur’ika,” Yoda’s pebbly voice repeated curiously. “Beautiful little protector?”

Obi-Wan’s lips twitched as he lowered his arm and moved to stand up. “There’s no Mando’a word for handmaiden, so ‘beautiful protector’ was as close was we could get since the Queen’s handmaidens double as bodyguards. When the verde found out how old, or I should say, how young they all were, the ‘little’ was tacked on.”

Mouth curling in amusement, Yoda hummed. “Clever, that is. Perhaps tell Queen Amidala this, you should. Amusing, she might find it.”

Obi-Wan’s lips twitched, that was a thought.

“I’m sorry our conversation has to be cut short, Master Yoda.” He unclipped his mask-cowl and prepared to pull it back over his head.

“Speak again, we will soon,” Yoda said with a hint of premonition. “Perhaps more frequently, you should holocall. Distance in these troubling times, we should not keep, I fear.”

Obi-Wan agreed, both with the implied request and the statement. Distance and miscommunication between the Jedi and the Mandalorians could be very detrimental as they move ever closer to war with the Sith.

“Ret’urcye mhi, Baji Yoda,” Obi-Wan said with a respectful and fond fist pressed over his heart, his face once again covered by his mask.

“Ret’urcye mhi, ner Mando’ad hibir,” Yoda returned, his green-brown eyes gleaming up at him as he leaned on his gimer stick, his wrinkly green face creased in a smile. “Remember, you must, Obi-Wan, that proud of you, I am.”

“Thank you, Master Yoda,” Obi-Wan murmured, his throat a little tight and his chest warm as he and his first and wisest teacher went their separate ways. At least for now.

*

Chancellor of the Republic Sheev Palpatine easily hid his disdain for every and all other living beings around him. His face was carved from pleasant, amiable stone. Even to the sanctimonious Jedi Council his presence in the Force read as far bellow the minimum threshold for Jedi admittance. His mind would reflect nothing but the calculation and selfishness of every other politician. Everything about him was average, expected, and unremarkable.

And that was just how he liked it. Granted having to keep himself cut off from the Dark side was annoying, but needs must. It wasn’t like he didn’t wield power even without touching the Force. He already had half the Senate in the palm of his hand through bribes and blackmail, if not through subterfuge and manipulation.

It should have been no different when it came to the monarch of his home planet. He should have the very young and disgustingly, if conveniently idealistic Queen Amidala completely under his control through pretty words and lamentations of the greed of the Senate.

And yet…

“Truly, your Highness, are you sure this is wise?” He’d been working on her for the last hour and had gotten infuriatingly nowhere. “The Mandalorians have a history of war mongering and subjugation. They are by all accounts uncivilized barbarians. I fear allying ourselves with them is unwise.”

“The Mandalorians have not been conquerors for a millennia, Chancellor,” the Queen intoned with a hint of a frown on her overly painted brow. “Mand’alor Mereel is by all accounts an honorable and just ruler.”

He felt a spike of rage at her very nearly mocking repeat of his turn of phrase. Still he pasted on a sincere, concerned moue. “Mand’alor Mereel is not the one you’ve negotiated with. How can we be sure that his son is as honorable and trustworthy?”

Apparently the Queen did not like his continued questioning of her, because he felt a hot spike of irritation through her weak, dim presence. “The Ad’Alor has demonstrated himself to be a man of his word, Chancellor. I would not have entertained entering into an alliance with Mandalore if the Mand’alor’s representative comported himself dishonorably.”

“Perhaps, Ad’Alor Kenobi is indeed a trustworthy man,” Palpatine falsely allowed. Then attempted to change track. “His elder brother, the future ruler of Mandalore has displayed a worrying comradery with the Gungans. The Naboo and the Gungans have not had the most harmonious of relationships.”

He’d pushed too far, he realized when her face and her presence darkened. The Queen’s shoulders straightened and she titled her chin so she was looking down her nose at him for all that his head was above hers standing before her throne.

“Ven’Alor Fett is no less an honorable man than Ad’Alor Kenobi, and the Gungans have proven themselves true friends and allies to the Naboo,” she declared voice hard and uncompromising and Palpatine fought not to clench his hands into fists at his side. “Do you think that I would risk the well-being and future prospects of my people by being anything less than absolutely certain of my course of action? Are you questioning my judgment, Chancellor?”

Seeing as the Queen trusts him, Palpatine thought less than stellar about her character judgment, however convenient it’s been for him so far. Though since she’d decided to return to Naboo and fight the Trade Federation her judgment has been less than optimal to his plans.

His face became a picture of reconciliation and contrition. “Forgive me, your Highness. Of course I trust your judgment,” lie, “you have been a wonderful ruler for our people. If you think that allying with the Gungans and the Mandalorians is what Naboo should do then I of course defer to your wisdom. Naboo has just been so badly used by this terrible conflict, I simply felt the need to express my concern.”

She was only mildly placated. “You have the whole of the Republic to concern yourself with now, Chancellor. Leave Naboo to me.”

Palpatine gritted his teeth behind his humble smile and bowed acknowledging the reprimand. “As you say, your Highness. Despite my misgivings, I am, of course, very thankful to the Mandalorians for assisting in liberating Naboo from the Trade Federation. Will there be an opportunity to formally thank them? The liberation and unity celebration maybe.”

Perhaps, he could work this to his advantage. Mandalorians he’s found have very malleable minds. All he’d need is a moment alone and he’d finally have another pawn in Mandalore. Since his last three attempts had frustratingly been less than successful. Mand’alor Mereel must have the luck of the Sith Hells, because not only has he thwarted three attempts at assassination, one of which resulted in his prized apprentice’s execution, he’s also managed to unite Mandalore despite Palpatine’s machinations to the contrary.

Hopefully the man’s sons will be less fortunate when faced with the new Sith Master. Not that they’d know that he is the Sith Master as of the death of Darth Plagueis on his election night.

Captain Panaka stepped forward when the Queen looked to him questioningly. “Ven’Alor Fett has just left the planet with the majority of the True Mandalorian forces,” he said. “Ad’Alor Kenobi remains on planet however, and is scheduled to depart within the week.”

“How unfortunate,” Palpatine lamented, only half sincere. From what he’d heard Fett would have been the easiest to manipulate, but if the Mandalorian had taken the bait he’d so painstakingly laid out for him, Palpatine will be making his acquaintance very soon. “Though perhaps Ad’Alor Kenobi would be willing to speak with me, so I might more thoroughly express my gratitude.”

One of the Queen’s annoyingly strong willed handmaidens was dispatched and within ten minutes returned leading the Ad’Alor and what appeared to be a four man bodyguard squad.

For the second time, Palpatine thought that Ad’Alor Kenobi had the strangest armor he’d ever seen on a Mandalorian, at least in armor that wasn’t catering to non-humanoid physique. He didn’t know enough about Mandalorian armor traditions to know if the prince’s odd armor was actually relevant or if was a purely aesthetic choice. He’d attempted to research it after the Mand’alor’s inconvenient message to the Senate some years ago, and had gotten very little information. Apparently the Mandalorians guard their secrets of armor forgery almost as closely as the Sith do their sorcery.

“Your Highness,” Ad’Alor Kenobi greeted with that incongruous High Coruscanti accent, “how may I be of service?”

He did not bow before the Queen, both royalty as they were, and Palpatine resented him the privilege.

“Chancellor Palpatine as I’m sure you know was the Senator for Naboo before his appointment to his current office,” the Queen said as she straightened on her throne her eyes gazing upon Kenobi. Something strange was happening to her presence in the Force and Palpatine zeroed in on it while she spoke. “He wishes to more thoroughly express his gratitude to you for assisting in freeing his home planet.”

By the Force, Palpatine thought incredulously as he finally realized what the hot fluttering of Queen Amidala’s presence signified. The foolish girl had a gods’ forsaken crush. It would have been hilarious if he wasn’t so enraged that a teenage ruler’s hormones might be the reason he wasn’t able to manipulate her into doubting the Mandalorians.

“That is kind of the Chancellor,” Kenobi said, turning so that he faced Palpatine, the blank expression on his mask giving nothing away. “You have already given us your thanks, your Excellency. And we were just doing our jobs, we require no more gratitude.”

He flashed the young man an amiable smile. “That was before I realized that our two home planets would be more intimately entwined in the future.”

Kenobi tilted his head in a way that surprisingly gave off the impression of an unimpressed eyebrow raise. “Then we would require even less thanks. Mandalorians honor our agreements and protect our allies as we expect them to protect us. Thanking us for doing so is actually considered very disingenuous and looked up with suspicion.”

He got the distinct impression that Kenobi did not like him. Or perhaps he just did not like politicians. It was a common enough affliction among the barbarian warrior races of the galaxy. Though this Mandalorian’s accent was still immensely puzzling to Palpatine.

“Ah, I apologize then. Perhaps I should read up on Mandalorian culture. I wouldn’t want to offer insult to my home planet’s saviors.” He smiled and secretly relished in the slight displeased shifting of the other Mandos in the room. Though disappointingly Kenobi didn’t let any hint of discontent reflect in his body language or tone when he responded.

“Do not worry yourself, Chancellor,” he said, tone even and pleasant enough. “We do not hold an outsider’s ignorance against them.”

Oh, he was good, Palptaine thought with a small surge in his ever present anger. “How magnanimous,” he drawled with a purposefully somewhat dim grin on his face. “Tell me, Ad’Alor, I was under the assumption that you are the Mand’alor’s youngest son. Where did you come by your High Coruscanti accent?”

There was a barely perceptible pause where Kenobi seemed to debate whether to answer. Then, “I’m adopted as I’m sure you know. Before I became a Mandalorian I grew up on Coruscant.”

That is very odd. How does a teenager with the accent of the Coruscanti elite end up a Mandalorian? He thought the risk of seeming nosy was worth asking the question if it meant he could learn more about this disappointingly intelligent Mandalorian.

Again there was a long pause where Kenobi debated on answering. Behind him his men shifted, made wary by his questioning. Interesting.

Finally Kenobi answered surprisingly truthfully. “I grew up in the Jedi Temple,” he said, like it was completely normal for Jedi younglings to defect to their ancestral enemies. “I decided that the life of a Jedi was not for me and left the Order as a young teen.”

His answer of course did not explain how he ended up with the Mandalorians, but it did alarm Palpatine when the puzzle pieces regarding his schemes on Mandalore began to fall into place. Carefully, Palpatine extended just a little bit more of his awareness out into the Force and discovered that while the other Mandos were muffled and near unreadable to his perception, Kenobi was much like a beacon. A heavily shielded and wholly guarded beacon. Palpatine could tell nothing of Kenobi other than he was of middling Jedi levels of Force-sensitivity and disgustingly Light but for the shadows all warriors acquire over their lifetimes. His thoughts were concealed almost entirely, only faint curiosity and the sharpness of a keen mind apparent to the very minimal surreptitious scan Palpatine was conducting.

That explained so much about Palptaine’s failures in getting Mandalore under his thrall. Especially in regards to the demise of his last apprentice. He guessed that Kenobi would have been perhaps late teens early twenties when he sent Maul to Mandalore. His apprentice had not been expecting a Force-user, even one with presumably minimal Jedi training. Depending on how well trained in the Mandalorian martial arts he was, it was conceivable that he could have taken Maul by surprise and gotten the best of him.

It could also explain how his training and manipulation of Tor Vizsla had not paid off. If Mereel had been more conscious of the Force and its wielders because of his youngest son, lowly Initiate training though he may have had, it was possible that he hadn’t been as unprepared to meet a Force-user in battle as he would have otherwise.

Suddenly he remembered how unresponsive the High Council had been after the Mand’alor’s warning to the Senate five years ago. His rage and frustration boiled up inside him almost enough to slip past his own impeccable shields. If the Jedi knew that Kenobi was the king’s son, perhaps they thought they had some influence over the throne. It would explain their reticence on the subject of Mandalore and any potential threat they pose.

Rage, rage, anger, hate, indignation…

Palpatine shoved all his burning emotions down and smiled, a surprised curious expression in the face of Kenobi’s expressionless observation.

“My, that is fascinating,” he said. “How does a Jedi youngling become a Mandalorian?”

It seemed he’d worn out any leeway Kenobi had given him in his nosiness, because the prince simply tilted his head in a strangely irreverent gesture and answered, “Surprisingly easily.”

Then he turned back to the Queen, summarily dismissing the Chancellor of the Republic as if he was nothing more than a sniveling senatorial aide.

Palpatine kept his genial smile in place even as he made plans to murder Kenobi at his earliest convenience. Especially since the revelation of his minimal Jedi training and Force-sensitivity took the chances of mind manipulation off the table.

“I’m sure you know, you Highness, that my brother had to leave early. There were other obligations he must see to. He wanted me to tell you goodbye and that he hopes our planets will continue to nurture our burcyan as we move forward.”

“Burcyan?” Queen Amidala asked and her presence did that awful, sickening little flutter again.

“It means a close bond, comradeship if you will,” Kenobi explained his voice significantly warmer, much to Palpatine’s interest. “I believe that our planets will benefit each other greatly and our friendship will grow accordingly.”

How… disgusting and yet opportune for him, Palpatine thought. Perhaps he can do something with this. Somehow manipulate their mutual fondness. A consideration for later, but for now:

“Speaking of bonds of friendship,” Palpatine interrupted the Queen’s fluttering with the air of a suddenly brilliant idea. “It has not gone unnoticed that Mandalore has been allying with other planets in the Republic. By all accounts it has been a fortuitous state of affairs for all parties involved.”

“We hold all our allies in the highest respect and friendship,” Kenobi answered diplomatically and warily, though that didn’t show at all in his voice.

“I do not know if you are aware, but if an independent system has alliances, treaties, or trade agreements with five or more Republic planets they are entitled to an ambassadorial envoy in the Senate to watch over their planet’s and their citizens’ interests.” Mandalore has six- now seven such alliances with Republic planets, Palpatine has perhaps found a way to use that to his advantage. If he can keep a Mandalorian of high rank on Coruscant where he can get to him relatively easily…

Kenobi was surprised by this implied offer and Palpatine carefully kept his expression blandly pleasant.

“You are offering Mandalore, an independent system, a seat in the Senate?” The skepticism was warranted if inconvenient.

“It would not be a voting seat, of course,” Palpatine said, earnestly. “But your ambassador will have speaking and lobbying rights, expatriate oversight, and diplomatic immunity. Much like the Trade Federation, Banking Clan, and Techno Guild seats.”

Apparently comparing Mandalore to the Trade Federation and their ilk was a mistake because several of the Mandos in the background bristled visibly. Kenobi’s hand raised and the Mandos stilled, though their discontent and anger was strong enough to leak into the Force through their helmets.

“I was not aware that the Senate’s opinion of Mandalore had risen enough to offer us a place of such honor among their august body.” Oh, he was very good. Palpatine did not grind his teeth.

“Indeed, perhaps many of the Senators are still wary of your people, but as Queen Amidala was just telling me, you have proven yourselves honorable and trustworthy. Especially in the eyes of those of us compassionate enough to be thankful for the assistance you have bestowed upon our less fortunate member planets.”

Yes, he was putting it on a bit thick, but he’d long ago committed himself to this kindly older gentleman persona. There were very few beings he’d come in contact with that hadn’t been taken in at least partly by his act. He didn’t expect Kenobi to be much different for all his odd origins and artful way of speaking.

Kenobi was quiet for a long moment and Palpatine could actually see the sharp, calculating thought processes of his mind in the Force. It would be impressive, if it didn’t make Palpatine’s life harder.

“Mandalore is honored by your offer, Chancellor,” Kenobi finally said and there was absolutely nothing to read either in his voice, his body language, or what little he allowed past his shields in the Force. “Such an important proposition should not be considered with anything less than the utmost seriousness. Therefore, on behalf of Mandalore, I must regretfully decline an ambassadorial seat at this time.”

“Truly, Ad’Alor? May I ask why?” Yes, why must you be so difficult? Kenobi has now risen a few more spots on Palpatine’s kill list.

“As I said, your Excellency, this is too much of an important decision for me to make alone. I will of course bring your generous offer to the Mand’alor. He will no doubt be gratified to know that the Chancellor of the Republic holds us in such high esteem.”

Somehow, Palpatine doubted that, but he let the subject go with a friendly nod and a gracious, “Yes, certainly. If the Mand’alor changes his mind, I will of course personally advocate for your ambassadorial seat with the Senate.”

Kenobi nodded his head, shallow and with the barest of gratitude. “Again we are honored by your good opinion of us.”

Palpatine felt doubt. The Mand’alor’s message to the Senate had been very clear, if the words remained unspoken, of just how little the Mandalorian king thought of the Republic Senate. Still, he’d made the offer and Kenobi had left the path open.

Perhaps losing a member of the royal family will push them to seek allies in the Republic. Palpatine considered this, thinking of his scheme already in progress on Kohlma, a moon of Bogden.

Regardless, he was determined that one way or another, he would have influence over Mandalore by the time he waged war on the galaxy. However that influence manifested. His plans depended on Mandalore being either weak or unwilling to offer resistance. And he would make that happen. Eventually.

*

TBC...

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan stays on Naboo after Jango leaves only long enough to ensure that the military trainers and consultants from Mandalore were inbound. Well, that and to hear from Yoda what the High Council’s reactions had been to the revelation of his Dark side use.

“Wary, they are,” Yoda said the last time they were able to speak alone before Obi-Wan left and the Council was bogged down in politics and the emerging Sith crisis. “Though agree with Master Windu’s assessment, they do. Broken laws, you have not. The Dark side, illegal it is not. Unwise, picking a fight with Mandalore, it would be.”

Obi-Wan had scoffed at that. “Somehow I don’t think some of them were taking that last one into account all that seriously.”

“Perhaps, they did not,” Yoda conceded. “But listen to Master Windu and I, they will. Not your only allies among the Jedi, we are either,” he added to Obi-Wan’s surprise.

“Master Koon,” Yoda said to his questioning expression. “Thinks highly of you and Jango, he does. And Master Dooku, no longer on the Council he is, but honorable he believes Mand’alor Mereel, to be.”

That was interesting. Obi-Wan in a vague way knew that Yoda’s last padawan had a somewhat transient seat on the Council. But even if he was in an off season so to speak, his opinion held weight.

With the Jedi Council placated and Mandalore’s official business concluded, it was time for Obi-Wan to head home. Ever since the Council and the Chancellor’s entourage had come to the Naboo he’d been strangely anxious.

Perhaps it had something to do with being in such close and forcibly polite proximity with the Chancellor of the whole Republic. Something about Palpatine rubbed him wrong. The Force was always sluggish and almost halfheartedly chiming with a warning when in his presence. It wasn’t any more alarming than when he was in the presence of other powerful such politicians, but it was beginning to grate on him. That and the man’s continuous good mood and affable attitude was annoying and suspicious in its own right.

No one was that genial without first having an underlying motive. Jango hadn’t been wrong when he said, “Draar ruusaanyc nuhunar aru’e.” Never trust a laughing enemy. Palpatine practically embodied the saying.

Fortunately Obi-Wan was very practiced in dealing with slimy career politicians so the few times Palpatine had cornered him in conversation hadn’t been too perilous. Still he was glad to be out of the man’s orbit. Everything was so much simpler on Mandalore where if you didn’t like the look of someone’s smile you could just punch it off their face and be done with it.

Queen Amidala, when informed of Obi-Wan’s impending departure, expressed reluctance to see him go and regret he was leaving before the celebration ceremony and a last opportunity for Naboo to express its appreciation.

“You have done so much for my people,” she said, her warm brown eyes earnest and deep. “I know you said not to thank you for it, but I can’t help feeling gratitude.”

Smiling down at the young ruler, Obi-Wan simply shook his head. “We are friends, Padmé,” he reminded her. “On Mandalore protecting each other and our loved ones is what friends do.”

The girl was able to meet his arresting gaze since his mask-cowl was clipped to his belt, her expression oddly honest underneath all her makeup. “I shall forever count myself fortunate then, to have you as my friend.”

He chuckled and took her hand in a gentlemanly gesture. “No more fortunate than I am, Padmé, to have met you and call you my friend,” then he bowed and pressed a kiss to the soft back of her delicate hand.

In the Force, her presence did that gentle little fluttering again and he grinned fondly down at her. For all that she was a mature and wise ruler, she was still a sweet young girl.

“If you are determined to leave now, then I shall simply say, ret’urcyi mhi, Obi-Wan ner burc’ya.”

Her accent was thick, obviously Nabooan, her pronunciation was a little rough, but the sentiment was genuine and he couldn’t do anything but feel touched and pleased with the attempt.

“Maybe we’ll meet again, my dear friend Padmé,” he returned warmly in Basic and stepped back to finally board his ship with his verde.

He didn’t make it two steps before a small body smacked hard and jarring into his legs. Slightly thrown off balance, Obi-Wan’s arms windmilled before he caught himself and looked down at his attacker.

Anakin grinned bright and mischievous up at him. “You can’t leave yet!” he exclaimed. “You have to promise we’ll see each other again.”

Though with that last, the boy’s expression fell and his brow furrowed. “We are going to see each other again, right? You’re my friend. Padmé’s already promised we’ll see each other, but you haven’t yet.”

Obi-Wan looked down into his earnest face and sighed. Obviously Anakin had escaped Jinn’s hovering attention. Unwinding the boy’s arms from around his legs, he stepped back and crouched to his level.

“Anakin,” he tried to explain, “I live on Mandalore and you are going to be on Coruscant. It will be very difficult for us to meet again.”

The boy’s expression sank despondently. “I’ll never get to see you again? Do you not-” he bit his lip sadly and looked down at the ground. “Do you not want to see me again?”

Obi-Wan tapped the boy on the chin until he raised his head and their eyes met. “I would love to see you again, Anakin,” he said honestly and made sure the boy could feel it in the Force. “But you will be very busy with learning how to be a Jedi and I will be very busy helping my father rule Mandalore. That doesn’t mean,” he continued, when the boy opened his mouth to protest, “that I will not think of you. That I will not always cherish our time together.”

Anakin was quiet for a moment then, “My mom said we probably wouldn’t ever see each other again, either, but she asked me if I felt that in my heart.”

Curious and touched, Obi-Wan tapped the boy on the chest asking, “What did your heart tell you then?”

A determined and amusingly defiant look came over Anakin’s face. “I will see my mother again,” he declared like it was a truth of the galaxy, then he smiled wide. “And I know I will see you again too.”

Obi-Wan hummed thoughtfully as he listened to the suddenly attentive Force whispering in his ear. There was a slight echo of premonition to the boy’s words, and he thought it was in fact very probable that their paths would cross again.

“Well, in that case, I look forward to our reunion however far in the future it may be.”

He earned a happy giggle from his very young friend a moment before he was suddenly assaulted with a tight hug around his neck. “Until we meet again, okay, Obi-Wan?”

The warmth of fondness grew in his chest and Obi-Wan sighed, a small smile on his lips as he returned the hug lightly, his gloved hands pressed to the little boy’s back. “Until we meet again, Anakin.”

He felt a flash of alarm and frustration in the Force and opened his eyes to see Qui-Gon Jinn had just found them. The Jedi Master was scowling fiercely, but didn’t step in to separate them. At least not yet.

“Alright, Anakin,” Obi-Wan patted him gently and pulled back from the hug. Standing up he ruffled the boy’s hair and grinned at his adorable little pout. “I must go now.”

“Alor!” conveniently one of his verde called from the open ship ramp, and Obi-Wan raised a hand over his shoulder in acknowledgment.

He cast one last look at Padmé who’d watched the interaction with a gentle smile on her painted lips and Anakin who was grinning again and waving enthusiastically. It was curious he thought as he walked away from them, that their presences in the Force, each different and unique, should both feel so very warm and slightly longing as they watched him go.

The ramp closed behind him and he lost sight of them, the Force’s indistinct whispers quieting as they lifted off. Perhaps Anakin was right, he mused almost absently as he walked through the ship to the cockpit. Maybe he would see both of them again.

*

Palpatine waited until the Jedi Council had left the planet before he went to investigate that slight whisper of the Dark side he’d felt that first day he landed on Naboo. It had been quick, and very weak, but he’d sensed it as he’d gone to meet with the Queen to speak with her about Naboo’s alliance with the Mandalorians.

He hadn’t felt free to investigate until the Jedi Council was no longer making a nuisance of themselves. And a nuisance they were. When he requested to view the security footage of Jinn, Kenobi, and his apprentice, Xanatos’s fight, he’d been told the security footage had been corrupted and was unwatchable. All he’d been able to find out was that, aggravatingly it was Kenobi that had defeated Xanatos and that Jinn had been gravely injured during the fight.

If his suspicions about the Mandalorian prince were correct then that would make that two apprentices he’s denied him. Kenobi was rapidly shortening his own lifespan.

He knew that the fight had ended in the disintegration chamber in the palace’s plasma generator facility. It was night time when he made his way to the doors of the generator in the star fighter hangar. Immediately he could feel lingering echos of the Dark side. The echos were imprinted with Xanatos’s unique presence, like a signature. The idiot man tended to leak the Force like a sieve when he was fighting, though it had proved useful in throwing off his opponents.

Palpatine followed the echoes through the plasma extracting shaft chamber, over several walkways and finally to the laser door passage. He waited for the doors to open then Force-sped through them and into the disintegration chamber. The Dark side was much more prevalent here. Xanatos’s anger and rage and pain was like a thick blanket smothering anything else. Though the Jedi’s grief and panic was a bright spot by the large blood stain on the floor.

There were arcs of blood splatters across the polished durasteel floor where the heaviest of Xanatos’s signature was centered. Palpatine wondered just how grievously Kenobi had wounded him to cause that outpouring of pain, agony, and hate. It was so strong that it clouded any other trace of Kenobi other than the barest whisper of his determined presence in the chamber.

The Jedi said that Xanatos had fallen down the disintegration shaft and so made it ill-advisable to attempt retrieving his body. Palpatine leaned over the dark abyss and sent out his awareness curiously.

Ah, he thought mildly surprised and certainly intrigued, there was the most minuscule of life signs resting at the very bottom of the shaft.

Wrapping the Force around himself to protect from the plasma slough and radiation, he stepped off into the abyss.

The journey downward was fast and Palpatine landed agilely at the bottom of the shaft with a slight bracing bend to his knees. It was of course pitch black down there, so he dropped his lightsaber into his palm and igniting the burning blood red blade. His crystal’s furious agonized screams were music to his ears as the area was lit up red in the glow of his weapon.

Looking around in eerie light, it didn’t take him long to find his apprentice’s body. Or perhaps he should just say his apprentice. Because judging by the faintest flutter of life in his presence, Xanatos was still alive.

Intrigued, Palpatine sauntered toward him and gazed down at the younger man. His belly was split open and his intestines were exposed, already rotting judging by the smell. His arms ended abruptly halfway down his forearms, and it looked like Xanatos’s skull was half caved in from impact with the ground. His eyes were open and burning an enraged yellow in the dark.

And my, wasn’t that a lot of hatred and rage practically blanketing him. Xanatos’s emotions had warped the Force to such a degree that it was wrapped around him almost like a stasis shield.

He’d heard of similar instances in history, of a Sith’s hatred and anger sustaining them past the point they should have died. Perhaps the most famous being the Sith Lord Darth Sion, one of the Sith Triumvirate. He’d become functionally immortal by using his rage and hatred to keep his decaying body alive.

Examining his apprentice, he realized that Xanatos was perhaps not quite to immortal status yet, but he’d used his hatred to keep himself alive this long.

Crouching at his side, Palpatine ignored his apprentice’s burning gaze on him as he looked over his injuries. His belly wound and his severed limbs were not cauterized so they must have been inflicted with Kenobi’s metal sword. Though there was what appeared to be a semi cauterized hole burned halfway through his exposed intestines. Perhaps Jinn had gotten in a hit before Xanatos had incapacitated him.

“Well, my apprentice, you seem to have gotten yourself into some trouble.”

Xanatos’s mouth opened and closed, his throat gurgling with rancid blood as no words came out.

“Don’t try to speak,” Palpatine ordered as he stared into his yellow eyes and easily slipped into his weakened vulnerable mind. “Show me your fight with Kenobi and Jinn.”

Unable to deny his master in his state, Xanatos had no other choice but to remember his moment of greatest defeat. Though because his mind was so unfocused with his pain and his life only just hanging on, the fight came to Palpatine in fragments, snippets of conversation, and flashes of emotion.

Satisfaction at the realization he was now stronger than his old master.

You’re weak, old man.

Confusion and frustration when the Mandalorian proved to be more of a challenge than he thought.

Anger with his sanctimonious Jedi teacher. The man that had been like his father.

The Dark only corrupts. It gives nothing. Only takes.

You blind, self-righteous fool!

A flash of sharp pain, dazed spots in his vision, and the sight of the Mandalorian standing before him brandishing a spiked mace in one hand, his mask half destroyed and useless now.

Palpatine raised an eyebrow at that. He hadn’t spotted a mace on Kenobi when he’d spoken to him.

Anger and pride sharp and indignant from his apprentice.

I was already strong in the Dark side when my master found me and I am even more so, now.

Sighing, Palpatine was disappointed yet not so surprised with Xanatos’s lack of forethought.

The triumph and glee his apprentice felt when he saw the look of hurt and indignation on Jinn’s face was not however, enough compensation for his indiscretion.

“Enough,” he said, losing patience. “Show me the end.”

Xanatos’s mind hiccuped until he saw his apprentice standing over Jinn ready to slicing his head from his neck.

Then his blade was caught by Kenobi’s sword and he was stabbed in the shoulder by some kind of four bladed weapon.

The memories jumped again and only cleared up when Xanatos’s hands were cut off. Then they were sharp and bright, almost headache inducing as he felt the younger man’s agony and rage. Kenobi slashed open Xanato’s belly.

I hate you!

Then the Mandalorian hesitated and Palpatine was only just able perceived through the memories the Force shifting oddly in the room. Xanatos took the chance to Force-choke Kenobi only to have the move brushed aside with seemingly little effort. Still oblivious to the shift in the Force, Xanatos attempted to choke him again. Of course screaming vitriolic hatred while doing so.

That’s when Kenobi kicked him in the chest and all that Palpatine perceived in Xanatos’s mind then was pain and hate.

Exiting his apprentice’s thoughts, he stayed crouched over him for a long moment trying to decide what he wanted to do.

It was very tempting to just cut his head off and be done with it, and yet… Xanatos was obviously stronger and angrier than he’d given him credit for if he’d managed to harness the Dark to keep himself from death. Perhaps he’d not yet outlived his usefulness.

Rising to his feet, Palpatine lifted his injured apprentice from the ground with a wave of his hand and prepared to use the Force to jump-climb his way out of the disintegration shaft.

“M-m-ma-aster…”

He didn’t even spare the younger man a glance at the sound of his gurgling agonized call. “You’ve disappointed me, Xanatos, but don’t worry,” he said, merciless and unsympathetic. “I’ll heal you and in gratitude you will not fail me again.”

Meeting the young man’s burning gaze then, he raised an expectant eyebrow. “Will you, my apprentice?”

There was no verbal reply but the surge of hate in the injured man’s presence was answer enough.

“I thought not,” he drawled, satisfied. “Now, come along, Darth Icarus, we have work to do.”

*

Obi-Wan stepped onto Mandalorian soil and breathed deep and calm. It was good to be home. He’d been gone for almost a three and a half months and he’d missed Manda’yaim. As always since they’d begun to heal the planet, its presence in the Force reached out and touched him, fond and welcoming and warm.

He grinned as he finally let his shields drop and the Dark side flooded into him. He centered himself and controlled the influx of the Force while he listened to the distant sounds of millions of warriors shouting in triumph and pounding their fists on their armored chests. Like everything Mando’ad, the Force on Manda’yaim was primal and spirited for all that it was still weak with its previous destruction.

“Ner ad,” Jaster’s voice broke him from his thoughts and he opened his eyes to see his father coming toward him with a warm smile on his face. “Su cuy’gar.”

Meeting his buir, Obi-Wan wrapped his arms around the man and felt the Mand’alor’s palms pat his armored back. “Su cuy’gar, Jas’bu.”

“So,” Jaster said with a knowing, proud smile as he pulled back. “I hear we have another planet to add to our Not-Empire.”

Snorting, Obi-Wan chuckled at his father. “Queen Amidala of Naboo was very impressed after we helped liberate her planet. She saw how honorable and trustworthy we Mandalorians are trying to prove ourselves and decided to ally with us.”

“Most of that is due to you, I hear.” The Mand’alor guided Obi-Wan toward the palace with a heavy hand on his armored shoulder. “Jango mentioned something about the Queen liking you quite a bit before he left on his hunt.”

Obi-Wan’s nose wrinkled and he protested, “Padmé is fourteen!”

Jaster just shot him an unimpressed look. “Padmé is a teenage girl, and you are a handsome young warrior in literal shining armor that helped liberate her planet. I think she’s entitled to a crush despite her heavy responsibilities.”

Rolling his eyes, Obi-Wan shrugged his father’s words off. “Jango was just being an ass. Padmé is a wise and just ruler for Naboo. I respect her greatly.”

Jaster just hummed noncommittally and let it go changing the subject. “Jango also mentioned that the Jedi Council was on planet when he left. What news do you have from them?”

They had made it to Jaster’s office so they settled around the low table and served themselves freshly prepared shig before getting down to business.

“The Jedi Council know for sure now that I’m a dark-sider,” he said after explaining how he saved Jinn’s life with a Sith ritual. “Yoda and Master Windu were able to talk them down from taking any kind of action and I think with the open reemergence of the Sith they’ll have much more serious things to think about than me.”

“Still, that is not ideal.” Jaster didn’t say Obi-Wan shouldn’t have done it, because he knew his son and he would have saved Jinn’s life no matter what. Even if the shabuir had been a suspicious asshole through the whole mission.

“What’s less ideal as that I’m fairly sure that Darth Plagueis is dead,” Obi-Wan said, with a serious frown. “Xanatos’s attacks were too blatant. If the Sith Master hadn’t been dead by the time he attacked the Queen on Tatooine then he was very soon after that.”

“So Darth Sidious is the Sith Master now, but a master without an apprentice.”

The doubtful expression on Obi-Wan’s face was not reassuring. “Maybe, maybe not. We already know that Sidious likes to play fast and loose with the Rule of Two. He very well could have more than one apprentice waiting in the wings.”

“Not anything we can to do about that right now,” Jaster said, forever pragmatic. “What can we control and affect about this whole situation?”

“Well,” Obi-Wan hedged a thoughtful frown on his brow as he sipped his shig. “Yoda knows about the coming war. He knows that the Jedi have to prepare if they want to survive.”

His son’s thought process was relatively easy to follow on this one. “You want to help the Jedi get ready for war.”

Sighing, Obi-Wan shook his head. “The Jedi will not be able to outright prepare like we are. They have been complacent too long, they are still too close to the Senate. They cannot blatantly begin gearing up for war if they want to keep the politicians or the Sith from sticking their noses in.”

“That just means they have to be more subtle about it,” Jaster said unconcerned. “Next time you holocall Yoda give him my comm code. I can advise him on some subtle changes in curriculum and training regimens. It won’t yield much effect quickly, but if you’re right and the war isn’t for years yet, they should at least not be blindsided when it comes.”

Shoulders relaxing, Obi-Wan smiled gratefully at his father. “Thanks, Buir. That means a lot.”

Jaster waved him off. “They may be Jetiise, but they are your maan’aliit, your first family. I won’t leave them to face such danger alone.”

Warmth and love surged inside him and the Dark roiled with the strength of his emotions. He knew his eyes were probably more yellow than normal, but it didn’t bother him. That just meant the Force itself acknowledged the sincerity in his affection for his buir.

“I get the feeling I’ll be hearing from Yoda a lot more in the coming years anyway,” he mused with some humor. “There was a boy with Qui-Gon Jinn, he’d been admitted into the Jedi and he is a handful. Yoda seemed a little out of his depth already.”

Jaster’s brows raised in surprise. “Yoda doesn’t seem like anything phases him.”

“Not much does,” Obi-Wan allowed. “But Anakin is older than their normal inductees, by several years, not to mention he’d been a slave all his life. He’s emotional and excitable and does not see the world like the Jedi do. They’ve got their work cut out for them.”

“So you think Yoda will be seeking your advice on training this youngling?” It was a curious idea, but the longer Jaster sat with it the more he thought it a wise decision. Obi-Wan was a brilliant Force-user and if his progress with completing Asajj’s training was anything to go by, he was a very good teacher as well.

“Maybe,” Obi-Wan shrugged, though he had a far away look to his eyes that said the Force was whispering to him. He shook himself and focused back on the present. “Probably. It would make sense if he did. Anakin is an unorthodox Initiate and I’m an unorthodox Force-user. Yoda’s wise enough to see the benefit of my advise.”

That he was, Jaster thought remembering back to all the conversations he’d had with the ancient master when he'd stayed on Manda’yaim. Yoda, for all that he was a fallible being like the rest of them, had wisdom in abundance. He would be wise indeed to seek Obi-Wan’s help.

They discussed the Sith and the Jedi Council for a few more moments until Obi-Wan brought up the Republic.

“What do you know of Chancellor Sheev Palpatine?” Jaster asked, with a frown after his son had explained the man’s offer.

“Not much,” Obi-Wan admitted. “I know he was the Senator for Naboo before the Queen called for a vote of no confidence against Valorum. Then he won the emergency vote pretty handily.”

“That seems like an odd move for her to make,” Jaster commented. “Even if corruption allegations against Valorum was the reason why the Senate was refusing to render assistance, ousting him from office would do very little other than throw the Senate into even more bickering and chaos.”

“I thought so as well.” Obi-Wan nodded. “After I met Palpatine, I couldn’t help thinking that the only being involved in the whole Trade Federation clusterkark that benefited from ousting the sitting Chancellor was the new one. Padmé certainly never saw dividends from the move.”

Jaster hummed, a deeply considering look on his face. “And you said he was very agreeable?”

“Overly solicitous, I thought,” Obi-Wan confirmed with a slight grimace of distaste. “Upon his arrival he greeted us, thanked us for saving his home planet. Jango muttered, Draar ruusaanyc nuhunar aru’e, the moment Palpatine’s back was turned.”

Jaster chuckled. “Well, for all that he hates politics, Jango is actually very perceptive.”

Lips twitching, Obi-Wan remembered all the times Jango had threatened to kneecap and or stab various politicians and diplomats over the years. “Almost the entire time I spoke with him his expressions were always earnest and sincere. No one has that much affability unless they are concealing something.”

“Yes, but what?” Jaster pointed out. “And what does he gain by offering Mandalore an ambassadorial seat in the Senate?”

“That I do not know.” And it was a frustrating admittance. Without knowing more about Palpatine, Obi-Wan couldn’t guess at the man’s motivations. “The chances of it being an entirely genuine and altruistic offer are very slim.”

“I agree.” He looked at his son serious and probing. “What do you think we should do about this suspect offer?”

“I think we should hold to my initial decision and decline,” Obi-Wan said, then grimaced in reluctance. “At least for now.”

His father raised a prompting eyebrow and he sighed.

“Right now it’s not advantageous for us to be so closely linked with the Senate, but it could be useful in the future,” he explained. “The closer we get to war, it would be very useful to have an inside ear on the pulse of the Republic. As it is we are somewhat blind to the inner workings of the Senate. If we had an ambassador they would be in a very good position to gather information and influence our Republic allies.”

Humming thoughtfully again, Jaster mulled his son’s words over. “Not yet, though?”

“No,” Obi-Wan shook his head. “We aren’t in a powerful enough place to utilize that type of political position to the greatest effect yet.”

A bland, almost unconcerned smile moved over the Mand’alor’s face as he came to a decision. “Well, when that time comes, I expect you do to me proud as Ambassador of Mandalore.”

Obi-Wan’s mouth dropped open in shock and indignation. “What?! Me?”

“Oh yes, ner ad,” Jaster drawled as he downed the rest of his shig and got to his feet. “You are, after all, our best and most ruthless negotiator.”

“But-but, I hate politicians!” Obi-Wan protested. It was one thing to verbally smack down hypocritical pacifists or sweet talk already receptive planets into an advantageous alliance. It was entirely another to be thrown into the pit of vipers that was the Republic Senate.

“Yet, you are so very good at getting what you want from them,” Jaster drawled with a sharp grin, completely unsympathetic to his son’s despair.

There was a little jingle in the Force and Obi-Wan groaned dropping his head in his hands. He had a bad feeling that his father’s words would eventually prove to be somewhat prescient. To his despair it seemed like the Force agreed.

*

TBC...

Chapter Text

Maul had been making his own way in the galaxy for half a decade. He discovered that without a master he liked life much, much more. Though it was enraging to him that he actually missed those idiotic, soft Mandalorians while he was out on his own. Especially his soft apprentice. He would not under pain of death admit to missing Obi-Wan Kenobi’s presences at his side.

While he and Obi-Wan had been doing their research on Moraband, the Sith home planet, Maul had decided that galactic conquest and imperialism was short sighted and arrogant. The Sith of old deserved what they got if their only goals were the subjugation of the known universe. They lacked vision and imagination.

That’s when Maul had an idea. He’d been at loose ends when Obi-Wan’s training was finished so he needed to find something to devote himself to. What is the only enterprise in the galaxy that will give you power, money, and influence without the hassle of conquering worlds?

Organized crime.

He started small. With the Mando king- Jaster’s generous gift of a True Mandalorian Bounty Hunter ID, Maul was able to get into Guilds and places that others were not. He gathered information and then he gathered bounty pucks. The most dangerous pucks. The ones the useless Republic Judicials always posted for not enough credits to make the risk worth it.

He chipped away at the one band of criminals, killing and capturing their members until they were weak and desperate. Then he stepped in and offered them strong leadership. It didn’t take him a year and a half before he had three smuggling outfits and a spice ring under his banner.

Of course he was forced to release the slaves that had been chained up in the spice refining production line. He couldn’t imagine Obi-Wan’s yellow-blue eyed look of utter disappointment if the next time they spoke he found out Maul had been a party to slavery. No, he found a much neater solution to the issue of workers.

“You are free, your chains are broken,” he declared once he’d slaughtered the last resisting spice trader. The rest were too busy cowering away from him to protest when he took his lightsaber to the slaves’ chains.

Many of the poor fools were excited, disbelieving. Those were probably the freeborns, Maul thought. They still didn’t know how the galaxy worked.

One elder slave stood up, looked Maul warily in the eye and asked, “What do you ask for in exchange?”

Maul heard the belly of the spice freighter go deathly silent, he could smell the fear and alarm in the air. He grinned sharply.

“Look to your elder, people,” he called to the tense cavernous room. “He is much braver than any of you.”

There was uncomfortable murmuring and clutching of hands all around, even the spice traders were watching with wide anxious eyes.

“As you say, Ma-sir,” the elder said dipping his head lower as if he just realized that he’d stood up to a lightsaber wielding murderer. “What is the cost of our freedom?”

“No cost,” Maul drawled knowing that the baring of his teeth was no reassurance whatsoever. “But I have a proposition for you.”

Perhaps it was not so wholly ethical as Obi-Wan would prefer, but Maul got what he wanted and the former slaves got what they wanted. He offered them 2% of the profits from every pound of spice they refined for him. There were bits about workers with higher productivity possibly gaining higher percentages, guaranteed improved working conditions, and the option to leave any time- with a little Sith memory alteration of course. But all in all it was a much better deal than they’d get if he just dropped them off somewhere or even ferried them to a Republic well-fair center.

2% of a pound of spice was worth twice as much as minimum wage in the Core Worlds. They work for him for a year and they would be wealthy enough to be considered middle class.

Needless to say, most of the slaves, the ones born to the life, decided to stay on. At least for awhile. Maul dropped the rest, the freeborns kidnapped into the spice trade and the others, off at the closest Republic planet. Their memories of him blurred and indistinct, they only knew that someone attacked the spice freighter and set them free.

Two years into his freedom and Maul was richer than he’d ever thought possible and rapidly gaining enemies and influence in the criminal circles of the galaxy. He’d of course been able to kill every assassin and bounty hunter sent after him with no problem.

No one knew that he was a Sith Lord. They assumed he’d killed a Jedi for their lightsaber and he let them think that. Practically none of the beings he came in contact with had ever even seen a Jedi in person so no one questioned the color of his plasma blades.

He made sure however to keep a low enough profile so as not to attract Jedi attention regardless.

Maul would not care if he was forced to kill a nosy Light side do-gooder, but he knew Obi-Wan would be so upset. He couldn’t take his apprentice’s heartbroken face. Maybe he’d gone soft himself, but Kenobi had weaponized his disappointed eyes. It was intolerable. Maul wouldn’t risk it.

Through the years since they’d parted, Maul had kept in contact with his former apprentice. And much to his chagrin with his apprentice’s father. Somehow after his fifth legal bounty Jaster the Mando king had gotten a hold of his comm code and began periodically calling to check up on him. Maul couldn’t decided if he was furiously annoyed or reluctantly touched by the gesture.

Either way he suffered Mereel’s nagging with ill-grace, but didn’t fail to answer a single holocall.

So it was Obi-Wan and Jaster that Maul thought of when he stumbled into trouble five years after leaving Mandalore, three months after the Invasion of Naboo, and two months after Obi-Wan called and informed him that the Jedi knew about the Sith and his former master was now the Master.

Maul was meditating in his suite on his massive, upgraded spice freighter. The ship had been modified to double as a mobile base of operation as well as a spice refinery and smuggling dock. He’d paid handsomely for his luxurious personal suite complete with a training and meditation room.

Opening himself up to the Force, he allowed it to flow freely through him. Feeling as though he was the eye of a storm, Maul considered that Obi-Wan had been right when they’d first touched down on Moraband all those years ago. There was a sort of peace to be found in the raging violence of the Dark side. The Banite Sith were idiots to add, Peace is a Lie. There is only Passion, to the Sith Code.

Breathing deep, Maul reveled in the gale force storm of the Dark, feeling calm and energized and centered. Far away he registered the weight of the Mythosaur skull pendent hidden under his tunic, the metal strangely warm against his chest. Then something happened. The Force buffeted him like a sudden tidal wave and he was plunged into a vision.

The village he saw was familiar in a distance, long forgotten way. Then he was standing among yellow and orange skinned Zabraks, lined up and stiff, their hearts pounding with fear, their stomachs tight with dread. Their tattoos were very similar to his own and Maul realized they were Nightbrothers. This was a vision of Dathomir.

Then a Nightsister came and chose from the warriors. She fought them and beat them all except for one wiry brother. He did not care about performing for his oppressor. He cared about his younger brother, beaten and wounded on the ground.

Savage.

The Nightsister took him to the Mother. They performed arcane magics upon his body and his mind. He was no longer a being of his own will. He acted and thought and felt as the Nightsisters told him to.

And when they presented him with the beloved younger brother he’d given his life and freedom for…

Feral.

They ordered to him to kill the only being in the whole galaxy that he loved. And he did. He strangled his brother without a whisper of feeling in his hearts.

They used him. The Nightsisters and the Mother. They used him as a pawn, a trap, a wild animal. He killed indiscriminately. He fought with all the grace and intelligence of a gundark. And when he finally broke his chains. He was hunted for his crimes.

And he died, beaten and impaled on red lightsaber blades. He died in pain and fear and shame as the Mother’s magic left his body. His hand clasped tight and regretful in Maul’s.

“Brother… I am an unworthy apprentice… I’m not like you… I never was.”

Maul fell out of the vision with a gasp of breath. His hearts were pounding in his chest and his mind was racing, struggling to comprehend what he’d just seen.

Visions had never been his gift. Like all Force-users he had at least enough precognition to warn him of immediate threats and blaster bolts. But Force-visions had never plagued him like they did Obi-Wan. He’d never experienced anything like this flood of images and emotions and tragedy.

He didn’t know what this meant, this sudden emergence of visions, but he did know one thing. It was time to go home.

To Dathomir.

*

Stepping off his personal ship onto Dathomir soil felt familiar. Of course it did. Sidious stole him from the Mother when he was a child. He should have at least some memories of his life before the Sith. He didn’t.

Dathomir may be familiar, but it was not his home. Maul was reluctant to admit just where he considered home, if nothing else than to keep from giving the Mando king and his soft apprentice the satisfaction.

The Force on Dathomir was strange. It was almost insidious. Ironically, he thought with a snort. It rose up to greet him the moment his boots settled on the ground. Not unlike the Force on Moraband it flooded him, touched him, explored him. Except Dathomir, unlike Moraband, found him wanting.

The Force dismissed him summarily and sank back into the earth. He was no longer a child of Dathomir. He’d been away too long. He’d lost too much of what it meant to be a Nightbrother. He was unchained and so no longer tethered to the circumstances of his birth.

It hadn’t ever been particularly important to him before, the life of the Nightbrothers. Now, after he’d seen what had - or would have, he wasn’t quite clear on that yet- happened to his brothers, Maul realized just how close to slavery the Sisters kept the Brothers. His kinsmen were treated as breeding stock, playthings, convenient pawns.

That would not be Savage and Feral’s fate. Not now that he was walking into a seemingly deserted Nightbrother village.

He was impressed, Maul thought as a razor sharp blade appeared at his neck, with just how stealthy the Brothers were.

“State you business, off-worlder.”

Maul stepped back away from the blade and turned to see his greeting party was a light orange skinned Zabrak with sharp horns and very familiar tattoos.

“I am Maul,” he said raising his voice so that the other Brothers lying in wait around them could hear. “I have come for my brothers.”

His greeter narrowed green eyes at him. “You are not one of our Brothers, Maul.” He said the name with a hint of scorn and Maul wondered not for the first time if Sidious had stolen his true name along with his childhood.

“I was stolen from the Mother,” Maul said, part of his attention on the Brothers slowly creeping out of the shadows, either with curiosity or suspicion. “I have not been a Brother since I was taken,” he agreed to the greeter’s raised eyebrow. “But I will not leave until I have my brothers.”

The greeter, probably the village leader considering the other warriors now circling them deferred to him, eyed Maul with wary consideration.

“If your brothers are here,” the leader began, “why should I let you take them from the safety of our village? What claim do you have to them, Lost-Child of Dathomir?”

“Safety,” Maul scoffed. “I have seen what kind of safety being chained by the Nightsisters brings. I saw my brothers die alone and in pain, used and abused by the Mother and her spawn.”

Murmurs moved through the warriors, but the leader was stoic. If Maul hadn’t been paying attention he wouldn’t have been able to sense the regret and sadness the older Zabrak quickly locked away behind impressive mental shields.

“Is the wider galaxy any safer?” the leader asked him, meeting his eyes half challenging, half hopeful. “You were stolen from us and you return filled with anger and hate. Can you claim the galaxy would not be a crueler mistress than the Sisters that use us for their own ends?”

Maul acknowledged that he had a point. Unless the Nightsisters took an interest in a Brother, they were left relatively to their own devices. The elders left to raise their young Brothers in a surprisingly stable and loving environment. Objectively, staying on Dathomir was safer.

But then Maul thought about Savage’s sadness and shame as he died, the Mother’s magic deserting him in his greatest time of need. He thought of Feral’s hurt and betrayed expression as the brother he looked up to strangled him on the Nightsister’s order.

“The galaxy is merciless,” Maul said. “It shaped me into the creature you see before you. I am much stronger than you. I have survived and I will protect my brothers until they too can survive all that the galaxy will set in their path. If my brothers stay here, I know for certain their fates will not be pleasant.”

The leader was silent, just staring into his red-yellow eyes. It felt almost like he was peering into Maul’s soul. Reading all of his sins and faults and failures. Finally after a long tense moment, the leader looked away from Maul.

“Which of our Brothers do you claim as your own?”

“Savage and Feral,” Maul answered, and saw one of the other warriors bow his head. There was a sense of relief and grief about him as he turned and walked further into the village.

Maul watched him go wondering what his relationship was to his brothers. Was he their father? Or was he simply the Brother tasked with their care? It didn’t matter. The Brother knew that sending his charges with Maul was their best chance at freedom and survival.

The warriors backed off with the leader’s decision, but didn’t disappear. They stayed watching Maul, examining his clothing of black leather and rich fabrics, his Nightbrother tattoos, his lightstaff hanging at his side. The Mythosaur skull pendent hanging from his neck that had an annoying habit of slipping from its hiding place beneath his tunics.

The Brother returned with two children following him solemnly. It took Maul a moment of blinking to realize that of course, of course his brothers were children. Parts of his vision made more sense now, the parts that hinted at war and struggles not seen in the galaxy in centuries. This revelation left one problem though.

Maul knew absolutely nothing about children.

Still he was committed, he thought, ruthlessly squashing any doubt and anxiousness inside him. The Force had set him on this path. He had chosen to follow it and now he had two young brothers to care for.

The Brother brought Savage and Feral forward and Maul took a moment to examine them. Savage was older, he thought, by several years, but still so young, not even a teenager yet. He had yellow skin, dark brown tattoos, and small, blunt adolescent horns. His eyes were a clear gray-green, sharp and suspicious as he eyed Maul right back.

Feral was younger, in the single digits probably, like his older brother his skin was yellow and his tattoos were brown, his horns even smaller, tiny. His eyes though, Maul was curious to note, were yellow-gold, bright and curious and much too open. There wasn’t a hint of the Dark side on him, so he figured the yellow color was natural to him.

He crouched down closer to their level, Savage was a half a head taller in this postilion.

“I am Maul,” he introduced himself bluntly. “I am your older brother. I’ve come to take you away, to teach you about the galaxy outside of Dathomir. To make you strong.”

Feral just seemed confused, but Savage scowled at him. “What do you want with us?”

“Want? I want nothing, but to teach you,” Maul said, sure that was all he needed to say. Apparently not.

“Brothers only leave the village when the Sisters wants something from them,” Savage told him, with all the certainty of the young and far too wise.

“I am not a Sister.” Maul sneered a dark vicious expression that caused Feral’s eyes to widen as he inched closer to his brother. Seeing the movement, Maul schooled his features to something less threatening. “I was once a Brother, before I was taken from the village. I recently learned you are my brothers and decided I needed to protect you.”

Feral relaxed and curiously looked him from head to toe. “You’re our brother?” Maul nodded. “Can you move stuff like Savage? Brother Viscus said only special brothers can do things like the Sisters.”

Maul raised an eyebrow and flicked a gaze to the leader who had a wary, almost fearful frown on his face. He wondered just how dangerous it was for a Brother to have the Force? Just what would the Sisters do with their Force blessed slaves?

Wordlessly, Maul picked up some pebbles with the Force and twirled them around his fingers in demonstration.

Savage gasped, his eyes wide. “Can you teach me?” he asked then hesitated as if afraid of angering Maul. “Is that why you’re taking us away? Because I have powers like the Sisters?”

Letting the pebbles fall to the ground, Maul thought about how to answer Savage. “I had a vision,” he finally decided on the truth. “I saw that you and Feral would have a painful and undeserved end. It doesn’t matter that you have powers or not. I will take you regardless to spare you that fate.”

“Oh.” Savage’s eyes were wide, the barest glint of hope in his eyes until sadness appeared. “Will we ever be able to come back? Will we ever see the other Brothers again?”

Maul tilted his head and listened as the Force whispered potential and branching paths into his ear. “Perhaps,” he settled on. “After you have learned what you must, perhaps you will be able to return.”

That seemed to mollify Savage and Feral nodded very seriously for a child. As if Maul had just given them a solemn promise. Standing up, Maul looked upon his brothers and felt tendrils of sympathy.

“Say your goodbyes. We are leaving now.”

Savage and Feral quickly turned to receive hugs and head pats from the assembled Brothers. Maul looked to the leader once more.

“I will protect and care for them, Brother,” he vowed serious and utterly truthful for once. “I promise you that.”

The leader simply nodded and turned away to say his own goodbyes to Savage and Feral.

Less than an hour after Maul stepped foot in the Nightbrother village, he was boarding his ship once again, his shadow cast long and protective over his two young brothers. Thinking about the way the Mandos always insisted that younglings be buckled into any manner of vehicle, Maul turned and made sure Savage and Feral were strapped down in the passenger seats in the cockpit. Then he entered the take off sequences and slowly rose them up and through the atmosphere.

“Wow,” Feral gasped as he stared out the view screen. “Are those all stars?”

Maul glanced back at him as he input the coordinates for his spice freighter. “Stars, planets, and the occasional satellite,” he said.

“Huh,” Savage leaned forward in his seat to get a better look at the vastness of space. “Where are we going now?”

“To my burgeoning empire,” Maul replied with a sharp grin then he shifted the ship into hyperspace, amused by his brothers’ little yelps of surprise.

*

Taking care of two young children was apparently harder than it first appeared. Maul had never been run more ragged than he was the first month he had Savage and Feral in his possession.

He discovered that there was a lot of mischief and trouble two sheltered pre-teens could get into on a spice refining freighter. They followed the rules at least… Well they appeared to follow the rules until Maul had to go hunting for Feral through the ventilation. Or he had to go chasing after one of his smuggler ships to bring a stowaway Savage back.

Not only that but they ate everything they could get their hands on. Maul had to increase his food budget by a significant amount after the first week.

They lowered productivity too. He couldn’t figure out why his steady spice refining output had decreased by five percent until he caught Savage and Feral corralling the ex-slaves into some kind of children’s game during peak work hours. Needless to say he’d been forced to lay down the law not just with his brothers but his workers as well.

This was fine though, Maul repeated to himself. He could deal with this. It was just an adjustment period. Eventually things would calm down and they’d settle into a routine.

He’d started teaching Savage the Force and he was strong with it. Perhaps not as strong as Maul or Obi-Wan, but his younger brother would be a formidable Force-user one day. Feral he’d also begun teaching. He was not nearly strong enough in the Force to be a Sith Lord, but Maul thought he could get him trained enough to give him an edge.

It would all be fine. He had everything under control. He was Darth kriffing Maul. He could manage a burgeoning criminal empire and take care of two high energy children.

Or at least he thought so until somehow Feral on one of his excursions crawling through the vents inhaled some unrefined spice and overdosed.

The med-bay on Maul’s spice freighter was small and rudimentary compared to others, but it was equipped enough to stop Feral from seizing and flush the drugs from his system.

Maul could honestly say that he was angry. So very angry. He’d never been so angry at someone in his life, not even at Sidious. He’d never before felt such anger. Such anger at himself.

Sitting at Feral’s bedside while the boy recovered from his near miss, Savage asleep curled up on the foot of his younger brother’s bed, Maul couldn’t stop thinking. He couldn’t stop thinking about what could have happened if he hadn’t been on that side of the ship when Feral started seizing. His medic had said Feral would be fine, no permanent damage thanks to Maul’s quick intervention, but it could have been so much worse.

Maul had been on the opposite side of the ship not ten minutes before. He’d had business with an incoming group of smugglers. But he’d felt an unignorable urge to check up on his spice workers. It had been the Force, he realized only after he’d sliced through the ceiling and ventilation with his lightsaber in a panic. The Force had urged him toward that side of the freighter because Feral had been in danger.

Catching Feral in his arms as the boy fell from the sliced open ventilation duct, Maul had Force-sped through the ship toward the med-bay. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered if this was the kind of fear and panic Jango Fett felt when Obi-Wan was being an idiot. He could only assume so because apparently Zabrak children had the same self-preservation instincts as crazy redheaded Mandos.

The med-bay door opened and Maul looked up from where he’d been staring at Feral’s peaceful form. It was the Elder, as everyone on the ship called him. The slaver that had questioned Maul when he’d broken their chains. He was now the ship’s medic. And the only one Maul let speak to him the way he did.

“You can’t keep them here,” the Elder stated, voice low as he stepped toward the monitors next to Feral’s bed. “They will continue to get into dangerous situations and eventually, you won’t be there to catch them.”

Maul felt rage boil inside him. How dare this slave question him. How dare this weakling presume to tell him what do.

He blew out a long breath and closed his eyes. “What, pray tell, do you suggest I do, then?”

“I can’t give you all the answers,” the Elder replied with a hint of dry humor. “I just know that a spice freighter, even one like yours, is too dangerous for young curious children.”

“Your wisdom has been noted,” Maul growled through gritted teeth, as he opened his eyes to glare to the Elder.

For his part the Elder just raised an eyebrow at him and bowed his head in a surprisingly genuine show of respect. “As you say, my Lord.” He turned to leave the med-bay again, but paused at the door an odd look on his face as he turned back to Maul. “Perhaps, whoever gave you that necklace will have an idea.”

Looking down, Maul didn’t even register the Elder finally leaving as he stared at the Mythosaur skull pendant dangling from the chain around his neck. He picked it up and turned it over rubbing his thumb along the etched Mando’a words on the back.

Maul of Dathomir, Obi-Wan had said it meant, friend of Clan and House Mereel.

Well, Maul thought resigned. The Mando king had been bugging him to visit for years now.

*

Obi-Wan had not been expecting to feel Maul come out of hyperspace above Manda’yaim’s atmosphere. It’s been at least a year and half since he’d seen his old teacher and friend. Maul preferred to be left to his own devices, only communicating through holomessages and the occasional holocall. Though Obi-Wan knew Jaster was somehow able to wrangle semi regular conversations out of the man.

Which just support Obi-Wan and Jango’s theory that their buir was somehow a feral murder child whisperer. You couldn’t get much more murderous or feral than Darth Maul, Dark Lord of the Sith.

After Naboo, Obi-Wan had decided that he should stick around Mandalore for a while. Jango was still off on his hunt, his check-ins becoming increasingly infrequent the more determined he was to hunt down Montross the betrayer. Obi-Wan knew Jaster was getting progressively more worried around his eldest son. On the last check in they’d even gotten into an argument about Jango abandoning the hunt. It had ended in Jango disconnecting the call and Jaster sighing resigned and concerned.

There was of course plenty for Obi-Wan to do around the palace and the Mandalore system. He had no problem keeping himself busy while his Not-an-Empire Council hunted for another planet to ally with.

He’d even taken the down time to start surveying Concordia, exploring the possibility of beginning Force-healing on the strip-mined moon. Concordia was not as bad off as Manda’yaim had been, not having suffered from orbital bombardment, but irresponsible mining practices had almost entirely depleted the moon’s natural ecosystem. There was no way to use the Force to replenish the exhausted beskar mines, but with some help the moon could boast their own food source and greenery soon.

There was enough of Manda’yaim healed and thriving that Obi-Wan felt comfortable taking some of the Ka’ra’ade off duty there to move them to other affected planets in their sector. Which he was discussing with Jaster when Maul’s stormy presence appeared in orbit.

“Maul’s here,” he murmured cocking his head and searching out into the Force. “And he seems very annoyed. What did you do Jaster?”

“Me?” Jaster protested though he couldn’t hide how pleased he was that his third so- troublesome ward had decided to finally come home. “I have done nothing. I haven’t even spoken to him in two months. We’re due for our regular holocall in a couple of days.”

“Well, I guess we’ll find out soon,” Obi-Wan commented resigned. “He’s entering atmosphere and will in the palace hangar in minutes.”

Jaster stood up with a grin on his face. “Shall we go and greet him, then.”

Rolling his eyes at his buir’s eagerness, Obi-Wan stood as well. “I guess we should.”

They made their way out to the palace starship hangar just in time to watch a surprisingly expensive pleasure cruiser land in the Aliit be Mand’alor bays.

“I hope he didn’t kill anyone to get that,” Jaster muttered half serious as he watched the ship move through parking and shutdown procedures.

Obi-Wan, who knew some of what Maul had been getting up to in the last few years, just gave his father a wry reassuring smile. “I’m fairly sure Maul is perfectly capable of buying it fair and square.”

Before Jaster could respond to that the ship ramp lowered and Maul strode forward, a cloud of discontent and shockingly anxiety roiling around him. It was then that Obi-Wan noticed the little shadows following in his friend’s wake. Two young Zabraks with familiar tattoos and wide curious eyes.

“Well,” he muttered thoroughly ignoring his father’s sudden and abrupt excitement. “This should be interesting.”

“Kenobi, King,” Maul greeted when he reached them, his face a picture of perpetual low grade menace.

“Maul,” Jaster grinned at the scowling young man. “I’m glad you finally decided to visit. Who have you brought with you?”

Maul rolled his eyes in the face of the Mando king’s disgustingly warm welcome. “This is Savage and Feral,” he gesture to each boy in turn, pausing when he realized they were huddled behind him, peering out at the two Humans warily. Sighing he grabbed their shoulders and pulled them out of their cover and into the open. “They are my brothers.”

“I didn’t know you had brothers,” Jaster said genially, as he smiled kindly down at the nervous boys. “Hello, little ones, my name is Jaster.”

“Hello,” the youngest murmured with a tentative smile while the oldest chose to scowl fiercely at this stranger before them.

“I had a vision of them in the Force,” Maul said more to an as of yet silent Obi-Wan than to the king. “I saved them from the death and betrayal they were destined for in the life of a Nightbrother.”

Obi-Wan simply studied the two boys, humming to acknowledge Maul’s words. Savage was fairly strong in the Force. Not as strong as either he or Maul, but strong enough. Feral was touched by the Force as well, but didn’t hit the Jedi minimum threshold. He could be trained some, but would not be able to use the Force as much as his brother.

“Why have you brought them here?” He looked at Maul with an expectantly raised eyebrow. “I expect you planned to train them in the Force.”

“It has come to my attention that my living situation is not a particularly hospitable environment for children.” There was frustration and anger in Maul’s voice and his presence. Anger at himself, Obi-Wan was curious to realize.

“Jaster can take them to get an afternoon snack,” Obi-Wan said. “You can tell me more while they’re occupied.”

Maul’s shoulders relaxed and he nodded, not even putting up a token protest at Obi-Wan’s highhanded order.

“Savage, Feral,” he called their attention from where they’d been slowly warming up to Jaster, who was crouched before them showing off the non-dangerous gadgets on his vambrace. “Go with the King,” he nodded his chin to Jaster, ignoring the boys’ wide-eyes at the address. “I have business to discuss with Kenobi.”

Jaster of course was delighted to spend time with two new feral murder children. Soon he had the young Zabraks entertained and stuffing their faces with Mandalorian treats while Obi-Wan and Maul moved to Obi-Wan’s private sitting room.

They were seated on the floor around his low lounge table, Obi-Wan pouring his friend a glass of tihaar Mandalorian liquor when Maul finally spoke.

“Feral overdosed.”

Eyes widening, Obi-Wan jerked his head up to Maul in surprise. “How on earth did that happen?”

Maul grimaced. “I live on a spice freighter, Kenobi. How do you think it happened?”

“Well, I would like to think that you weren’t stupid enough to let a child around spice at all much less without supervision.” It came out bland and almost unconcerned, but Maul could hear the underlying warning in his former apprentice’s voice.

Mandos and their kids, he huffed internally. “Of course I didn’t let them anywhere near the spice refining or the storage rooms. Feral discovered he could climb through the ventilation system. He got too close to one of the refining rooms past the air filtration system and inhaled some raw spice.” He sighed and rubbed a hand down his face, letting some of his emotions show to perhaps the only person in the galaxy that he trusted with them.

“I almost didn’t get there in time. Had to cut him out of the ceiling with my lightsaber, but my medic was able to flush the drug from his system before it did any damage.”

Obi-Wan was quiet for a moment studying his friend. He’d never seen Maul this uncertain before, this lost. Not even just after they’d faked his death and freed him from Sidious’s control. Maul had never allowed himself to display anything less than abject confidence.

“How long have you had them?” he asked.

“A couple months,” Maul said. “I left directly after my vision and took them from Dathomir. They’ve been with me ever since.”

“I can’t imagine two adolescent Zabraks from a warrior culture were shy and retiring when exposed to the galaxy for the first time.” Obi-Wan took a large swallow of his tihaar, feeling the alcoholic burn down his throat. “Was Feral’s overdose the first time something like that happened?”

Maul scowled fiercely at the younger man. “Yes,” he growled. “I’m not an idiot, Kenobi. I was able to keep them pretty much under control.” Though his pause and grimace said otherwise. “They were disrupting productivity and Feral’s incident was the last straw. I can’t keep them on the freighter any longer.”

Obi-Wan hummed and refilled Maul’s glass when the man downed the entire thing. “So you brought them here, to Manda’yaim.”

“Well, you Mandos have a thing with Foundlings, don’t you?” he smirked. “I figured two more wouldn’t be too much of an imposition.”

“Oh, no,” Obi-Wan drawled, the slow sly curl of his lips causing Maul to freeze and eye his friend suspiciously. “I just want you to be prepared to never get them back.”

Scowling, he tensed. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing,” he replied waving a hand nonchalantly. “It’s just that Jaster’s been begging for some grandchildren for years now. Just never thought you would be the one to finally give in.”

“What.” He blinked incredulously at Obi-Wan. “I’m not Mereel’s son and Savage and Feral aren’t my children.”

“Much younger brothers, then.” Obi-Wan shrugged grinning sharply. “Close enough. Still you’ll probably have to wrestle Jaster for them if you ever want them back for good.”

Hissing through his teeth, Maul made sure Kenobi knew that he did not appreciate his sense of humor. Obi-Wan thought it was going to be hilarious when Maul realized he had not actually been kidding. Not one bit.

They spent close to an hour working out the logistics. Maul wanted to be able to take them off planet from time to time though probably not for a couple more years. He also wanted their training in the Force to be continued when he could not be there. Obi-Wan offered to pick up their lessons and when he couldn’t the boys would join with the other Ka’ra’ade learning the Mando’ad Force techniques along with the few Sith and Jedi ones he’d help incorporate into the curriculum.

In terms of fighting, Obi-Wan and Maul debated long on that. It was eventually decided that they would be taught the Mandalorian way of fighting until Maul could somehow acquire them crystals for lightsabers. Since Maul didn’t exactly have his hearts set on Ilum kyber it shouldn’t be too hard for him to get his brothers crystals. There were plenty of kyber deposits throughout the galaxy with lightsaber worthy gems.

That was a problem for another day, however. For now, it was time to tell Savage and Feral of this new arrangement.

“You’re leaving us?” For such a fierce little warrior, Jaster though, thoroughly amused how well Feral had weaponized the quivering lower lip.

Maul cringed and crouched before his upset brothers. “I’m not leaving you, but the freighter isn’t safe for children. You can’t stay there anymore.”

“We’re not children,” Savage declared, defiant and sullen. “We’re Nightbrothers.”

“Very young Nightbrothers, ad’ika,” Jaster said with a kind smile. “You still have much to learn before you are grown warriors.”

“And Mandalore is a good place to do that,” Maul jumped on the opening. “You remember me telling you about my former apprentice.”

“Kenobi,” Savage nodded, shooting shy looks at Obi-Wan. He’d enjoyed the stories Maul would tell them at bed time about his foolhardy, but powerful student.

“Kenobi grew up on Mandalore,” Maul said. “He was a Mandalorian and great warrior already, before I taught to be a Sith. If you stay here on Mandalore with the King, he’ll teach you how to be great warriors too.”

Obi-Wan felt touched that his old teacher had been sharing stories about him with his younger brothers.

“But will we ever see you again?” Feral insisted, reaching out to latch a hand onto Maul’s sleeve.

“Yes,” Maul said serious and honest. “I will come visit you at least every six weeks. More often if I can. You’re Force training is still mainly mine to teach you. I promise I’m not simply dumping you here.”

Savage and Feral exchanged a speaking look, before the elder turned back to their brother. “And we can stay with Jaster while you’re gone?”

Maul sighed and resigned himself to finally being forcibly adopted into Clan Mereel. “Yes,” he said beleaguered, through gritted teeth. “You can stay with Mereel here in the palace.”

The boys smiled and exclaimed in excitement. They weren’t the only ones and Maul shot the Mando King an unimpressed look while Obi-Wan smothered his chuckles with a hand.

Kriffing Mandalorians, he grumbled internally as his brothers and Jaster starting plotting all the mischief and fun they were going to get up to. At least, once he left the planet it wouldn’t be his problem any more. No, he smirked slightly vindictive as he watched slow dawning horror come over former apprentice’s face. Nope, the inevitable messes would all be Obi-Wan’s to clean up.

*

TBC...

Chapter Text

Jango had been on longer more complicated hunts before. He just couldn’t remember when. Three months tops, he’d estimated his hunt for Montross would take. It has been six months and still it’s as if Montross is a step ahead of him. An elusive target had never made him so frustrated and angry before.

He’d only started making headway when he stopped hunting Montross and started hunting the bounty that brought him out of hiding. Komari Vosa. Jedi reject, dark-sider, Bando Gora cult leader, and all around pyscho, from every account and witness he’d managed to dig up.

It was a little hard to imagine that a Jedi Padawan could fall so far, but Obi-Wan has said that the Dark corrupts if you’re not careful. If you let it control you when you should control it. Apparently Vosa didn’t get that memo.

Because even from what little Jango could really understand about the Force, it was apparent she was all kinds of high off the Dark side. For one thing her movements the longer the hunt continued became more and more erratic. He was planet hopping, which in itself was annoying, but she didn’t seem to be making much of an effort to conceal her movements. Which meant she was either very confident in her abilities to take care of any pursuers- which he wouldn't put past her, or she was doing it on purpose- which opened up a whole heap of trouble he did not need.

By the time he tracked her to Kohlma, Jango was beyond frustrated. He’d followed her to the Core and back, so this better be the end of the damn hunt. He wanted to get Montross and finally make him pay. Vosa was just a vehicle for that. If he collected her bounty, great. If he didn’t, he wasn’t going to cry about it.

It didn't help that Jaster and Obi-Wan had gotten progressively more upset with his long absence. Jaster practically demanded he give up the hunt every time he checked in and Obi-Wan wouldn’t say much at all, which was almost worse. His younger brother would just eye him intently and tell him to be careful.

After Maul had apparently dumped his long lost younger brothers in Keldabe, Jaster had calmed down some, distracted by his two new feral murder children. Which took pressure and guilt off of Jango. Obi-Wan wasn’t so easily distracted though. If anything their presence made him more anxious for Jango’s safety.

So in stubbornness and defiance, Jango hadn’t holocalled home in… almost two months. He didn’t need his brother’s judgmental eyes or his buir’s concern while he tried to clean up this one last threat to his family.

He would live to regret that silence.

Infiltrating the Bando Gora compound on Kohlma was more difficult than he’d thought. Jango barely made it in the door before he was rushed by a large number of assassins and had to fight his way through. Then he was forced to navigate an unfamiliar building in search of the bounty and or Montross. The cowardly betrayer having gotten to the compound not even an hour before Jango.

It wasn’t long before Jango realized that he was being lead on a merry chase. There was no other way out but forward however, and he wasn’t a wet behind the ears verd’ika fresh off his verd’goten. He was confident he could come out of whatever trap Vosa and or Montross had laid for him.

Because somewhere around the forth week of following Vosa’s bounty, it became increasingly apparent that this was not a simple bounty. It hadn’t really concerned him when he’d first picked up Vosa’s bounty puck, but with the realization that he was walking into some kind of a set up he had to go over the red flags he’d dismissed so far.

The reward was almost ridiculously high and the poster was anonymous. The only reason you posted a bounty anonymously was because you were a criminal yourself or you were someone powerful and didn’t want your name tied to the bounty. Either option was less than optimal.

Jango turned the corner in the compound and came upon what looked like a torture chamber. He cursed himself for not investigating the bounty closer. For not asking more questions. For letting Montross escape in the first place all those years ago on Korda VI.

He walked five feet into the room, cautious and wary. The only warning he had of attack was the familiar sound of a lightsaber activating. Spinning on his heel he had his arms up in time to block a short flurry of slashes from Vosa’s two red lightsabers. He jumped back out of range and ignited his vambrace flamethrower right at her face. Of course she twirled out of range, he’d been expecting that.

Obi-Wan had yet to be put off by his flamethrower for longer than a second.

The move gained him space though. Space enough to draw his right side blaster and actually get a look at his opponent.

Komari Vosa was taller than she’d been in the recording of the spar Obi-Wan had with her on Galidraan. She was also thin, almost sickly so, and her hair was more white than blond. Her eyes burned an unpleasant yellow, not like Obi-Wan’s or even Maul’s that gave them a sharp predatory look. Vosa’s eyes had a crazed edge to them.

She twirled her dual sabers in her hands and bared her teeth as they slowly circled each other.

“You’re the second Mandalorian to come into my base,” she said, her voice raspy and hissing, unpleasant to the ears. “I haven’t had the chance to kill a Mandalorian yet. This should be fun.”

Jango refrained from responding. He did start firing his blaster as he lunged to the side and kept moving around her. He’d figured out that if he moved and fired Force-users had a harder time of deflecting your shots back at you. Which Vosa did, or tried to do.

“I thought Mandos were supposed to be a challenge!” she called regardless as she continued to deflect his shots, her face contorted in a smirk that was very unattractive, he thought.

Force-users, Jango learned from observation and sparring, tended to get in a kind of trance or zone when you shot blasters at them for an extended period. He figured it had something to do with childhood procedural memory since the Jedi trained their kids young to deflect blasters. Obi-Wan of course hadn’t been caught by that weakness since he was a teenager. Vosa however, didn’t have the advantage of sparring with Mandalorians on the regular.

He shot a dozen more blaster bolts at her until he was sure she was deeper in the Force predicting the energy projectiles. Then he drew his left sidearm and shot from the hip.

Vosa darted her lightsaber to deflect the shot like the last three dozen shots he’d fired at her, except the firearm Jango had holstered on his left hip wasn’t a blaster, it was a slugthrower. The metal slug burst against her plasma blade and exploded molten shrapnel across her face and neck.

She shrieked, jolted backward in pain and rage and Jango shot her again this time hitting her in the shoulder causing her to drop one of her sabers.

He moved in fast while she was distracted, kicking her discarded lightsaber away into a dark corner of the room. Vosa didn’t see him coming, too busy trying to make sure her eyes hadn’t been damaged by the shrapnel. Jango punched her in the jaw with his gauntleted fist. Blood sprayed from her mouth, her cheek and lips cut against her teeth. It joined the blood already streaming from the scattering of shrapnel wounds on her face.

Before Jango could hit her again, attempt to restrain her, Vosa punched him in the chest with her palm. He went flying across the room. The Force-push fueled by her rage was strong enough that his Force muffling beskar wasn’t much of a hindrance. Back hitting the wall, Jango’s boots just touched the floor, then she was on him ten times as angry and murderous.

“I’m going to flay the skin from your bones!” she screamed as she slashed her lightsaber at him wild and powerful, the red plasma blade sending sparks in the air every time it hit beskar. “Tear your scalp from your head! Gut you like a-”

He head butted her, his solid helmet breaking her nose and impeding what of her vision wasn’t compromised by the shrapnel. Grabbing her saber arm while she was stunned, he yanked her closer and kneed her in the gut.

Grunting with the impact she sent another Force-shove at him knocking him back into the wall and loosening his hold on her. Vosa struck at him with her saber again this time more targeted, aiming for his neck. He was barely fast enough to raise his arm and catch her blade on his vambrace, or else she would have decapitated him.

Jango cursed through gritted teeth as she just pressed her saber harder into the metal. His vambrace turned red hot quickly and he needed to do something before she either melted his armor or cooked his arm. He jabbed her in her wounded shoulder.

Vosa shrieked again, this time there must have been some Force behind it, because Jango thought his head would explode with the strength of the ringing sound. She’d stumbled back however and he was able to finally move away from the wall.

Punching her in the chest, Jango heard the air knocked from her lungs, but she raised her saber again and struck him across the chest plate. He didn’t stop moving though. That was how you died while fighting a Force-user. Lifting his leg he tried to kick her in the belly, but she did one of those annoyingly effective back flips out of range.

Determined not to die at the hands of a psycho Jedi-reject, Jango shot his grappling hook at her. The cord wrapped around her waist and her weak arm with the injured shoulder. Already wounded and angry and in pain and frustrated, Vosa sliced through the cord just a moment too slow.

Jango was able to just barely unbalance her and yank her closer to him. Close enough she couldn’t dodge when he drew his slugthrower again and shot three rapid fire bullets into her gut.

Everything stopped for a long moment. Jango breathing heavy with adrenaline and exertion and Vosa stock still just staring into his dark visor with hate filled yellow eyes.

Then her remaining lightsaber fell from her nerveless fingers and she dropped her knees, her eyes still pinned on him as if she could meet his gaze through sheer hatred.

“This isn’t right!” She coughed and blood bubbled up behind her teeth. “I can’t be defeated. Not by a barbaric Mandalorian.” The blood dribbled down her chin as she sneered. “No, I won’t die like this!”

She thrust an arm out toward him, her hand curled in a claw and Jango stiffened. His throat was suddenly tight, he couldn’t breathe. He choked, eyes wide behind his visor as his airway was increasingly restricted. On pure reflex he lifted the slug thrower and shot her between the eyes.

Komari Vosa dropped dead the floor, the yellow rapidly draining from her unseeing gaze.

Jango leaned forward sucking deep breaths as he fought to calm his racing heart. Shakily he holstered his slug thrower and straightened up. Force-choke, he realized, Vosa had just tried to choke him to death. Obi-Wan had said Force-choke was forbidden for the Jedi because you needed to actually really want to harm someone to get it to work. Well, he thought dryly, he had just shot her in the gut three times. He’d want to choke anyone that had did that to him too.

Calm once more, Jango checked himself over for injuries that had gone unnoticed in the middle of the action. Thankfully the worst he could find was a nasty burn under his vambrace where Vosa had pressed her lightsaber. That vambrace would probably need to be reforged as well because it was warped and scorched at the point of contact.

He surveyed his surroundings then. Their fight had been relatively short but fairly destructive. The torture room was in disarray, not that he cared, and of course there was no sign of Montross.

Scowling fiercely, he eyed the dead body at his feet. At least he’d be able to pick up Vosa’s bounty, even if this particular lead had gone nowhere on Montross. He unsheathed his large vibro blade and got ready to do the least pleasant part of bounty hunts like this.

Before he could even crouch and begin divesting the body of its head however, slow mocking applause echoed through the room.

Stiffening, Jango spun toward the sound just as a man stepped out of the shadows. His hand tightened around his blade and his other hand itched toward his slugthrower.

“Ah-ah,” the newcomer scolded him and suddenly Jango’s movements were sluggish, barely able to twitch his fingers. “Beskar, such a pain.” The man held out a hand Jango’s slugthrower was summoned to his palm. “There that’s better.”

The Force abruptly let him go and Jango cursed behind his teeth reaching across himself to draw his blaster in his free hand. He aimed it at this new Force-user even though he knew blaster fire would be a delay tactic at most.

“Who are you?” he demanded, angry and wary with how calm and seemingly non-confrontational this guy was. “What do you want?”

“You can call me Icarus,” the guy said as he moved further into the light but wisely kept his distance. “My benefactor is the one that posted the bounty on Komari Vosa.”

“Great,” Jango growled and took a step back toward the doorway he’d first come through. “Now what do you want?”

The guy, Icarus, was a Human male, that much Jango could tell by sight. He was older than Jango probably by a decade or more. Despite his prissy High Coruscanti accent and his expensive black clothes, his body was muscular under the clothes, he was a fighter. His face was scarred by several deep slashes all evenly spaced across his cheek and his hands moved oddly, cybernetics probably.

His eyes were bright yellow, Jango noticed with mounting dread. He was a dark-sider.

“Me?” Icarus placed a gloved hand to his chest in mock confusion at Jango’s question. “What do I want? Nothing. It’s more about what you want?”

Yeah, it was time to make a iviin’yc ba’slanar¹ and get the hell out of there. He took another step back and the dark-sider took a step closer.

“I want nothing from you,” Jango said.

“I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say,” Icarus’s charming smile turned sharp and mean. “After all, what bounty hunter can resist a job worth 20 million credits?”

Jango’s eyebrows rose behind his helmet. 20 million credits was stupid money. As in: you’d have to be stupid to take a job worth that much money. No one paid a bounty hunter 20 million credits for a single job. And especially not suspicious as kark dark-siders.

Especially not when Jango knew the Sith were out in galaxy pulling strings behind the scenes, manipulating the rich and powerful to do their bidding.

“20 million credits is a lot of money,” Jango conceded stiffly, trying not to outright reject and therefore infuriate the dangerous Darjetii. “I’m sure there are plenty of other bounty hunters willing to work for that price.”

“Yes,” Icarus drawled, his eyes going calculating and intent on Jango. “But none of them were able to pass the test.”

“I didn’t take any test.” He was really regretting not bringing his brother with him on this hunt. Obi-Wan was the Force wielding Sith Slayer after all. Jango was just a man.

“Oh, but you did.” The air turned cold and charged and Jango sucked in a sharp breath. “You, out of every hunter lured onto this job were the one to kill Vosa.”

It was a trap, he’d thought perhaps so, but it was much, much too late to do anything about it now, much less have regrets.

“I must admit,” the dark-sider continued, his charming smile now a baring of teeth, “I wasn’t particularly confident in my master’s decision to use you. I’d already found a willing Mandalorian you see, but after seeing you fight, after seeing you kill a powerful, Dark former Jedi, it makes more sense.”

He wasn’t getting out of this, Jango realized. He’d gotten himself trapped in this Sith web, far from home and far from his brother. His Jedi-Sith brother that would have had this guy’s head rolling within ten minutes of a fight. Jango was backed into a corner, a place he did not relish being, but he still had his own anger. He still had his defiance.

“I’m going to have to decline your generous offer.” His finger tightened on the trigger of his slugthrower.

Icarus’s smiled dropped, his eyes narrowed. “That’s unfortunate,” he replied, “because you got the job anyway.”

“I don’t work for psychotic, evil Sith Lords,” Jango declared and pulled the trigger three times.

It did nothing. Icarus dodged easily and Jango was hit in the chest by a shot from a high powered blaster rifle. The impact knocked him off his feet and he landed on his back. Jango was used to being thrown around in a fight however so he kept his eyes on the Sith as much as he could and continued firing.

The dark-sider avoided the Jango’s blaster bolts as he moved toward him. Jango was familiar with Force-users however and was able to get a bolt through to hit Icarus in the shoulder. Snarling, the dark-sider brought a hand down through the air and Jango felt a wall of the Force slam down on him with enough strength to dent the duracrete beneath him.

Dazed by the hit, Jango wasn’t fast enough. The dark-sider was on him in a blink, jamming a syringe into his neck in the small gap between his shoulder and his helmet. The sedative was fast acting and strong.

Immediately Jango’s fingers lost feeling, his blaster and vibro blade slipping through his grasp. His muscles gave out on him and his head dropped back to the floor with a clang of beskar helmet.

Just as his breathing slowed and his vision began darkening he saw another blurry figure, a Mandalorian step out of the shadows, a blaster rifle slung over their shoulder. The Mandalorian’s helmet was absent and even through his failing vision Jango recognized him. Montross. The betrayer.

It was all a trap, Jango thought again as his sight grayed and his mind drifted hazily. The lead on Montross, everything. It was all a set up and he’d fallen for it. Di’kutla utreekov².

“What do you want me to do with him?” the betrayer asked.

“Get him out of his armor and restrain him,” Icarus ordered standing up and watching Jango rapidly lose consciousness. “We have an appointment to keep.”

*

Obi-Wan had been training Savage and Feral for three months. At least when Maul was not on Mandalore to do it himself.

Over the course of being their teacher, he’d discovered that the boys were very smart. Feral especially excelled in the core classes all children needed to complete, for all the mischief he got up to. Savage’s intelligence was of a more applicable nature. Where he struggled in history and mathematics and science, he made up for it in combat strategy and problem solving. Of course when it came to the Force, Savage outstripped Feral easily, though neither boy could really help that.

Through experimenting and calming reassurance, they discovered that while Feral could move things with the Force and had the light form of precognition all Force-users had to help with intuition and deflecting blaster fire, he would never be able to perform the feats Savage would. And that was perfectly fine. Not every Force-user could be a powerhouse like Obi-Wan and their elder brother Maul.

Often times the difference between success and failure, between life and death wasn’t ones strength in the Force it was their intelligence and quick thinking. Obi-Wan was sure to make this very clear to the boys when it seemed like Feral was getting more and more discouraged with his limitations.

Obi-Wan did note that Feral had enough Force-sensitivity to utilize Tantric Meditation and gain some of its benefits. However Feral was all of eight years old and so that would be a lesson for many years down the line. One which Obi-Wan would be more than happy to teach by simply handing off Darth Aquata’s holocron and leaving him to it.

Savage predictably liked learning self-defense a great deal. Very quickly he showed aptitude for fighting with a staff. The first time he’d completed the Mandalorian training movements for staff wielding, Obi-Wan had a moment of double vision. He saw Savage a scrawny twelve year old, his horns only just beginning their adolescent growth, a determined scowl on his face as he clumsily worked through unfamiliar movements.

And he saw a massive, enraged snarling Zabrak with long sharp horns and burning yellow eyes, wearing dark armor and wielding a double bladed red lightstaff with all the grace and fury of a wild animal.

He blinked and saw Savage looking at him expectantly standing in the last position of the staff movements. Obi-Wan had quickly brushed the vision away and kindly corrected his form.

It wasn’t a vision of the future, Obi-Wan knew that much. Perhaps, it could have been if things were different. If Maul had left his brothers on Dathomir, perhaps that raging blunt instrument would have been Savage’s fate.

Not like it mattered, because that would not be Savage’s fate and Obi-Wan needed to concentrate on the here and now if he wanted to train the boy to at least not smack himself in the face with his staff… as he’d just done.

Jaster enjoyed having children around the palace again. The last long term resident child had been Jango when he’d first been adopted. Obi-Wan having been a teenager already when Jaster commandeered him.

And it was akin to commandeering. Jaster had commandeered Savage and Feral as surely as if they really were his grandchildren. Maul had half thought Obi-Wan was exaggerating, but the first time he’d visited after dropping his brothers off, he’d had to actually physically shove the king out of the room to get a little privacy with his brothers. They of course loved the attention.

Maul despaired that he was sparing his brothers the danger of living on a spice freighter only for them to get spoiled rotten by the Mando king. His only consolation being that Obi-Wan was a surprisingly strict teacher and probably the only one in the whole palace that told them no and actually punished them when they disobeyed.

The two young Zabraks’ presence in the palace in Keldabe helped some, but Jaster was still worried sick about his eldest son. Jango hadn’t holocalled to check in for over two months. It’s been six months since he’d started on that ridiculous hunt and he should have come home by now.

Obi-Wan was also worried. Very worried. His dreams were restless and dark. He kept hearing the sound of marching boots and blaster fire, there wasn’t anything else very distinct in them so it wasn’t like he could put a name to what made him so uneasy upon waking up. They unsettled him enough, though that he was a week away from jumping in a ship and chasing after Jango to drag him back kicking and screaming if he had to.

And then, during mid-meal in the dining hall one day, Obi-Wan was hit with a wave of pain and terror in the Force. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell out of his chair, his whole body going rigid on the floor. He scared about a decade off his buir’s life.

Jango, Obi-Wan realized as it felt as if his head was filling up with acid. Something was wrong with Jango. He tried to open his eyes, he tried to see through the Vision. When he finally did, he was strapped down to a table in a bright white lab of some sort. He was struggling, trying to move, to get free and fight back, but it felt as though the air itself was holding still. There was something in his mouth, a bite guard. A dark robed figure was standing over him, their face cast in shadow.

A gnarled hand rose and glided over him until it was poised over his head. Then slowly, so slowly a finger was pressed between his eyes and his head exploded in so much pain.

Obi-Wan was knocked out of the vision with choking, gasping breaths. He rolled over and threw up, barely registering his father’s shaking hand on his forehead and back.

“Obi-Wan! Obi-Wan, what happened?”

He breathed deep and ruthlessly released his fear and anger into the Force. Then, at least partially centered again, he sat up and grabbed Jaster’s hand in a tight bruising grip.

“Jango,” he rasped, his throat still burning from the vomit. Jaster’s eyes widened in alarm. “Jango’s in trouble.”

“What did you see?” the Mand’alor asked with dread.

Obi-Wan was momentarily distracted by the immense feelings of panic, fear, and curiosity around him. That was when he noticed about a dozen Mando’ade were hovering around where they were sitting on the floor. Savage and Feral were clutching each other nearby staring at Obi-Wan with wide worried eyes.

“He’s been captured,” Obi-Wan said, his voice growing stronger the longer he talked. “And he’s being tortured.”

Jaster sucked in a sharp breath then looked around at the gawking verde. His son was missing. His son was taken. His son was afraid and in pain. Greatly so if Jango could reach Obi-Wan through the Ka’ra despite having the Force-sensitivity of a rock himself.

“Who,” Jaster demanded, a dark look slowly taking over his frightened expression. “Who has dared take my son?”

Obi-Wan swallowed thickly and met his buir’s burning brown eyes. There were too many people around them. Too many listening intently, their own fury and indignation coloring the Force. Too many to speak completely plainly.

“Ruug’la aru’e, Buir,” he settled on saying, an old enemy. “Dral bal hodayc aru’e³.”

Cunning and powerful, Obi-Wan called this enemy. Jaster’s whole face was abruptly carved from hard unyielding stone as he understood.

The Sith have Jango. For what purpose? It didn’t matter. Scheming genocide, assassinations, insidious colonization, all that was one thing. That was war. But taking a Mandalorian’s child, no matter that they were an adult and a full blooded warrior. That was something else entirely. The Sith have no idea what they’d just brought down on themselves.

Jaster stood up, keeping his hold on Obi-Wan’s hand hauling him up as well. The moment Obi-Wan was steady on his feet, Savage and Feral darted forward and hugged him tight and shaking around the waist. He breathed out a long breath and sent them cool calming waves in the Force as he rubbed their backs in comfort.

Turning to the verde all standing dead silent with tense anticipation, Jaster projected his voice so the whole dining hall could hear.

“My son, your Ven’Alor as been captured,” he told them eliciting a wave of alarm and anger through the observing Mando’ade. Even though he would have preferred not to make such an announcement so abruptly, the entire hall just saw Obi-Wan’s vision, Jaster had to explain somehow.

“The Ka’ra has revealed our enemy to your Ad’Alor and they are a powerful, dangerous enemy.” The air was tense as he unclipped the Darksaber from his belt. “But they don’t know what they have brought upon themselves by attacking our Ven’Alor. They don’t know the full might and wrath of Mandalore.”

He looked around at his angered verde. “It’s time we showed them,” he declared raising the Darksaber high and igniting the black blade.

Obi-Wan could feel his protective wrath permeating the Force from every single Mando’ad in the hall.

“Oya!” Jaster called out over the crowd.

“Oya!” Every verde in the hall shouted in response and Obi-Wan heard the sound of millions of booted feet marching to war. He heard the beating of war drums. He felt the planet of Manda’yaim itself rise up and bay for blood.

The Sith’s war for galactic domination may not have begun, not for years yet. But they made a mistake. They angered the Mand’alor. They angered the Mandalorians. The Sith may not have started their war with the galaxy.

But they started one with Mandalore.

* TBC...

Chapter Text

A little over six months after the Invasion of Naboo there was a great, Dark disturbance in the Force. It’s unclear just where in the galaxy the disturbance originated, but it was strong enough to be felt in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. The younglings in the Creche awoke crying from nightmares, the Masters beholden to the Unifying Force had Dark indistinguishable visions. Master Mace Windu was confined to the infirmary after collapsing from agonizing mental pain.

Upon waking the Master of the Order claimed the disturbance caused a cascade of shatterpoints to explode, though he either couldn’t or wouldn’t say what they meant.

Yoda had felt it like a spike to the heart or a lead weight in his belly. The Sith, he realized as he panted for breath from the abrupt drop out of meditation. The Sith had made a move. A large step toward the vast war on the horizon.

The first thing he did when the chaos around the temple had been calmed was holocall Obi-Wan.

It had not been a satisfactory call. He hadn’t even gotten Obi-Wan on the channel. The young man’s personal comm had been answered by an unfamiliar Mando’ad with a grim expression on their face.

“I apologize, Ba’Alor Yoda,” the Mando’ad said after Yoda requested to speak with his former student. “The Mand’alor and Ad’Alor are in preparations. Neither of them is free to speak with arue- um, outsider-friends? - at this time. Do you have a message I can pass along?”

Yoda thought for a long moment before finally saying, “Tell Ad’Alor Obi-Wan, to speak about the Force disturbance, Master Yoda wishes.”

The Mando’ad had dutifully written out the message and signed off with minimal politeness.

Preparations. Yoda sat in his quiet apartment thinking about what that could mean. Obviously Obi-Wan had been aware of the disturbance. Considering just how much advanced information the Mandalorians seemed to have, perhaps he even knew what had caused it. The Mandalorians were certainly stirred up enough to do something about it. What that something was, Yoda didn’t know. Nor did he feel as if he should pry. Something in the Force was tense. Waiting even.

The future, Yoda felt, would be very uncertain and surely much to many Masters’ frustration, very interesting.

Life in the temple settled relatively quickly after the disturbance. Jedi as a whole were very good about keeping calm and carrying on. Even the younglings were not unsettled for very long. The only one with lingering effects was Master Windu.

Yoda had spent hours in conference with him once the master had woken up from the sedatives and pain medication.

“Something happened,” Mace grumbled still rubbing at his forehead with shaking fingers. “It started small, the first shatterpoint. But that shatterpoint broke another one, and then that one broken one, and then-”

“To the healers, a cascade effect, you described,” Yoda cut him off when his young protege seemed to about to give himself a stress headache.

“Yes, Master Yoda,” Mace sighed and reached over to his pain-med drip and punched the button for another dose. “I know that the Sith set something in motion, but from the other shatterpoints, what I could read from them, I don’t think even they realize just what they’ve done.”

Yoda hummed thoughtfully at that. “The Mando’ade, agitated they are,” he said and Mace’s bloodshot eyes darted to him, intent. “In ‘preparations’, I was told, the Mand’alor and Ad’Alor were.”

“Preparations for what?” Mace asked wary and suspicious.

It was a dark thought, but Yoda felt somehow that it was true. He sighed, his ears drooping a little. “War, we know, the Sith have been courting. War with Mandalore, I fear, the Sith have started.”

Mace, rather than turning grave and serious, gave an irreverent snort and chuckled. Yoda raised an eyebrow at him.

“Nothing amusing, do I see, about this speculation.”

“It’s not amusing, really,” Mace tried to explain, his chuckles petering off quickly. “It’s just that, the Sith have no idea what they’ve unleashed.”

“Explain, you should.” Yoda’s eyes narrowed at the younger master.

“I may not know him as you do, Master Yoda, but Obi-Wan Kenobi for all that he wields the Dark side is as close to a Mandalorian Jedi as we’re likely to ever see in our lifetime. There hasn’t been a Mandalorian Jedi since Tarre Vizsla. The Mand’alor that legends has it united the whole of the Mandalorians to repel a galactic invasion long lost to time.” Mace’s smirk was wry and slightly sharp.

“You can’t tell me that the thought of Mandalorian Dark Jedi Ad’Alor Obi-Wan Kenobi marching to war does not terrify you. And you are not even his enemy.”

Yoda blinked at the young master. Mace wasn’t wrong. Being the only Jedi that had actually seen Obi-Wan’s partially unshielded presence, Yoda could truthfully say that the prospect of that power, that perfectly balanced combination of Light and Dark focused on and marching against an enemy was a cautionary prospect.

The Force rose up then. Yoda heard the heavy beating of a war drum, felt the violent, patient attention of a predator, then he heard a song light and clear and calming, felt warmth and determination and unyielding protectiveness.

Obi-Wan’s kyber crystals sounded exactly like that when they sang together for the first time.

“A great warrior, Obi-Wan is.” Yoda met Mace’s knowing eyes. The younger master may not have heard the song, but he felt the Force. “Taught him well, his Dark teacher and I have. Taught him well, the Mandalorians have. Pity the Sith, I almost do.”

Mace snorted again, his chuckle with a slightly hysterical edge then. “I don’t,” he declared with a very un-Jedi like pettiness. “The Sith brought this shit storm on themselves. The Mandalorians may not be ready to wage war outright,” and they weren’t, “but Mereel, Fett, and Kenobi are smart men. They won’t need to raise a blaster to fuck over the Sith.”

Yoda eyed Mace, but refrained from scolding him for his language. The young Master of the Order always had a more colorful vocabulary when the shatterpoints pained him.

“Interesting, the future will be.” His prediction was pebbly and drawling, a deep considering expression in his brown-green eyes. “Glad, I am, that our allies, the Mandalorians are.”

Understatement, Mace thought as he grabbed the pain-med button again and hit it a couple more times. Their conversation was over and the two Jedi sat in silence, contemplating the uncertain future.

Even though it seemed like Obi-Wan would be out of communication for some time to come, Yoda had taken his advice on Naboo to heart. And a month after the disturbance he finally received word from a Shadow stationed in the Outer Rim.

Yoda gave a welcoming hum as he limped into his living room floating a tea tray behind him. Young Anakin Skywalker was sitting at his low table fidgeting nervously.

“Well, your classes have been going?” Yoda asked kindly as he poured the youngling some tea. He was intrigued and amused when the boy took a sip from his cup, tasted the drink, then promptly took a larger sip. No one liked his swamp tea on the first try.

“I’m still not great at reading and writing Basic,” Anakin admitted with an embarrassed frown. “But Master Leeloo has been really nice in helping me practice.”

“Master Leeloo’s first language, Basic is not.” Yoda nodded knowingly. “For learning Basic, a good mentor, she is. Your other classes, how are they?”

Anakin proceeded to launch into a rapid fire explanation about all the trials and tribulations he’s faced so far in a standardized, structured learning system. It was mostly just him having growing pains and small issues meeting the benchmarks for his progress. Nothing too alarming since he was in fact a very intelligent child and learned quickly once he understood what was expected of him. Though the abruptly added and hurriedly brushed over comment about a lack of friends and reoccurring alienation was concerning.

Yoda resolved to keep an eye on that. Even though Jedi practiced non-attachment and emotional distance, they still had friendships. Socialization was even essential in moral and mental development in pretty much every sentient species. Anakin was still fairly new to the temple however and none of the younglings his age would have met another child with his life experiences before. Perhaps it would just take some time.

“Glad, I am, that adapting well, you are,” he said once Anakin paused to take a breath. The child could talk. Yoda found it endearing more than bothersome.

“I like it here, Master Yoda.” Anakin gave a slight smile though it faded quickly. “It’s just that…”

“Something wrong, there is?” Yoda pressed gently.

The little boy sighed sounding much too sad and tired for someone so young. Yoda’s brow furrowed.

“I still miss my mom.” Like it was a forbidden confession, Anakin had his eyes pinned on his hands wrapped around his tea cup. “I still worry about her. I know I should let go of the past,” his nose wrinkled as he repeated verbatim the words he must have heard so many times they were rote, “but I’ll never be able to just forget my mom, especially since she’s still a slave and I’m not there to protect her.”

Yoda met the boy’s defiant gaze and hummed thoughtfully. “Speak about this with whom, have you?”

Anakin’s face darkened then. “I had a nightmare about mom getting sold back to Gardulla the Hutt. Master Minchin,” the Creche Master caring for Anakin’s creche clan, “just told me that dreams pass in time and that I should let go of my attachments and not think about the past.”

Unhelpful this advise was, insensitive even, Yoda realized. Especially for a child afraid of very real dangers. Dreams pass in time, it was the standard response all Creche Masters were advised to use when their charges had nightmares. Mostly because children just have nightmares. It was the nature of childhood.

Children raised in the temple have been exposed to no horrors. They have never been left at the mercy of the merciless galaxy. While the advice to not dwell on the dreams might work for a temple raised youngling, for a boy like Anakin it was patently unhelpful. A useless lazy platitude.

Many of the younglings given to the temple near the restricted age of six would think and dwell on their birth families. Most of which were perfectly safe and secure on their home planets. Telling these children to let their attachments go helped them not get homesick, helped them move on and adapt to the temple and the Jedi way of life because they were young enough to quickly lose memory of their previous home.

Anakin was not like that. He was too old to forget about his family and home. He was too old for his feelings for his mother to fade into distant memory. Telling him to let her go, to forget about his love for her was…

Yoda felt a well of guilt and frustration. He released the emotions and reached over to pat the little boy on the hand in comfort. “Speak with Master Minchin and your other teachers, I will,” he told Anakin. “Approached differently, your concerns should be. The Council’s oversight, this was. Apologize for your distress, I do.”

The boy studied him very scrutinizingly for a young child, but eventually he nodded and gave the ancient master a wan smile. “It’s okay, Master Yoda. I just don’t want to be a bother.”

“A bother, you are not,” Yoda assured him bringing a more genuine smile to his face. “To hear of your classes and life at the temple, not the only reason I asked you to tea, it was.”

A slightly wary expression came over the boy’s face and Yoda figured that was to be expect. He can’t imagine Anakin had received many pleasant surprises in his life so far.

“Worry for your mother, you no longer must,” he said and Anakin’s eyes rapidly widened. “Freed, she has been. Settled in a new home, she has been also.”

“What?” Anakin straightened in his seat so sharply it seemed like he’d jumped. “How do you know? What happened?”

The boy’s enthusiasm caused an amused smile to curl at Yoda’s mouth. He pulled out a comlink and set it on the table. “To find your mother, sent a Jedi Shadow, the Council did. Free her from slavery and help her relocate, his mission was. To the Council, report his mission a success, he did yesterday.”

“Really? She’s really free?” The light of hope and yet still disbelief on Anakin’s face was bright and painful to look upon.

“Arranged, I have, for a special holocall. Speak with her, see for yourself, you may.”

The little boy’s breathing hitched and he looked down at the comm unit like it held the greatest treasure. Yoda dialed the code for the Jedi Shadow’s long-distance mission comlink and waited with a practically quivering Anakin.

The call was connected and the holo-projection of Knight Quinlan Vos materialized above the device. “Master Yoda,” he greeted with a nod.

“Knight Vos,” Yoda nodded back calmly though the anticipation in his young companion was making the Force itself tremble. “Speak with his mother, Initiate Anakin would like to.”

“Sure thing,” Vos said with a roguish kind of smile and smoothly handed his comlink to someone standing next to him.

The Human woman that appeared on the holo-projection was young, Yoda could tell that much. Though she looked older than her age, he noted as well. Neither slavery nor the desert had been particularly kind to her. Her smile when she saw Anakin, however, brightened her expression and took years of hardship from her face.

“Oh Ani,” she gasped pressing a hand over her mouth in shock and elation. “Look at you. How are you?”

“Mom!” Anakin’s voice cracked with emotion and he leaned closer to the holo-image as if he could reach through the connection and touch her. “Are you okay? Master Yoda said they sent a Jedi to free you!”

“I’m fine, Anakin,” Shmi Skywalker reassured her young son. “Knight Vos was able to free me with little trouble. I’ve even had my chip removed, not just deactivated.”

“I’m so glad, Mom.” The boy relaxed as if pounds of tension and worries were suddenly lifted from his shoulders. “You’re not going to live in Mos Espa, are you?”

“No, dear. Knight Vos helped me find lodging and a job in Anchorhead. Apparently good mechanics are hard to come by for the moisture farmers. I’m working in one of the repair shops. Receiving an actual paycheck and everything.”

“Wizard!” Anakin exclaimed, face bright and his Force presence brighter.

Yoda had to blink spots from his vision as he strengthened his shields and blocked out the boy’s supernova like presence. He hadn’t even noticed the steadily growing shadows in Anakin’s soul until they were washed away with a few words of reassurance from his mother.

Obi-Wan had been right, Yoda thought with a fond and yet slightly concerned smile. Freeing the boy’s mother will be a turning point in Anakin’s life with the Jedi. He can’t imagine what would have happened if they’d left his mother to the mercy of her slave owner.

Mother and son spoke for a few more cherished minutes until they needed to say goodbye for the second time.

“Will I get to talk to you again, Mom?” Anakin’s voice was tight, sadness and longing leaking from him into the Force.

“I’m afraid not, Ani,” Shmi smiled through her own sadness at her son. “Holocalls from the Rim to the Core are hard to come by on Tatooine. And remember what I told you when you first left with Master Jinn?”

“Don’t look back,” Anakin murmured resigned. “I miss you so much, Mom.”

“I miss you too, my love, but you have a whole new life ahead of you.” Her smile brightened with a hint of pride and determination. “I have a whole new life ahead of me too.”

When Anakin didn’t seem comforted, her expression was soft and understanding as she gazed upon him. “Remember what your heart tells you, Anakin. We will see each other again. But for now our lives must be separate.”

Anakin took in a shaky breath, but he nodded, acceptance in his expression. “I love you, mom.”

“I love you too, my son,” Shmi replied. They said their goodbyes and the connection was cut.

Yoda’s living room was silent and heavy for a long moment. Then Anakin’s breathing hitched and tears slipped from his eyes. In the Force his grief was powerful, his loneliness just as strong.

Concerned, Yoda shifted closer and placed a hand on the boy’s back. With the warm contact, the loneliness abated some and the grief was no longer oily.

“Thank you, Master Yoda,” Anakin said voice scratchy as he looked at the small ancient master. “Thank you for helping my mom.”

“Very welcome, you are, Anakin,” Yoda replied. “Long time, it has been, since had the freedom to free slaves, the Jedi did.” The boy’s brow furrowed with confusion, and Yoda gave him a reassuring look. “Perhaps, soon we will be free to do so again.”

Anakin was quiet, a sharply thoughtful light in his eyes, a dark sort of realization coming to him as he huffed, “Huh.” Then there was a piercing flare of determination and a concerning amount of ambition ignited in his presence. “I’ll work really hard, Master Yoda, and when I’m a Knight, I’ll make sure the Jedi have their freedom again.”

It was an oddly worded promise, spoken like a child’s innocent and naive fantasy. And yet, Yoda thought tilting his head and listening to the Force. Yet, it had a slight echo of premonition, possibly even prophecy. Shaking his head, Yoda focused back on Anakin.

“A great Jedi Knight, I believe you can be,” he said with honest if indulgent agreement. “Eager to see, I am, the great things you will accomplish.”

The Grand Master and the Initiate spent another hour in pleasant conversation, drinking more warm swamp tea. Though both of their minds were distantly preoccupied with their own deep, important thoughts.

Life in the temple went on. Lessons, meditations, and missions, all continued on without pause in consideration of the turmoil in various parts of the galaxy. The Council however spent a great deal more time in session than they had previously discussing the current events of said galaxy, the concerning trends making themselves known in the Senate, and possible changes in the curriculum and training for their members.

That last one was met with much resistance, but once Yoda, Mace, Plo Koon, and surprisingly Sifo-Dyas pressed hard, things began to shift. Analysis of battle strategy from wars past were discussed more in depth in lessons. Increased lightsaber and fight training focusing on team work and even leadership were implemented for the Padawans and heavily encourage for the Knights and Masters.

Like Yoda had told Obi-Wan on Naboo, the changes would have to be small. If the Senate became aware that the Jedi were preparing for war… well, no one wanted to see what would happen then. No one, not even the more staunchly pro-Republic of masters foresaw that scenario going well.

Through the months after the disturbance, Yoda would periodically attempt to contact Obi-Wan. Three months after his first failed call he was able to finally speak to his former student. And dark tidings indeed Obi-Wan brought with him.

“The disturbance was felt all the way in the temple?” Obi-Wan frowned concerned and curious when Yoda told him.

“Throw the temple into chaos, it did. Awaken the younglings, distress the prescient masters, cause Master Windu to collapse, it did.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes sharpened at this news. Yoda tried not to be discomforted by the realization that since their call had connected there had been more yellow in his gaze than blue. “Master Windu collapsed? Shatterpoints?”

“A cascade, he called it,” Yoda confirmed. “Small, the first shatterpoint was, burst another, it did, then another.”

Mulling that over, Obi-Wan hummed as he rubbed at his chin. He was momentarily distracted to feel stubble against his palm. His personal grooming was usually more strict, but he’d been distracted recently. “It makes sense,” he said. “That there would be a cascade of shatterpoints. In the grand scheme of things I don’t suppose the catalyst is all that major. But it did set things in motion.”

“Know the catalyst, you do? The origin of the disturbance?”

Obi-Wan’s gaze bore into Yoda, intense and furious. From all the way across the galaxy, the ancient master felt a shiver go down his spine.

“The Sith captured Jango,” Obi-Wan said, voice deep with anger. “They were torturing him with the Force. He was in so much pain, felt so much fear that he was able to mentally reached out to me. That’s what the disturbance was. Whatever the Sith were doing to him with the Force caused Jango to cry out so loud and powerful that I got a vision of him on Mandalore.”

Very disturbing, Yoda thought. And very stupid. The one thing the Mandalorians value more than their armor, honor, and fighting prowess, is their children. The Sith have made a grave mistake by harming the Mand’alor’s son.

“Set things in motion, you said the catalyst did. What things?” He hoped perhaps Mace was wrong and the Mandalorians weren’t marching to war just yet.

“The Mand’alor declared a hunt,” Obi-Wan answered, confident and unrepentant. “We hunt for Jango and we hunt his captors. They must reveal themselves before we can truly fight them head on, but we know their goals, we know some of their allies, and we know their strategies. Mandalore is not in a place to declare outright war, but we’ve begun waging a different kind of assault against the Darjetiise. A ranov’la akaan, if you will.”

A secret war the Mandalorians have begun waging. Mace was only half right, then, Yoda thought somewhat relieved. The Mandalorians aren’t marching to war. Though, they are waging perhaps an even more dangerous and perilous war against their enemies. Through politics and industry. Mand’alor Mereel and Obi-Wan were very intelligent indeed, Yoda had no doubt that for the next few years until the Sith brought the war out into the open that the Mandalorians will be making their lives a lot more difficult.

“Progress you have made, in finding your brother?” Yoda asked, with sincere concern.

“No.” Obi-Wan’s whole demeanor shifted from righteous fury to despondency. “I traced him all the way to Kohlma, one of Bogden’s moons. All I found there was a dead dark-sider and his discarded armor.”

“Hunting a dark-sider, Jango was?” Yoda frowned, something like dread tingeing the edges of the thought.

Obi-Wan hesitated for a moment then nodded. “The True Mandalorian Bounty Hunters have a fairly standard policy of not hunting Force-users. Jaster declared it was the Jedi’s jurisdiction. But Jango had a lead that Montross, the man that had betrayed Jaster and almost got him killed the year before I met them, was on a specific hunt. It was a very high reward posted for the kill or capture of a Dark Jedi.”

Yoda scowled. “Post bounties on Dark Jedi, we do not.”

“I know.” His expression tightened. “This Dark Jedi had become the leader of a some kind of cult turned criminal gang. Jango was hunting her more to find Montross than for the bounty itself.”

“Know who this Dark Jedi was, you do?”

Grimacing, Obi-Wan answered, “It was Komari Vosa.”

Yoda’s ears drooped as grief and regret filled his chest. “Former grandpadawan of mine, she was,” he said with a measure of guilt. “Troubled, she was. Resist our help and abandon the Order, she did.”

“I’m sorry, Master Yoda,” Obi-Wan murmured sincere. “Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la¹.”

“Hm, yes,” the Grand Master sighed and released his grief into the Force. “One with the Force, she now is.” He sighed long and deep. “Give my padawan the news soon, I will.”

They were quiet for a moment. Then Obi-Wan decided to change the subject. “How is Anakin adjusting to the temple?”

Yoda’s expression lightened considerably. “Very well. A bright boy, he is,” in more than one way. “Followed your advice, the Council did, and freed his mother. Much of the conflict inside him, gone it now is.”

“Good.” Obi-Wan’s smile was genuine if small. “I’m glad he’s doing well.”

“Advice, I would ask you again,” Yoda admitted, turning a little more serious again. “Different, Anakin is. As we teach the other younglings, teach him the same, we cannot. Ideas, could you share?”

Obi-Wan, far away on Mandalore, was exhausted and drained and angry. So very angry that he couldn’t find his brother. And, for the first time in three months, he was so very thankful to think of something other than what torture Jango was enduring and how Obi-Wan was failing him.

“I’m teaching two boys around Anakin’s age right now. They’re even from a similar background,” he told Yoda. “It’s taken some adjustment to communicate or alter certain concepts and ideas in a way that they understand. Mostly in terms of the way I was taught about the Force in the temple. The Goran and some of the other Ka’ra’ade have been very helpful in this.”

“Hear this advice and these ideas, I would,” Yoda stated, plainly. “Already several missteps, there have been. Fail Anakin, we do not wish to.”

They spoke for an hour. Perhaps to others the heavy subjects of the effects of slavery on young children would make for unpleasant conversation. For Yoda and Obi-Wan, however, it was a relief. This is something they can control, something they can change and even fix. The search for Jango was going nowhere fast, and the subtle changes in the Order were more difficult to implement than Yoda predicted.

Eventually, though they did move back onto their most pressing and troubling issues. Both of them offering what aid and assistance they could.

“Brief the Shadows, we will,” Yoda assured Obi-Wan. “On the look out, they will be, for any news about Jango, they may hear.”

“Thank you, Master Yoda. Mandalore will never forget this.” Obi-Wan’s smile was tired but much more genuine. His eyes, Yoda had noticed throughout their conversation, had grown progressively more blue-green. “I won’t be able to keep in contact while I’m on the hunt, but Jaster has to mostly stay on Manda’yaim. I’ll ask him to contact you with ideas about curriculum and training regimens. He needs something to keep him occupied, to distract him from Jango.”

“Welcome any insight, we do, that the Mand’alor may have.” And truthfully, they really would. Yoda, for all that he was eight-hundred and fifty years old hadn’t ever seen a war like the one they were steadily creeping towards. The Jedi Order had not participated in war for a millennia. They were somewhat floundering in their attempts to prepare for one on a potentially galactic scale.

As these two beings said their goodbyes and disconnected, they knew that the future was only going to grow darker. More dangerous. They knew war was on the horizon, death and destruction rising with it. They just didn’t know what the years leading up to the war with the Sith would entail.

The Force whispered to them as they continued on with their lives on opposite sides of the galaxy. Agitated and cautionary, and yet still soothing and comforting. A bit like a predator purring to its young.

*
TBC...

Chapter Text

Three years. Jango has been missing for three years. Obi-Wan had been back and forth across the galaxy searching for his missing brother and all he’d found were Sith traps and dead ends.

Maul and Asajj had even attempted to help by tapping what resources and connections they had. To no avail. Obi-Wan had contacted Hondo as well, but the pirate community had heard nothing.

Yoda had come through and over the three year long hunt had funneled Obi-Wan several leads picked up by various Shadows on missions around the galaxy. None of them had panned out, but still the Jedi’s assistance would not be forgotten. The Mand’alor declared it so to his council when they’d eventually been forced to admit defeat and end their full-scale hunt.

Obi-Wan couldn’t give up though. Not that Jaster was giving up, but he was the Mand’alor. He could not abandon and neglect his people for grief of his lost son. The official hunt may have been called, but the various Mando’ade around the galaxy still kept an eye out. They still reported in any hint of Jango or Montross’s whereabouts.

That had been one of the most enraging discoveries Obi-Wan had made during his hunt. Montross had been a party to the trap set by the Sith for Jango. He doesn’t know how the betrayer got in contact with the Sith, why he’d joined them, other than money, but he did know that when he eventually found him, the man’s head would roll and Obi-Wan would bring it back to his father on a silver platter.

Perhaps that should have been the most worrying thing that had changed during the fruitless hunt for Jango. Obi-Wan’s ready violence and near constant simmering of vengeful rage. The Dark flowed through him strong and wild always, but in the years since his brother had been missing, the Dark had practically carved out a gorge of constant rage inside him.

In a distant way he knew that Jaster was worried about him. His eyes have only a thin ring of blue-green in the iris more often than not. His scowl was perpetual. His temper fiery and hair trigger. There wasn’t much Obi-Wan could do about that. Or really there wasn’t much he was willing to do about it.

He’d tried to search out Jango in the Force. There was a shroud of Darkness seemingly blanketed over the whole of the galaxy now though. The Sith were hiding Jango. Not just through mortal means, but in the Force as well. They’d constructed some sort of Dark side Sith shield to keep Jango and his location entirely hidden from searching eyes. The Light couldn’t penetrate the tissue thin film of shadow. The Dark had better results. When he released the dam holding back the Dark side inside himself Obi-Wan could just barely feel Jango alive. And yet that was all.

Once he’d figured this out, Obi-Wan had never been so angry. He’d set the palace to trembling like he hadn’t done since Maul began teaching him the ways of the Dark.

While the hunt for the Ven’Alor was being conducting, the Mand’alor ordered a different kind of war against the Sith. The Trade Federation found doing business with any planet allied with Mandalore to be impossible. The Banking Clan, where they’d finally discovered most of the funding for the Sith ventures came from, found their holdings impeded and their client base in the Mandalore allied planets shrinking. The Republic found more and more of their member planets and other neutral systems allying and entering trade agreements with Mandalore.

That was the only thing really, other than teaching Savage and Feral, that would take Obi-Wan away from the hunt for Jango. When his Not-an-Empire Council funneled another prospective planet to him he’d head there from wherever he was in the galaxy and one way or another secure an alliance. Before Naboo, Mandalore had been selective on their allied planets, they’d only approached planets and systems that needed help now, that were on the fringes and long forgotten. Ones more likely to take Mandalore’s helping hand out of desperation.

After Jango had been taken, and with a push from the Mand’alor, they were less cautious. In the three years since the Ven’Alor went missing and the Mand’alor declared war in all but name, they’d added ten more planets and systems. Including Falleen, Ryloth, and Fellucia. They were also in talks with Iridonia for arms trade and Haruun Kal for Mandalore’s bio-dome technology since most of the planet was covered in toxic volcanic gas clouds.

The amount of influence and power Mandalore had amassed since Jango went missing was actually kind of staggering when compared to the stagnation of nearly every other established system in the galaxy. Goes to show, nothing motivated a Mandalorian like war and revenge. And there was absolutely no Mandalorian that didn’t know this political maneuvering wasn’t part of some long term preparation for war. Not even the pacifists were completely ignorant to it. Though, as long as Mand’alor Mereel wasn’t waging a crusade or demanding they fight they didn’t particularly care. Especially since with every new planet allied with Mandalore there was a boost in industry and trade.

Apparently even to ideological pacifists money talked and bantha-shit walked.

So it had been three years of Jango being held and probably tortured by the Sith. Despite having no shortage of things to occupy his time and mind with, Obi-Wan was not handling the failure or the grief well.

Jaster wasn’t handling it much better, but he had Mandalore to think about. And when that wasn’t distraction enough he had Savage and Feral to help care for and train. Yoda was surprisingly a comfort as well. He and the Grand Master had begun regular holocalls, discussing mostly the curriculum and training changes for the Jedi and their various young charges. Yoda advised Jaster on how to care for Force-sensitive younglings and Jaster advised Yoda on how to care for traumatized ex-slaves.

The Mando’ade were filled with ex-slaves of all ages and experiences. The Mand’alor had plenty of advice for the Grand Master.

He enjoyed hearing about the bright uncomplicated life in the temple as well. When every room in the Keldabe palace reminded him of Jango and consequently that his son was somewhere alone and suffering, hearing about Yoda’s troublesome young Skywalker helped remind him that life continued on.

The most recent news being that Yoda’s Anakin had finally managed to make a true friend. His peers had a hard time relating to him, his upbringing being so different. They weren’t purposefully exclusionary, but the boy found it hard to interact meaningfully with them in return. Apparently all Anakin needed to do to make a real friend was to share a candy bar with a Togruta youngling. According to Yoda the Creche Masters now had a very hard time keeping the little Togruta girl from escaping the Creche and finding Anakin wherever he might be.

Not that the boy minded. He enjoyed the attention and the unconditional affection of the youngling.

When it wasn’t Yoda’s stories he was enjoying, Jaster often found himself observing Savage and Feral’s lessons. Either with their Mando’ad instructors or with Obi-Wan and Maul. Today being no exception.

He quietly snuck into Savage and Feral’s Force theory lesson with Obi-Wan this one afternoon. His second son was much too serious and humorless lately. Seeing the lack of happiness and contentment in Obi-Wan broke his heart. Which was why Jaster liked sitting in on these lessons. Teaching was the only time the old Obi-Wan really shined through.

“One can use Force based items as a focus a number of ways when performing a Force technique,” Obi-Wan said, several of said Force based items were lined up on the table before the two boys. A red kyber crystal, a holocron, and a ceremonial dagger, to name a few.

“When I was a teenager, before I learned how to really wield the Dark side, I used a corrupted kyber crystal to perform a summoning ritual. The inherent darkness of a Bleeding kyber helped me access the Dark while the crystal itself acted as a filter so I didn’t get lost in it.”

Feral was listening more intently than Savage who didn’t like the theory lessons nearly as much as his brother. “Can I use a focus, ori’vod?”

Obi-Wan flashed the younger boy a smile, fondness breaking through his now perputual detachment and anger for a moment. “The wonderful thing about focuses I’ve found is that depending on the ritual it doesn’t actually matter how strong with the Force one is,” he explained and lifted the holocron to show them.

“A holocron is a type of focus though a much more subtle one than a crystal. As long as one knows how to open a holocron, it doesn’t matter how strong you are, you can still utilize this tool.” He set Darth Umbrus’s holocron back on the table.

Obi-Wan had picked Darth Umbrus’s holocron for this lesson because the Twi’lek Sith was the least likely of the three holocrons to traumatize his young students should she be accidentally awakened. Darth Curmudgigan and Darth Aquata were too abusive and too seductive, respectively, to allow Savage and Feral in close contact with them.

The younger boy was nodding with an adorably serious expression as he listened to Obi-Wan. “What kind of rituals can you do with a focus if you’re not that strong?”

“Well,” Obi-Wan floated the Bleeding kyber he’d taken from Xanatos’s lightsaber, “with a crystal, you can do a summoning ritual, as I did, though it will have some limitations based on your personal strength. I imagine communication between Force-users across great distances would have less limitations with a crystal. And a finding spell should-”

He stopped, a strange kind of expression coming over his face as he stared at the screaming crystal hovering before him.

“I wonder…” he murmured completely absorbed in his thoughts oblivious to his father’s concern and his students’ confusion.

“Obi-Wan.” Jaster leaned forward in his seat nearby, frowning at his seemingly mesmerized son. “What’s wrong?”

Instead of answering his question, Obi-Wan abruptly caught the kyber in his hand and swept the other example focuses into the bag he’d brought them. “Lesson over for now. Savage, Feral, you’re free until your training sessions this afternoon.”

The boys while still slightly confused weren’t going to object to free time so they quickly took their leave with only a last glance back at their young guardian.

“Obi-Wan,” Jaster called again this time sharper, finally catching his son’s attention before the redhead was able to dash from the room. “What’s going on?”

Frozen in the doorway, Obi-Wan turned and looked at his father. “I have an idea,” he said and Jaster felt a shiver go up his spine at the predatory glint in his eyes. “I need to do a little research but I think-” he took a deep breath before continuing, “I think I know a way to find Jango.”

Jaster felt his heart pound and he stood up to follow Obi-Wan without another word. They went to Obi-Wan’s study, where he kept his Force experiment datapads, the learning modules Yoda had gifted him, and a great number of the Force-texts and items he’d accrued over the years.

After returning his lesson items back to their places with a frivolous flick of the Force, Obi-Wan went to his bookshelf and started digging through his datapads from Yoda. He found the one about the Force nexuses and vergences.

He turned it on and started rapidly paging through until he found the right page.

“Force Vergence, Nexus, or Locus is a naturally occurring concentration of the Force around a place, object, or person…” he mumbled to himself as he scrolled down on the page. “Many Jedi temples were constructed in the middle of a Vergence, such as the mountain called the Sacred Spire, currently home to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant… Yes, I know that. Where is the-”

He flipped the page on the screen and made a small sound of triumph. “Because of the powerful concentration of the Force at a Vergence, many Force-users will use these places to bolster their power and induce visions or premonitions.” A sharp smile curved at Obi-Wan’s mouth and he lifted his head to look at his father.

“I need to find a vergence,” he said to Jaster’s expectant look. “If I can find a relatively neutral oriented one I can use the concentrated Force there to induce a targeted vision. I can make myself have a vision of Jango and find him.”

Hope started to bubble up inside Jaster, but he was cautious. “Is that safe?” he asked. “Would these vergences be anything like a Force filled planet, like Moraband? You said the Force was very concentrated there, but that it was… opinionated.”

He actually described the Force on the Sith home world as being a starved predator, just waiting for a weak, sick creature to step in its territory. Which neither sounded pleasant nor particularly safe.

“Moraband is a Dark side nexus,” Obi-Wan said with a dismissive wave as he pulled another datapad and started flipping through it. “Vergences oriented to one extreme or the other have minds of their own, you could say. I doubt I’d be able to direct the visions I’d receive if I went to Moraband, if I got visions at all and not nightmarish mental torture.”

Yep, Jaster was liking this less and less. Just the thought of Obi-Wan possibly trapped and tortured in his own mind because the Force on a particular planet was being recalcitrant made him sick to his stomach. One of his children was already in pain and beyond him to help. He wouldn’t live if both of them ended up that way.

“You’re not going to the Jedi temple,” Jaster stated more than asked. Though the Jedi themselves may be allies, the temple was on Coruscant where they knew the Sith resided. Performing “big feats” in the Force on Coruscant was too dangerous.

“No, not the temple,” Obi-Wan assured him distractedly as he scrolled down the list of known Force nexuses in the galaxy. “I need one that’s neutral. That hasn’t been swayed toward the Light or the Dark, either naturally or by Force-users. That’s the only way I’ll be able to have any control over what I see.”

He made another sound of triumph and tapped a section on the datapad. “The planet Tython. It’s the only known neutral vexus strong enough to accomplish what I want.”

“Never heard of it,” Jaster muttered as he looked over Obi-Wan’s shoulder and raised a shocked eyebrow at the very rudimentary map on the datapad. “It’s in the Deep Core?”

“Yes, complete with hyperspace lanes lost to time,” Obi-Wan said nonchalantly, his mind already running a mile a minute planning out all the angles of this endeavor. “Or so most of the galaxy believes.”

He looked up from the map and met Jaster’s dubious expression. “It’s the home planet of the Je’daii Order, the predecessor to the Jedi Order. The Je’daii believed in complete balance between the Ashla, the Light, and the Bogan, the Dark. The Jedi Order was created when foreign conquerors tipped the balance on the planet and began a civil war between the Light and the Dark. It’s been pretty consistently abandoned for over 25,000 years. So I’m fairly sure we can assume it’s balanced itself into neutrality once more.”

That last was said with a hint of humor, but Jaster didn’t laugh. “If the hyperspace lanes were lost to time and Tython hasn’t been reliably inhabited for longer than the Republic has been a pain in the galaxy’s neck, how are you going to find it?”

“After the New Sith Wars, I believe a small group of Jedi went on a pilgrimage to find the lost home planet of the Je’daii Order,” Obi-Wan said. “Their travel logs and flight plan should be stored in the Jedi Archives on Coruscant.”

“I get the impression this pilgrimage was never seen or heard from again,” Jaster commented dry as the Mandalorian desert.

“Well, of course not.” Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. “Otherwise the Jedi of the ‘High Republic’ would have tried to colonize it.”

Blowing out a long breath, Jaster fought not to pinch the bridge of his nose. “This does not sound like a very safe endeavor, Obi-Wan. How are you going to get access to the Jedi Archives? I doubt you want the High Council to know what you’re doing.”

His father wasn’t wrong, Obi-Wan didn’t want anyone on the Council knowing what he was doing. Outsiders were only allowed supervised access with permission from the High Council and the Council of First Knowledge. He’d have to explain exactly what he was going to use his research for and the chances of the Sith having eyes and ears in the Jedi already were too great. He didn’t even want to try and rope Yoda into it. The Grand Master had too much contact with the Senate and knew too much as it was.

“I have friends still, in the Order,” he finally said after a moment of thought. “When I get to Coruscant I’ll ask if they’d be willing to help me.”

Jaster’s mouth tightened. He didn’t like the idea of dragging unconnected Jedi into this dangerous search for his Sith captive son. But this might be the last chance they have of finding him. Could he live with himself if he didn’t do all that he could, if he didn’t allow Obi-Wan to do all that he could to find Jango?

“Alright,” he exhaled long and deep, meeting his son’s gaze when it turned back to him.

Jaster took a moment to look into Obi-Wan’s eyes, the ratio of blue-green to yellow was pretty evenly split, and still there was the feeling of a lightning storm hanging about him. He was a powerful Force-user and a great warrior. He was intelligent and kind and determined. Jaster loved him dearly and knew that Obi-Wan was more than capable of doing pretty much anything he put his mind to.

More than that he knew that the continued failure to find Jango had been tearing Obi-Wan up inside. Jaster loved both his boys too much to destroy one and lose the other in an effort to keep Obi-Wan safe from potential danger.

“Alright, but promise me, Obi-Wan,” Jaster said as he grabbed his son by the back of the neck and pressed their foreheads together. “Promise you will be careful and that you contact me the moment you find anything.”

“I will, Buir.” Obi-Wan closed his eyes and sent out his awareness to memorize the warm, loving, protective feel of his father in the Force. “I swear. I’ll be as careful as I can and I will contact you as soon as I have a location.”

That was as much as Jaster could ask for. He let his son go with the knowledge that he might not see him for a long time to come. And when he did, he might not be victorious.

*

Obi-Wan took the fastest route to Coruscant. Meaning he employed his Sith navigation technique flying at hyperspeed outside of the lanes using the Force to guide him. It was very dangerous, but he made the journey in less than three days. Which was the important part.

He entered atmosphere on Coruscant late in the afternoon. He’d parked and rented a room in Little Keldabe by the time evening rolled around. After a moment of debate, he eventually decided expedience trumped politeness and messaged Bant to meet him in the bar below his rented room.

It took her half an hour to respond and another two hours to finally walk through the door. Obi-Wan was sitting in a dark secluded corner of the room with his mask-cowl clipped to his belt and a glass of Corellian whiskey in front of him.

True to form, Bant was intelligent enough to know not to come into Little Keldabe wearing Jedi robes, especially not at night. While almost the entire population of Mandalore knew that the Ad’Alor was a Force-user and a great many of them knew he was a former Jedi, Mandalorians as a whole still looked at their ancientral enemies with suspicion and animosity.

She stepped through the door wearing a long summer dress with large colorful flowers printed on it. She had a light jacket covering her shoulders with a hood attached to cover her face. She looked like any other civilian that accidentally walked into the wrong bar. Though she was wearing her standard Jedi boots, they were innocuous enough and hidden under her ankle length dress.

She paused in the doorway and Obi-Wan was sure he was only one of pretty much every Mandalorian staring at her that could tell she was nervous. He sent her a little poke in the Force and her head turned in his direction. Immediately her cautious expression brightened and she hurried toward him.

Though it seemed like she had taken absolutely no notice her dozens of wary observers, Obi-Wan could feel her unease, the tension she held in the Force. He stood and met her with a warm hug.

It was a twofold move. He comforted his friend and demonstrated to the packed bar that she, an outsider was welcomed by the Ad’Alor.

The wary suspicion quickly shifted to acceptance or indifference though a few still watched them surreptitious out of curiosity more than anything. After all, anyone that held the Ad’Alor’s attention must at least be interesting.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you, Obi-Wan,” Bant breathed out as she held onto him tightly.

Her heart had started racing the moment she noticed the heavy quiet that had fallen in the bar at her arrival. She hadn’t been afraid, per se, she was a fully trained Jedi Knight, Healer though she may be, and she wasn’t sheltered enough to head out into Coruscant at night without her lightsaber hidden on her. But she’d never been to Little Keldabe and for all that her best friend was a Mandalorian, she didn’t trust the open-mindedness of all Mandalorians. Being in Obi-Wan’s arms let her finally relax, she knew he wouldn’t let any of his kinsman try to harm her.

“You too, Bant. I’m sorry for messaging you so late.” They separated from their hug and he gestured for her to slide into the other side of the booth he’d taken. Feeling a curious mind nearby he spotted a waitress in vambraces and pauldrons off to the side.

“Ne’tra gal par ner jatne burc’ya,” he ordered. An ale for my best friend.

The waitress nodded, “Elek, Ad’Alor,” and hurried behind the bar to fill up a pint.

Obi-Wan slid back into his seat and watched out of the corner of his eyes as the waitress whispered to the bartender who whispered to a patron, so on and so forth.

“What did you say to her?” Bant had watched the exchange curiously and was now watching the information train with slight suspicion.

“I ordered an ale for my best friend,” Obi-Wan said with an innocent smile. Bant just raised an eyebrow at him. “Consequently, I also officially put you under my protection. Within the hour most of Little Keldabe will know the lovely Mon Cala female is burc’ya b’Aliit be Mand’alor, a friend of the royal family.”

She huffed, but couldn’t keep a warm smile off her face. “Thank you, Obi-Wan. Though I can take care of myself.”

“I never said otherwise, darling,” he smirked and thanked the waitress when she came with a refill of whiskey for him and Bant’s ale.

She took a sip cautiously and blinked her large eyes in surprise when she tasted both spice and cream. It was very good so she took another sip as she studied her friend. She hasn’t seen him in over three years. Since he came to Coruscant during the Naboo Incident. He looked tired. Like he’d lost weight even with his full suit of armor on. He even had red stubble on his jaw. It looked odd, since she was so used to seeing him on holocalls clean shaven.

This was also the first time she’d seen his full uncovered armor. The last time he’d had breakfast with her he’d come in a long coat designed to conceal his armor and not draw attention. But here, in a little slice of his kingdom in the Core, he and every other sentient in the room was displaying their armor proudly.

It was apparent even to her untrained eye that Obi-Wan’s armor was very unique. It looked like it would afford him much more flexibility then the other styles she could spot in the room and that made sense. He was a former Jedi after all, she imagined he still fought somewhat like a Jedi and his armor would reflect that. It was also painted.

A deep V of what could be brown outlined in green down his chest, though the lighting in the bar wasn’t perfect so it could just be another dark shade. There was bronze on his shoulder pieces and blue and green on his vambraces. What caught her eye most, though, were the symbols on his shoulders. His right shoulder had some kind of animal skull in black, a Mythosaur she recognized, the symbol of Mandalore and the Mand’alor. On his left was a black circle with sharp barbs all pointed in the same direction, it almost looked like an abstract animal of some sort, perhaps a kind of serpent with wings.

Since Obi-Wan had been generous and let her look him up and down, Bant felt it was safe to ask, “What does the symbol on your left shoulder mean? I recognize the Mythosaur, but I’ve never seen that one.”

Bant was startled when a wave of anger burst out of Obi-Wan. It was quickly shared with the Force and her friend was calm once more, but the intensity of it had been shocking. She felt her stomach sink, had her question upset him?

“I apologize, Bant,” Obi-Wan murmured when he saw her wide eyes. “I’m not angry at you. It’s just what the symbol means. The reason I wear it angers me.”

She hesitated before she asked again, “What does it mean?”

He took a deep breath and a large sip of his whiskey before he answered. “Most people who would recognize it, if they recognize it, would say it was the symbol for the Mandalorian Crusaders.”

Slightly disturbed, but more curious Bant didn’t interrupt him.

“It’s actually the symbol one wears when they are on a long hunt.” He paused and a dark look came over his face. “Or marching to war.”

Dread started to pool in her belly, but she was a Jedi Knight and so she released it into the Force. “Which are you wearing it for?”

His eyes met hers and once again they seemed almost cold, icy with anger and determination. “Jango, my brother, he was captured three years ago. I painted this symbol on my armor when I began the hunt to find him.”

Bant sucked in a sharp breath and reached across the table to grab his hand. “Oh, Obi, and you haven't been able to find him?”

He shook his head and turned his hand over to wrap his gloved fingers around her webbed digits. “Someone is hiding him in the Force. A shroud of the Dark side is concealing him from me.”

A shiver went down her spine then. She thought about the odd changes the High Council have been instituting. The sudden emphasis on the old Jedi-Sith wars. The mandatory combat training for Knights and Masters.

Then she looked at her friend and realized why he’d called her so late in the day asking to meet in Little Keldabe, where he had power and control.

“What can I do, Obi-Wan?” she asked drawing a slightly surprised expression from her grim friend. She scoffed at him. “What, you didn’t think you’d have to convince me, did you?”

He released a breathy chuckle and suddenly Bant was swamped with her old friend’s fondness.

“Bant, you are the best friend I could ask for.” His smile was much more genuine for all that it still held a twinge of sadness and anger around the edges.

“Of course, I am,” she said releasing her hold on him and patting his hand. Sitting back she took another drink of her odd yet tasty Mandalorian ale. “Now, tell me what you need.”

Obi-Wan blew out a breath. “I figured out a way to punch through the Dark side concealment,” he told her. “I need a neutral Force nexus to boost my power and hopefully induce targeted visions of where Jango is being held.”

Bant nodded seriously, seeing the logic in her friend’s thought processes. “There aren’t many neutral, balanced nexuses that would be ideal for this, that would be powerful enough.”

“I know, that’s why I called you.” Obi-Wan flashed her a charming smile and she just raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him. He conceded and continued, “I need the old flight coordinates for Tython.”

Bant blinked at him. “That’s… I guess that makes sense, but Obi-Wan, the last group of Jedi to travel to Tython were never heard from again.”

“I know,” he tried to reassure her. “I’m not a Jedi though. And by all accounts the home planet of the Je’daii Order required balance in the Force. I should be fine especially if I’m by myself.”

She huffed at her friend’s stubbornness. “Just because you’re not a Jedi, Obi-Wan, doesn’t mean you have the Darkness required to…” she trailed off when she saw the carefully neutral expression on his face. Then she felt the slight tinge of nervousness in his presence and came to a startling realization.

“Oh great Force, Obi-Wan!” she hissed leaning forward as if anyone was going to try eavesdropping on the Mandalorian Prince. “Have you been dabbling in the Dark side?!”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, slightly agitated. “I’m not dabbling, Bant. I’m-” he hesitated then resigned himself. “I’ve been trained in the Dark side. I use the Dark and Light interchangeably.”

Bant sat back in her seat again and stared at her friend. Studying him harshly, peering at him like she’d never felt the need to before. She looked deep into his presence in the Force and only saw Light. “I don’t see any Darkness inside you.”

“I’m shielding,” Obi-Wan replied. “My teacher taught me how to hide my Darkness even from other Dark side users.”

“How long?” she asked, wondering if this new darkness in her friend had come after his brother was taken and he got desperate or if... if he’d always been Dark and she’d just never noticed.

“I found my Dark side teacher when I was nineteen,” Obi-Wan answered truthfully. “When I left the Order the Force willed that I learn everything I could about the Force itself and the various traditions throughout the galaxy. It wanted me to learn the Light and the Dark. I didn’t start down this path through desperation or selfishness. And I haven’t Fallen,” he said even though he could feel her uncertainty. “Truthfully, ‘falling’ is a bit of a misnomer. The Dark is a choice. It’s not an insurmountable tragedy.”

Bant didn’t know about that. She’d never really put much thought into the Dark side and those that Fell to it. But what she did know was that her best friend had revealed something dangerous to her in the hopes that he’d gain her help. He needed her help.

It hurt that he’d lied to her all these years, but she couldn’t deny that she understood why. The way the Order viewed those that have Fallen was not… not kindly. And Obi-Wan would know that. She remembered when he’d been searching for a master, she remembered the harsh rejections from Master Jinn, how he’d declared that Obi-Wan would Fall to the Dark side because he was a scared, angry little boy.

She also remembered when little Anakin Skywalker first came to the temple. How the old Masters would whisper about his Dark future. About the great risk the Council was taking in training a boy that would most likely Fall and bring ruin upon them all.

Suddenly something occurred to her. “Master Yoda knows, doesn’t he?” Bant pinned Obi-Wan with a look. “He went to Mandalore to teach you all those years ago. And I know you keep in contact with him. He must know.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “He does know. He’s known that I was trained for years, but he hadn’t witnessed my Darkness until we saw each other on Naboo. He and Master Windu and the rest of the High Council are aware that I use the Dark side.”

Are aware and are letting it slide, Bant wondered why. Then she looked at her friend and figured it out fairly easily. They didn’t want war with Mandalore. Smart of them. She had no doubt that Obi-Wan was so well loved among his people that if the Jedi tried to capture or - Force forbid - kill him the entirety of the system would rise up and wage war to protect their prince.

And that reminded her that this was her friend. Who sent her those awful Lol-tooka holonet memes, that ate cooked seafood like a heathen, that always answered her messages and comms with a friendly smile and a kind word.

“Alright, Obi-Wan,” she said with a deep breath and a determined frown on her wide brow. “I’m still mad that you lied to me for years,” she pointed a webbed finger at him, then softened her expression, “but I’ll do everything I can to help you find your brother.”

Obi-Wan’s face lit up in a thankful smile and his love for her shone in the Force like a beacon. Bant sighed and returned the smile and the love in equal if exasperated measure.

Really she had the most ridiculous friends. And what did that say about her, she wondered wryly, though not all that particularly bothered.

*

TBC...

Chapter Text

After Bant left to go back to the temple that evening, Obi-Wan paid for their drinks and went up to his room to meditate. Which he did for the entire night. He was restless. Ready to hit space to Tython. Ready to finally find his brother.

He got a message from Bant in the morning saying she’d most likely have the information for him by that evening so he had a full day to kill on Coruscant before he could begin his journey.

The first place he went was the Goran, the Armorer in Little Keldabe. He knew Jaster would want to get a report on how their expatriates were fairing so deep in the Core. Unfortunately it wasn’t exactly great news.

“The Judicials have taken to doing surprise inspections,” the Goran told him, her displeasure and discontent strong enough to make it through her beskar helmet. “Of course we keep nothing Republic illegal where they could possibly find it, but they’ve arrested several of our beroyase that make this a regular stop off.”

That didn’t surprise Obi-Wan. The beroyase, the bounty hunters, had a tendency to ignore a weapon’s legality when it came to the tools of their trade. “Are they still in custody?” Obi-Wan asked roughly rubbing at his stubble covered chin.

The Goran nodded stiffly and hit her hammer down on a chest plate a little harder than she meant to. “We do not have the funds to bail all of them out. We prioritized the ones with ade to care for. There are still a dozen in jail.”

“I’ll transfer you funds,” Obi-Wan said immediately. “How much are the bails posted for?”

The Goran stated a figure and Obi-Wan’s brow creased in rage. The normal bails for simple weapons charges were nowhere near that high. This was a targeted attack. And it enraged Obi-Wan.

“It’s not a problem,” he said when the Goran glanced up at him perhaps feeling his change in demeanor despite his face staying fairly level. “I’ll contact the Mand’alor. Get the funds transferred today. Is there anything else that the Republic is doing to our people?”

Apparently it was all subtle things. Things that could just be a cracking down on crime, a shift in economics that would effect everyone above or below a certain income bracket. Rents being raised, denial of public benefits, harassment at the spaceports, surprise inspections for in going and out going ships. Thankfully, his people were smart. They were keeping as well out of trouble as they could. The civilian Mandalorians didn’t take their business outside of Little Keldabe if they could help it and so were avoiding a great many of the malicious restrictions and taxes leveled at them.

“I’m sorry our people are suffering here in the Core,” Obi-Wan said sincere and displeased. “The Republic cannot strike at Mandalore’s heart and so they are striking at you. I apologize on behalf of the Aliit be Mand’alor. Ni ceta.”

“N’enyte,” the Goran said immediately leveling her helmet at him in a surprisingly expressive scolding gesture. “We are at war,” she told him plainly, brooking no argument. “It might be a cold and subtle war, but we all know the one that took the Ven’Alor is allied with the Republic. The Mand’alor has not called on us yet to avenge our Ven’Alor, but when he does we will answer. Solus verde par solus verd¹.”

Obi-Wan’s mouth twitched in a sharp smile at the familiar phrase and he nodded in understanding. “Solus verd par solus verde,” he gave the customary response.

United warriors for the lone warrior, and the lone warrior for all warriors.

It was an old saying. One from an ancient Mandalorian folk tale about a band of warriors who’s loyalty to each other was only surpassed by their loyalty to their Mand’alor. Ironically, the villain of the tale was an evil sorcerer that had enchanted the Mand’alor to be his puppet on the throne. The sorcerer was too strong to fight head on, so the warriors had to strike at him in other more clever ways. Weakening the sorcerer until they were able to battle and eventually vanquish him.

It was a strangely apt reference from the Goran for their current situation. Obi-Wan wondered if she’d somehow guessed the identity of their true enemy or perhaps she was more Force-sensitive than he’d first thought and had been able to feel the growing Darkness in the galaxy.

Either way, Obi-Wan had learned to never underestimate the Gorane and their insights. They always knew more than they let on and were far wiser than you’d assume.

Leaving the Little Keldabe forge, Obi-Wan returned to his room to arrange for the funds to release their arrested beroyase and speak with his father about the developments in the Core. It was not a pleasant conversation.

Obi-Wan did not hear from Bant until late afternoon. She said she found what he needed and would bring it to him in Little Keldabe, to the bar they’d met in the previous night.

He was waiting for her in the same booth. When she stepped in wearing civilian trousers and a light flowy blouse with the same hooded jacket, Bant garnered far fewer suspicious looks than she had the night before.

Sliding into the booth across from him she smiled at the waitress who immediately dropped off a pint of Mandalorian ale then turned a frown on Obi-Wan when they were alone again.

“You better make this up to me, Obi-Wan, I had to call in a favor from Quinlan to get the information you needed.”

Obi-Wan frowned at that. “What do you mean? It should have been in the regular archives. It was just a pilgrimage.”

“It wasn’t,” she said, voice lowering. “The official entry claimed it was a pilgrimage, but there was a notation for supplementary documentation and when I looked up the call numbers they came from the classified, Shadow and High Council only Archives.”

“Ah,” he nodded in understanding. “That’s why you called Quinlan. You asked for his authorization codes.”

She nodded with a slight displeased wrinkle to her nose. “You know how I dislike owing Quinlan. He was very curious about why I needed documents about a Shadow mission almost as old as the Reformation.”

“Just tell him I asked for it,” Obi-Wan said with a huff and a fond roll of his eyes for their troublesome friend. “I’ll owe him one instead. You’re doing this for me after all.”

That seemed to anger her more. “Shut up, Obi-Wan. Just let your friends help you.”

“Alright.” He raised his hands in surrender. “Alright. Thank you, Bant. You are the best of friends.”

“Of course,” she sniffed at him then pulled a data-stick from her pocket and passed it to him. “That’s everything I found about the ‘pilgrimage’ to Tython. It’s got flight logs and the estimated flight path through the Deep Core. So as long as you’re careful it should get you there without too much trouble.”

“Thank you, Bant,” he said again closing his hand around the data-stick and discretely securing it in a pouch on his belt. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me. I owe you, you and Quinlan both. Mandalore owes you.”

Her coral cheeks darkened and her presence in the Force went a little flustered. “Stop. Just give me the royal treatment when I eventually visit Mandalore and we’ll call it even.”

Obi-Wan just smiled and shook his head. “That’s not how it works, Bant. Mando’ad yaimpar entye. A Mandalorian pays his debts. Whether it’s betrayal or assistance, a Mandalorian always repays the debt.” She opened her mouth as if to protest and he cut her off. “It’s a matter of honor. You’ve given us invaluable help and so Mandalore will forever be thankful.”

Bant realized she couldn’t argue with him after that. “Alright, fine, Obi-Wan. Just do me a favor?” He nodded solemnly. “Be careful. The galaxy is growing darker and more dangerous. I worry about all my silly male friends.”

He joined her in a chuckle and easily, slightly untruthfully, agreed. They parted ways soon after. Bant to head back at the temple and Obi-Wan to get ready for his journey to the Center of the Galaxy.

*

The files Bant copied from the Jedi Archives about Master Valenthyne Farfalla’s fictional pilgrimage to Tython were interesting and painted a more concerning picture of what Obi-Wan might find when he finally reached his destination.

Apparently, the Jedi temple had been infiltrated by a Sith presumably, based on the time period, Darth Bane’s Apprentice. Master Farfalla and four other Jedi had tracked her and an accomplice through the Deep Core to Tython. Contact had been lost between them and the temple after they breached the planet’s atmosphere and were caught in a Force-storm. A phenomena almost completely unique to Tython, when the balance between the Light and the Dark tipped one way or the other on the planet. After communication was lost it was never regained and another more covert team was dispatched to investigate.

They found Master Farfalla and his team’s dead bodies and a very unbalanced and inhospitable Tython. They collected their dead and abandoned the planet. The report was buried in the Shadow Archives and long since forgotten about.

Obi-Wan thought it was safe to assume that Darth Bane’s Apprentice, Darth Zannah he knew she was called, had escaped with her life. It surely would have been mentioned in the files if the Jedi had recovered a Sith corpse as well. Not to mention that Obi-Wan himself could claim lineage to Darth Bane so obviously the line endured.

At one point in history there had been hyperspace lanes mapped out through the Deep Core, but they were lost and forgotten many millennia ago. The Jedi had recorded a sub-light path carved toward Tython with several notes about avoiding asteroid fields and other deep space obstacles before they found the planet.

Obi-Wan was tempted to place Mandalorian hyperspace markers for future use, but anyone else venturing into the Deep Core would pick up their signal and know that the Mando’ade had been there first. It was better if he just recorded his flight path in excruciating detail and left reforging hyperspace lanes for a less precarious time.

The way the Jedi wrote only a few decades after the Reformation was interesting. It was poetic and florid and had prose tinge a deeper purple than one should see outside of an epic ballad. At one point he had to squint at the holo-copy of the hand-notated flimsy map to be able to interpret the warning on that one section of the journey. It literally said, “Here, there be dragons.” Which… not exactly helpful.

There were a number of creatures that lived and thrived in the vacuum of space and any one of them could be considered “dragons”, a disconcerting amount were even known for seeing a space-ship and thinking “food”.

In this case the dragons were a school of Purrgil. A relatively small one, only about dozen of the large semi-sentient tentacled space-whales, but still an obstacle that deserved more detail than here, there be dragons. Purrgil weren’t dangerous in that they’d outright attack a spaceship, they were dangerous in that they could fly through hyperspace and were known to actually run into ships that drifted in their flight paths.

Obi-Wan white-knuckled his ship’s steering the entire time he was flying through the school until he was well out of their range. Every single one of those Purrgil were about four times the size of his small ship. If one of them had disliked him being so close, he would have been screwed.

So yes, the journey from Coruscant to Tython took nearly six days when in terms of distance it should have taken two. He wanted to get to the planet in one piece and so slow and steady it was as he made his way through the unexplored and perilous Deep Core.

On the morning of the sixth day Obi-Wan finally descended through Tython’s atmosphere to set foot on the home world of the Je’daii Order.

The whole planet was deserted. That he knew from the moment he’d spotted it through his view screen. It wasn’t devoid of life, though. There were the life signs of animals and of course the thriving energy of plants on the planet. He circled the planet searching for some clue to perhaps an old ruined Je’daii temple and could only find what appeared to be a large altar atop a giant hill.

He landed about a click away. He half expected a Force-storm to surge up, a sign that he’d tipped the balance one way or the other. There was nothing but a gentle breeze as his ship’s ramp lowered. When he turned to see it in the light of the sun he realized that what he’d first thought was an altar was actually more of a henge.

Force-henges were very old sites of worship for various Force-traditions. They were often precursors to traditional temples constructed over minor Force vergences or nexuses.

Obi-Wan made sure he had his weapons and a pack of emergency supplies as he set off toward the henge on the hill. As he walked he could feel the planet examining him, so to speak. The Light side of the Force caressed over him curiously and the Dark side prodded him, almost suspicious. He felt two distinct pulls from high above, out of atmosphere and he realized they were coming from the planet’s two moons, invisible in the daylight. Ashla Bathed in Light, and Bogan Shrouded in Darkness.

Obi-Wan didn’t feel drawn to either one over the other and figured that was a fairly good indicator that he was in balance with the Force, at least at the moment. It was why he hadn’t been met with a Force-storm upon entering the planet. He didn’t disrupt its balance.

The walk took him almost two hours and by the time he got up to the top of the hill he was practically buzzing with anticipation and Force energy. The Force was so strong on Tython. It was also very wild, very pure. He’d never felt anything quite like it. The only thing he could compare it too was landing on Moraband for the first time. And still Moraband had been obviously Dark. Tython was neither Light nor Dark and so it felt… more somehow. He hesitated to say stronger, but perhaps wild had been the best descriptor after all. Tython was wild while Moraband and the Sacred Spire, the mountain top on which the Coruscant Jedi Temple was built upon, were both tamed to one extreme or the other.

Tython actually reminded him a bit of how Manda’yaim was beginning to feel after it had started to heal. Though Manda’yaim had more personality than Tython. Tython was pure wildness, like a force of nature. Manda’yaim was akin to a wild animal, not ambiguous in its wildness, it had something like motivation, purpose.

At the top of the massive hill, there was a ring of six, twenty foot tall standing stones leaning inward propped against stones half that size. In the center was a large rounded altar stone. There were faded circles of runes carved into the stone and into the rough paving stones surrounding it. The moment Obi-Wan stepped into the circle everything went quiet.

It was eerie, but he’d been in enough abandoned and ruined temples to know that places with very strong connections to the Force acted oddly sometimes.

He dropped his emergency supply bag at the edge of the circle and reached up to unfasten his mask-cowl. Even though the cortosis-beskar alloy of his cowl and mask didn’t block him from the Force there was a greater chance of this working if there was nothing potentially muddying his connection.

Clipping his mask to his belt he took a deep breath and walked over to the stone. The Seeing Stone. Often these stones were placed at the very center of the nexus or the temple or the henge. They weren’t always the axis of the Force power, but they were usually the center of worship.

Obi-Wan couldn’t decipher the runes around the Seeing Stone, but he figured it didn’t matter much. He knew what he had to do. Seating himself atop it he folded his body into a comfortable meditation pose and slowly, carefully dropped every one of his shields, one after the other.

In a matter of breaths he was completely and totally open to the Force in ways he hadn’t been since he’d learned his first rudimentary shields in the Creche. The Dark side flooded into him, filling him up and over flowing, drowning him with no sign of stopping. At the same time he expanded out into the Light and immediately lost track of himself as an individual. The Force on Tython and especially here in the henge was so concentrated and powerful that if the two opposing aspects of it weren’t warring with each other over him he probably would have dissolved into the Force entirely.

It was a terrifying thought, but he didn’t have time to be scared. He had to find his brother.

Where is my brother? Show me my brother. Jango. Ori’vod. Where are you?

The Force answered his call as soon as he’d made it. Obi-Wan felt stabbed in the heart. Like the Force itself had thrust a spear through his chest. A spear made of light that pierced not just him but the thin mist of darkness shrouding the entire galaxy.

He felt like he was flying through hyperspace. Like he was a Purrgil living in the vacuum and just making his own way through the galaxy. He couldn’t see anything but stars. Couldn’t recognize constellations or planets or systems. All he knew was that he was far away in the galaxy. Far away from his body.

Then he saw a planet. It was entirely blue with water. Not a single speck of landmass. He needed to see closer though. He didn’t see a defining feature, anything. There were a thousand aquatic planets in the galaxy. He needed to know what made this one unique if he wanted to be able to find it.

Heeding his desire the Force showed him a city. A city on stilts in the middle of a raging ocean storm. No, not a city. It was a facility. One large building, a dome with a sweeping tower atop it, connected to two smaller dome buildings. Large enough to house a small city of its own. Not unlike the Jedi Temple, Obi-Wan thought absently as he studied the design of the buildings, memorizing the architecture to research later.

Jango. He thought again. I want to see Jango.

Then he was looking into Jango’s eyes. His brother was laying on a medical table of some sort, the bright white lights almost painful after the dark of space and the stormy sky of the planet. There were tubes hooked into Jango’s arms, his blood flowing from his body. He had a patch of shaved hair near his temple and an old biopsy scar. He looked thin, too thin and his warm brown eyes were hopeless and dazed.

Obi-Wan couldn’t see any other beings in the room, though he could tell they were there. He’d asked to see Jango. He hadn’t asked to see his captors. That’s okay. Obi-Wan would rescue his brother regardless.

I’m coming, Jango, he thought fierce and determined. Hang on just a little longer.

Jango’s eyes blinked slow, then they seemed to clear for a second, his brow furrowing as if confused.

“Obi’ika?”

Obi-Wan sucked in a harsh breath as he was abruptly dropped back into his body on Tython. His head spun and for a moment he thought he really was going to dissolved into the Force until he threw up a shaky, porous mental shield and regained an absolute minimum of equilibrium. That was when he realized he was encased in a tunnel of Force energy. Blinking to clear his vision and his mind, Obi-Wan glanced up and saw that the tunnel shot straight up into the sky through the atmosphere.

He needed to stop, he realized. No telling how long he’d been meditating on the Seeing Stone but the longer he sat there immersed in the Force the greater chance other Force-users in the galaxy would notice the immense exertion he was expending.

As fast and as careful as he could, Obi-Wan began raising his shields. First he erected the shields he learned as a child, the easiest to maintain and the easiest to build. Then he worked layer by layer until finally the Force tunnel dissipated and he was once again wholly in the mortal plane. His body felt like he’d been beaten and his head was still spinning, but he had what he needed.

He knew how to find his brother.

*

Obi-Wan, now confident in his ability not to kill himself traveling back to the known Core, used the days in space to research as best he could. What he discovered was a disconcerting lack of information. All he had to go on was the architecture of the buildings he saw on the aquatic planet and if it was not a Republic planet there was probably a severe lack of records to be found on the holonet. And it was looking more and more likely Jango’s prison was not located in the Republic.

After an hour of thought and meditation, Obi-Wan input the coordinates for Alderaan. Alderaan was considered one of greatest galactic centers for the arts and culture. If there was an esoteric collection of texts about water world architecture anywhere it would be there.

Once he exited the Deep Core back into the plain old Core, the trip to Alderaan took a day in hyperspace. He entered atmosphere in the early afternoon and docked at the public hangar in the capital city of Aldera.

The first place he went once he disembarked and paid the parking fee was the Aldera Public Archives. Which, of course was when he bumped into some trouble.

“Sir, I cannot let you into a public building so armed,” the security guard was surprisingly stern in the face of Obi-Wan’s expressionless mask and his intimidating armor and weaponry.

“Weapons are a part of my religion,” he said, allowing his accent to sound more like his father and brother’s. Though his Concord Dawn lilt would always have a bit of a High Coruscanti hitch to it. “I was under the impression that Alderaan supported freedom of religion.”

He really didn’t want to be that guy, but there was no way he was disarming himself. Even though his lightsaber was shielded and hidden from view he was not going to trust his beskad, blaster, vibro knife, or throwing shivs to the dubious security lock up at a public library.

“We do fully support freedom of religion,” the guard said and Obi-Wan had to respect him for standing his ground, no matter how inconvenient it was, “when it does not threaten anyone else’s safety.”

“I’m not going to shoot anyone in a library,” Obi-Wan growled growing progressively more frustrated. “I just want to go about my business and do my research.”

“And you can certainly do that. When you check-in your weaponry with security.”

Obi-Wan had been high strung for the last three years. He was this kriffing close to finding his brother and this shabuir was standing in his way. His anger roiled through him and Obi-Wan’s hand suddenly twitched to his blaster.

A flash of alarm and curiosity from somewhere nearby was distracting enough he was able to get a hold of himself. Obi-Wan turned his head and saw a young man maybe five years older than him watching their exchange. He had dark hair and eyes and was dressed in expensive Alderaanian style clothes with various details and designs that were prevalent among the aristocracy.

And he was staring at Obi-Wan. When he realized that he had Obi-Wan’s attention the young man walked over. He nodded his head to the stern security guard.

“It’s alright, Guard Trembly. Ad’Alor Kenobi has diplomatic exception. I’ll escort him into the Archives.”

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow at this newcomer. He didn’t immediately recognize him, but there were a lot of aristocracy in the galaxy. That didn’t mean much. Though he must be of some import and deal with galactic powers fairly regularly if he was knowledgeable enough to recognize Obi-Wan by his armor alone.

“Of course, your Highness,” the guard bowed his head respectfully. “If you need anything, we’ll be right there.”

“Thank you,” his Highness nodded, smiling blandly at his subject. Obi-Wan studied his impromptu savior as he turned to toward him. “If you will please follow me.”

Unwilling to look a gift striil in the mouth, Obi-Wan simply nodded his head and followed the apparent member of Alderaanian royalty into the Archives.

“I must confess that you have me at a disadvantage.”

His escort paused when they came to a relatively secluded study alcove and turned a practiced though amused smile on him. “I’m Prince Consort Bail Organa of Alderaan,” he said. “Also Senator to the Republic for Alderaan.”

“Ah,” Obi-Wan pressed his fist to his chest in a respectful salute to one of equal status. “Pleasure to meet you. As you know, I’m Ad’Alor Obi-Wan Kenobi of Mandalore.”

Prince Organa bowed regally in a respectful greeting of his own. “The Royal Family was unaware of your presence here in our home city. We would have been happy to grant you any access you wanted, had we realized.”

In other words, what are you doing on my planet?

“I’m not here in any official capacity,” Obi-Wan said. “I’m simply wanted to indulge in a current fascination I’ve developed in architecture.”

Obi-Wan was impressed by Organa’s natural mental shielding, especially for a man as close to Force-null as him, but he could still tell that the prince was skeptical of his claim. He didn’t press however.

“Well, you are of course more than welcome to any information we have here,” Organa offered gesturing to the archive at large. “If you can’t find what you’re looking for don’t hesitate to tell me. It would be our pleasure to allow you access to the Royal Archives in the palace.”

It was tempting to immediately accept the offer, but Obi-Wan didn’t want that type of scrutiny. If he could he wanted to keep the information he found here as obscure and discrete as possible. He had no doubt the Royal Archives would be heavily monitored.

“Thank you for the generous offer, but I’m sure your Public Archives will have everything I need.” His polite smile was invisible behind his mask but it was audible in his tone.

Organa accepted this graciously with another bow of his head. “In that case I’ll leave you to your research. Again please come find me if you need anything, I’ll most likely be in the political history section.”

They parted ways then. Obi-Wan watching the prince disappear into the stacks. He felt a flicker of caution in the Force and stretched his awareness. Smartly the prince had alerted someone, probably their intelligence agency to his presence and he was now being passively monitored.

No bother, he’d planned on having to employ some misdirection in his research anyway. A small measure of spying would be no hindrance to his goal.

Finding the card catalog went quickly. Though card catalog was a misleading term since there hadn’t been a physical catalog in any archive in the galaxy for a thousand years but the term had stuck around. He tapped away at the console at the front of the archives inputting keywords and search terms. Finally he had the section for architecture and several call-numbers for datapads and texts about various building designs found on mono-geographical planets.

Research had always been his strong suit so it was a matter of fifteen minutes before he was ensconced at a secluded table with a stack of relevant and not relevant datapads at his elbow. He’d taken a wide selection to disguise his actual interest. There was a datapad about architecture on Kashyyyk, one about the commonalities found in most Jedi temples, and one on the building practices of the Mon Calamari.

The one he was really interested was an encyclopedic reference text on aquatic planet architecture. It boasted entries on every single planet found in the galaxy with at least a 90% ratio of water to land, not just the Republic.

He wasted about thirty minutes skimming through several other texts before he turned to the encyclopedia.

Unfortunately not every entry had a holo example of the architecture so Obi-Wan had to start a list of planets to find more information on. He kept it to just the ones that only currently supported life, not any with long dead populations. Planets that were entirely covered in water. And planets that received a lot of storms. He got the impression from his vision that the stormy sky and choppy seas were the norm for Jango’s prison.

Obi-Wan got up to return and pull out more datapads three times before he finally found what he was looking for.

It was a small entry in a text about planets that were forced to radically reinvent their architectural design due to various environmental disasters.

There was a small holo of the capital city, large dome buildings on stilts with swooping towers standing above a vast ocean with dark gray storm clouds in the sky. Next to the picture was a very short blurb about the planet.

Kamino is an aquatic planet located beyond the Outer Rim, often considered extra-galactic for it’s position past the rim. Some time around 18,000 BRR, the planet Kamino experienced a dramatic shift in climate causing the entire world to be flooded. The Kaminoans adapted by building their cities on stilts. The buildings themselves are most often shaped like domes, some with towers. These rounded structures were chosen because the planet experiences rain storms 90% of the year with only…

This was it, Obi-Wan realized blinking at the picture. Kamino. Jango was being held on Kamino. An aquatic world beyond the Outer Rim.

With as much calm and casualness as he could muster, Obi-Wan kindly put all his datapads and texts away, cleaned up his study area, and went to find the prince.

Prince Organa was lounging in an armchair flipping through a datapad when Obi-Wan stepped into his private nook. He knocked on the shelf near him in an approximation of politely announcing his presence. Organa immediately glanced up from his text and offered him a practiced smile.

“Can I help you with something after all?”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “No, thank you, I’ve found everything I was interested in.”

“In that case would you like to join the Queen and I at the palace for late-meal? We would be honored to host you, Ad’Alor.” The prince’s offer was genuine if perhaps exaggerated somewhat, but Obi-Wan declined.

“Unfortunately, Alderaan was meant to be a quick leisurely stopover. The Mand’alor is expecting me back on Mandalore soon.”

“Ah,” Prince Organa smiled and nodded easily, whether he believed Obi-Wan or not, he couldn’t tell. “Our loss then. Though, I hope you know the Aliit be Mand’alor is always welcome to visit Alderaan.”

It was interesting, Obi-Wan thought absently, which planetary rulers made the effort to learn the correct form of addresses in Mando’a and which didn’t. It was disappointingly few, and Obi-Wan always found that the ones that put in the effort were the better rulers.

“The Mand’alor would be happy to host you and Queen Breha on Mandalore should you ever choose to visit,” he replied truthfully enough. Jaster loved intelligent, polite visitors.

Organa nodded with a more genuine smile. “Let me show you out.”

The two princes spent the short walk to the outside in polite small talk. When they were set to part at the outer entrance stairs, Prince Organa turned to Obi-Wan as they said goodbye.

“I’m glad our archives were able to help you find what you needed.”

Obi-Wan gave him a deep nod of the head and a respectful salute of his fist pressed over his heart. “Mandalore will remember the kindness of Alderaan’s Prince.”

Then he turned away and quickly disappeared into the crowd back toward his ship. Prince Bail Organa watched him go with a thoughtful frown.

*

TBC...

Chapter Text

The moment Obi-Wan was far enough from Alderaan that his communications couldn’t be intercepted he contacted Mandalore. He demanded their most recent galactic maps for the Outer Rim and the Rishi Maze specifically. It took him an hour, flying at sub-light to maintain contact, but he figured out the general heading for where Kamino was supposed to be. Then he ordered a battalion of Supercommnados to follow him from Mandalore to Kamino.

He didn’t know what kind of resistance he would find there. He didn’t know who was keeping Jango prisoner for the Sith. If the Kaminoans were the ones in league with the Sith or if their planet and their structures were simply convenient locations. It didn’t matter.

Obi-Wan didn’t want to leave traces of his true intentions in Alderaan, so he didn’t research the Kaminoans past learning they were fairly insular and semi-aquatic. That’s why he was traveling ahead of the Supercommandos by half a week of hyperspace travel.

No matter how desperate he was to rescue his bother, Obi-Wan wasn’t going to let their people, their warriors walk into an unknown situation. He was the advance, the scout. It was his job to infiltrated the facility Jango was being kept and discover their security, man power, weaponry. Pretty much everything they needed to know to kill everyone and get back their Ven’Alor.

It was a long journey from Alderaan to Kamino. Obi-Wan plotted the shortest, quickest route he could, but still he was looking at six maybe even seven days and two hyperspace lane changes. The Supercommando battalion coming behind him will be taking pretty much the same route starting in the Hydian Way hyperspace lane, but they were coming from almost a quarter of a galaxy further away.

Obi-Wan would have about three days to scout out the facility he saw in his vision and find Jango before their commandos would arrive and, assuming all went to plan, their assault could commence.

He spent the days in hyperspace meditating. In the Light and in the Dark, though the Dark came easier to him with how angry and scared and vengeful he felt. It was hard to keep himself balanced now that he knew he was going to see Jango along with the evidence of whatever kind of torture the Sith had subjected him to.

And he also had time to wonder, why exactly the Sith had taken Jango. He’d thought about it for the last three years. Jaster and he had been locked in private conversations trying to figure out the Sith’s angle for taking Jango instead of just killing him. Certainly the abrupt disappearance of Mandalore’s much beloved and respected Ven’Alor was demoralizing, but it wasn’t as if it had actually weakened them much.

On the contrary it had caused them to strengthen themselves at somewhat of an alarming rate. Not to mention the subtle political and economic warfare the Mandalorians had started against the Sith and their allies. It just didn’t make sense to keep Jango alive.

Maul hadn’t even had any insights into his former master’s thought process. It made more sense that Sidious would have taken Jango, placed Sith traps and compulsions in his mind and then returned him to Mandalore to be his unwilling agent. Especially since the Sith Master didn’t know that the Ad’Alor was a Sith himself and would have been able to detect and destroy such mental tampering in his brother.

For the six days of space travel to Kamino, Obi-Wan thought about this, the Force itself seemed to think it was an important topic to contemplate, but in the end he figured it didn’t matter. His ship dropped out of hyperspace above a deep blue planet covered in dark gray, almost black storm clouds.

The moment he saw Kamino, Obi-Wan felt the pull. His connection to Jango, practically Force-null though his brother may be, guiding him around the planet and through the atmosphere toward a very familiar facility. Before he’d dropped below the storm cloud, Obi-Wan engaged his ship’s cloaking and detection prevention features. He’d left Mandalore in one of the Haat Mando’ad stealth ships, so when he cleared the storms and spotted the exact facilities his visions on Tython had showed him, Obi-Wan was undetectable to pretty much any short range air surveillance.

One thing about the ship he’d chosen from the Haat Ad fleet was that it was designed to land and dock in very precarious places. So he was able to lower his small ship to the sloping roof of the main building, engage the suction and magnetic landing gear and secure it to the base of the swooping tower.

His armor was already on, his mask-cowl sealed and secure, his weapons, habitual and additional, clipped and holstered on his body. He made sure he had at least rudimentary med supplies in his belt pouches then opened the small, one person hatch in the ceiling of his ship. Immediately rain water poured inside and he gritted his teeth. This was going to be an unpleasant climb.

Pulling himself up out of his ship, Obi-Wan crouched on the roof and closed the hatch behind him. Then he peered up at the tower and leaped with the Force. He hit the side of the tower about twenty feet above his ship and climbed another fifteen feet using the very thin seams in the durasteel construction and the Force to keep himself from slipping off and plunging into the roiling ocean below.

In ten minutes of inching his way along the tower he found a ventilation intake shaft large enough for him to fit into. Clinging to the slipper side of the tower with the Force and his gloved fingertips, Obi-Wan unclipped his lightsaber and ignited the indigo-violet blade. The rain water hissed and sizzled as it hit the plasma blade sending little wisps of steam rising up and dissipating. He thrust his lightsaber into the outer edge of the vent cover and sliced away the grate in short order. The rain made his climb precarious, but it also cooled the molten metal around the now open shaft. Obi-Wan slipped into the ventilation with little trouble, his lightsaber deactivated and clipped back at his side.

He climbed his way through the ventilation system not looking for Jango specifically, but following the urging of the Force that had gotten progressively more insistent the deeper into the building he went.

That was how he got his first glimpse of a Kaminoan.

They were odd looking creatures. Definitely semi-aquatic, but the thing that stuck out to Obi-Wan was that they were so… quiet and bland in the Force. They almost read like inanimate objects from a distance. Only the most ambient of Force penetration afforded to them as living beings was present. It was disconcerting and he didn’t immediately know why a whole race of beings would present this way in the Force.

Not that it was important right then, especially not when he realized what it was they were doing in this facility.

He almost couldn’t believe his eyes as he stared through the ventilation grate into some sort of lab. There were tanks of specimens. Human specimens. Infants and children, all dead and all floating in blue preservation liquid. It made his stomach turn. And when he realized that the dead children floating in the tanks were all identical, Obi-Wan felt rage start building inside him.

Cloners. These Kaminoans were cloners and if the strangely familiar resemblance of those dead children meant anything, they were cloning Jango.

His breathing was coming fast and Obi-Wan felt a prodding in the Force. Open yourself, it seemed to say. Reach out with the Force. He did just that and what he discovered made his heart start pounding like a war drum in his chest.

There were over a thousand beings in this facility and only about twenty of them felt like Kaminoans. Most of the rest were bright little lights in the Force. Some of the presences were definitely adults, but he couldn’t spare the time to explore that closer while in the vents. All he needed to know was that there was over a thousand more sentient beings, young sentients beings, children, in this facility and he knew with a bone deep surety that they were clones. Clones of Jango Fett, his lost brother.

He needed to find Jango. He needed to find him now before his rage grew so great he started shaking the facility on its stilts.

Casting out his awareness Obi-Wan felt among those thousand lights one muddled, twisted presence. It was unnaturally steeped in shadow and it struggled against the taint as if it was slowly suffocating under the tendrils of Darkness, but it continued to fight anyway.

He moved in that direction and didn’t stop crawling through the vents until he found the tiny, barely livable pair of rooms the presence was kept in. Obi-Wan looked down through the grate into the main room of the apartment and felt his throat tighten.

It was Jango. He was thin, too thin, like he’d been in the vision. His skin seemed sallow, sickly, and his eyes had a dazed feverish look to them. Obi-Wan wanted to jump down and grab his brother and run. But he couldn’t. There two beings in the room with Jango. A Kaminoan drawing his blood and a Mandalorian holding him at blaster point.

That snapped the last thread on Obi-Wan’s precarious control. A Mandalorian in Death Watch colors and insignias was holding his brother hostage with cloners. Dar’manda, he swore silently, demagolka. He and his compatriots, of which Obi-Wan could now tell there were fifteen in the building, beskar muffling several of their presences apparent now that he knew to look for them. They would die.

The Dark was filling him up, boiling inside him like the rainstorm outside, and as a result the blood in Obi-Wan’s ears was rushing so loud he couldn’t hear the conversation being traded over Jango’s apathetic head. The cloner and the dar’manda had some sort of exchange, but Obi-Wan didn’t pay attention. He just waited until they were both gone from the tiny apartment, another dar’manda stepping out of the second room in the apartment to follow the other two out the door.

The lock on the outside door engaged and Obi-Wan waited another moment until he felt the two dar’manda grow bored standing guard in the hall and the Kaminoan drift away.

Jango had just started to sluggishly struggle out of his seat when Obi-Wan ignited his lightsaber and sliced through the grate in vicious swipes. The grate fell to the floor with a clatter startling Jango who clumsily shifted into a fighting stance, swaying on his feet.

Then Obi-Wan dropped from the ceiling and deactivated his lightsaber. He and Jango stared at each other for a long tense moment until recognition, slow and lethargic came to Jango and he actually collapsed to his knees.

“Obi-Wan,” he breathed, letting out a breathy sob and Obi-Wan lunged for him grabbing him up in a painful hug. Jango wrapped his shaking arms around his armored brother. “Obi-Wan, you came.”

“Of course I did, Jango,” Obi-Wan rasped through the vocorder in his mask. Then frustrated by the distance, he pulled back and practically tore his mask-cowl off. His hair was a slightly damp mess falling in his face and his eyes were teary as he looked upon his brother for the first time in three years.

“We didn’t stop looking, Jango,” he rushed out as he grabbed Jango by the face and pressed their foreheads together. “Buir and I never stopped hunting for you.”

“I know, I know,” Jango panted as he kept his eyes pinned in Obi-Wan’s, one thin trembling hand tangled in his brother’s hair and the other curled painfully tight over the edge of his pauldron. “I knew you would find me. The Darjetii said you would never be able to, but I knew.”

At the mention of the Sith, the Dark surged through Obi-Wan and he tensed, his eyes completely golden-yellow as he stared into Jango’s glassy gaze. That’s when he finally noticed the streaks of yellow in Jango’s brown eyes. He shouldn’t have any connection to the Dark, Obi-Wan thought angered. Jango wasn’t Force-sensitive. That meant the Sith had done something to him.

Of course, they had. They would have had to or else Jango would have killed his way to freedom the first chance he got. Right now, though, if Obi-Wan wanted a hope of getting Jango home whole and hale he needed to purge any and every trace of the Banite Sith from his brother’s mind.

“Jango, you need to relax,” he murmured gentling his hold on his brother’s head. “I need to look into your mind, but you need to let me in. If you fight me, the Sith tampering will fight me too.”

“You know I don’t understand this Ka’ra osik, Obi’ika,” Jango huffed sounding a little like himself. “Just do what you need to do. I-I know they left something in me. It’s hard to think a lot. It’s hard to fight them.” His breath hitched and alarmingly tears started to spill over his cheeks.

“I couldn’t stop them, Obi-Wan. I wasn’t strong enough to stop those demagolkase from killing my eyayahe¹.” His echos, Obi-Wan thought, his clones. They killed Jango’s clones and his brother, his righteous, honorable brother wasn’t able to stop them.

It hurt his heart, but more than that, it enraged him. And that fed the Dark side, so when Obi-Wan rushed forward and sank into Jango’s mind he was like a wildfire across the landscape.

The signature on the Dark compulsions in his brother’s mind was different, unfamiliar to him. That didn’t surprise him. Nor did the sheer power of the imprint left behind. It was probably the Sith Master himself that had tampered with Jango’s mind. He found the weakest alterations, the newest and flash-burned it away leaving nothing but a scar behind.

Then he moved on to the next and the next. He systematically worked through the Dark mind manipulations Sidious planted in Jango’s mind. Memory alteration, complacency, aggression suppression, obedience. That last one, obedience, appeared to need regular renewal, it gave Obi-Wan a wave of vicious pride in his brother.

Fighting the hatred and rage of the Dark, with more hatred and rage was normally perfectly effective. Unless you were battling a dark-sider more powerful than you. Sidious apparently had more raw power than Obi-Wan, because after the first manipulation was scorched, the rest began to fight back. He began to struggle, but he couldn’t give up because Jango needed him. And then he remembered that while negative emotions were easier to use in wielding the Dark, positive emotions were just as strong, sometimes even stronger, because they were harder to connect to the Dark.

He poured all his love for his brother and his family into the scorched earth cleansing of Jango’s mind and the dregs Sidious’s power didn’t know how to combat that. That said a lot about the Sith Master. None of it good.

Obi-Wan didn’t know how long it took to burn every trace of Darkness from Jango’s mind but when he finally came back to himself, Jango was swaying and they both had blood trickling from their noses.

“Is it gone?” Jango asked, throat hoarse, barley above a whisper. “Is that shabuir finally out of my head?”

“Yes.” Obi-Wan’s head was pounding as he sat back on his heels wiping at the blood on his face with a shop cloth from his belt. “The Sith Master’s mind control is out of your head.”

Jango’s entire frame slumped like his strings had been cut, abject relief causing his ever present tension to drift away. Before he could comment or ask something else, though, there was the sound of a child crying in the other room.

“Boba,” Jango gasped and jumped unsteadily to his feet. He ran toward the sound, Obi-Wan following confusedly after.

In the other room there was a toddler, a little baby boy, Face red and tears streaking down his cheeks. “Bu-bu!” the baby called raising his arms in demand the moment he saw Jango. “Bu-bu, ba’dweam!”

He watched as Jango scooped the child up and cradled him in shaking arms to his too thin chest. “It’s alright Boba, it was just a dream. I’m here. Buir’s here.”

“Jango,” Obi-Wan called softly as he stepped closer to get a look at the child. He raised a hand to gently touch the child’s thick wavy hair. “Who’s this?”

Letting out a deep, almost angry sigh, Jango pressed a kiss the little boy’s head and looked up to meet his brother’s gaze. Obi-Wan was thankful to see that Jango’s eyes were once again pure deep brown.

“This is Boba, my son,” he said, and Obi-Wan was confused by the unhappiness coming off his brother. “After they-” he swallowed thickly. “After the first batch of clones, the Nulls, were deemed unfit, the Kaminoans culled them. I did not react well. I kill four Kaminoans and two Death Watch with my bare hands before they could subdue me.”

Obi-Wan once again felt a vicious pride in his brother. Jaster hadn’t placed his eldest son at the head of their military simply because he was an amazing strategist. Jango was also their most ruthless and dangerous fighter.

“Sidious was summoned and he did something to me. I think that was when I started forgetting things that weren’t immediately in front of my face,” Jango muttered with rage and helplessness. “He suggested that the Kaminoans give me a clone of my own. For leverage and to keep me distracted.”

Shame, something Jango had never been prone to before, was a near constant oily sheen on his presence and Obi-Wan didn’t like it.

He looked down at his son, his clone with love and regret. “It worked. After that all they had to do was threaten Boba and I wouldn’t fight them. Well,” he shrugged, a fierce light returning to his eyes. “I wouldn’t fight them much.”

Then Jango’s face fell and suddenly there was grief strong and powerful pouring into the Force. “They just killed my Alphas a few months ago,” he whispered, throat tight. “I was allowed to train them myself. They were wonderful. They were great warriors. Mandokarla² verd’ike. Then Sidious came and inspected them and the next day they were gone.”

Demagolkase. The Kaminoans and Death Watch were all going to die. Obi-Wan had already decided as much, but he hadn’t realized until he stood there looking at his nephew and feeling his brother’s love and shame that he wasn’t going to wait for the Supercommandos.

Jango met his burning yellow eyes, rage and helplessness staining his presence. “They need to die, Obi-Wan. Every single one of them. I swore after the Nulls that they would all die.”

“They will, Jango,” Obi-Wan swore and the Force rumbled with the truth, the prophecy of his vow. “Every demagolka and dar’manda in this facility is going to die. I swear to you. I’ll do it myself.”

Jango was too weak. The Kaminoan scientist had just taken blood, a lot of blood leaving him weak and dangerously hypoglycemic. Not to mention Boba refused to go to back to sleep and Obi-Wan didn’t trust himself to be gentle enough at the moment to perform a sleep suggestion on a baby.

So it was Obi-Wan alone that forced the door to Jango’s prison open with the Force and killed the two dar’manda standing guard in the hall.

He stabbed one straight through the chest between the beskar plates with his lightsaber and slit the other’s throat with his beskad. Jango came out to confiscate their blasters and vibro blades for himself. Unable to remain so unarmed now that his mind was clear.

Obi-Wan waited until Jango was back in his apartment with the door was closed before he wrapped the Force around himself concealing his presence from security cameras and sentient eyes. Then he turned in the direction of the largest concentration of adult non-Kaminoan presences, presumably the dar’manda barracks, and Force-sped through the halls.

The Death Watch, trainers for the clones and guards for Jango, his brother had told him, were all mostly congregated in their designated rec and living area. The Dark was flowing so strong and heavily through him that Obi-Wan had sped into the rec room and killed two of them before he had to drop back to normal speed to kill the rest or risk exhausting himself.

It was a brutal fight. The dar’manda fought back. Of course they did. But Obi-Wan was angry. He was filled with a kind of indescribable hate. His vision had tinted red with his being totally subsumed by the Dark, the blue in the eyes completely overtaken by yellow.

He didn’t know it, he killed them before any of the dar’manda could do more than exclaim in horror, but his eyes were burning such a bright luminous yellow that they glowed through the dark visor of his mask. The Death Watch saw him coming with his blood smeared armor, his dripping beskad, his deep violet morning star lightsaber, and his glowing eyes and they thought that the Ka’ra³ themselves had sent a vengeful warrior to punish them. A warrior given unnatural powers by the wrathful Manda, they thought as Obi-Wan bashed a soldier in the helmet so hard with the mace pommel of his lightsaber that it caved in their skull, as he Force-lifted another and crushed them to death by crumpling their armor with a clench of his gauntleted fist.

When every dar’manda was dead, the air was so thick with the stench of death and the coppery smell of blood that Obi-Wan could even register it through his mask seals and filters.

With the warriors dead, Obi-Wan turned from the destroyed room, the dead beings and calmly walked back through the halls.

It was the cloners’ turn. He didn’t Force-speed toward the labs where he could feel most of the Kaminoan’s clustered. There were several scattered along his path and he didn’t want to expend too much energy until every enemy was dead.

A long necked Kaminoan stepped out into the hall before him and gasped in horror at the gruesome sight he made. Obi-Wan hadn’t noticed the bloody footprints he was trailing through the halls. He didn't bother pausing in his stride, he grabbed the Kaminoan by the neck with the Force and snapped it abruptly. That long neck folded in half with the brutality of it.

He killed four more Kaminoans before he made it to the labs. Not a single alarm had gone off and Obi-Wan was cognizant enough of the oddity that he wondered about it. Then he came upon the lab and realized that there was a clone was inside with the scientists.

“Trainer Burts reported that CC-2224 was disobedient during hand-to-hand,” one of the scientists, a female, spoke to another scientist. “That’s the fourth such report for this clone in as many weeks.”

It was a little boy, Obi-Wan thought distantly, the thirst for blood still clouding his mind and tinting his vision. A little boy with a bright shining presence and a defiant glint in his familiar brown eyes.

“I wish the trainers would stop physically marking the product,” another scientist said, his voice disdainful. “It’s unacceptable property damage.”

Product… property…

Obi-Wan blinked as he focused on the clone child’s face instead of his glittering presence in the Force. The little boy couldn’t be older than six and he had a wound curling down the left side of his forehead and around his eye. It was bleeding and swollen. The little boy had his jaw clenched tight in plain, but he didn’t make a sound as a Kaminoan prodded him dispassionately.

“His eye might be compromised,” the scientist reported drolly.

Another one sighed. “We might have to decommission him then. And he was so promising.”

The little boy’s heart skipped a beat, Obi-Wan could feel it in the Force along with dread and fear leaking from him.

He’d heard more than enough.

A Kaminoan turned and came toward the clone with a syringe of something green and sickly. Suddenly he stopped, his long thin body trembling, the syringed dropped to the ground and he started clawing at his long neck frantically.

Obi-Wan tightened his fist around his beskad’s hand grip and the Kaminoan’s neck snapped in half.

There was alarm and shock in the air and then it was a chaos of blood and screams and death.

Obi-Wan bludgeoned a Kaminoan in the head with his mace pommel. Decapitated another with his beskad. Vivisected two with his lightsaber. They didn’t fight back. The Kaminoans were scientists not warriors. In a matter of moments, flashes of blood splatters, horrified pale faces, and frightened large eyes, Obi-Wan had killed them all with no mercy and even less hesitation.

The room was deathly quiet after the last cloner head rolled to a stop on the floor. All Obi-Wan could hear was the pounding of his own heart in his ears and shaky, tremulous breathing from a corner of the room.

Slowly he turned toward the sound. The little boy, the clone was crouched in the corner with a scalpel in one hand and a heavy microscope brandished at the ready in the other. His face was deathly pale and his eyes were so wide the whites were showing, but his hands were steady and Obi-Wan could feel his determination. His desire to live. He was afraid, scared and he knew that he could not win in a fight between them, but the little boy wasn’t just going let this strange armored warrior kill him.

Mandokarla.

It was then that Obi-Wan noticed something else. The little boy, the little clone, was Force-sensitive. He wasn’t a powerhouse, but he wasn’t weak. Without closer inspection Obi-Wan could only tell that the boy was maybe as strong as Savage, possibly stronger. Judging by the sharply intelligent mind Obi-Wan was passively skimming and the tightly controlled hold the boy had in his emotions, the clone was not prone to outbursts of feeling. Which was what tended to trigger accidental Force-use in children. Otherwise the boy would have been moving things with his mind when he got worked up and the dar’manda and the cloners would have noticed.

Then he wouldn’t have been here. He would have been a plaything for Sidious.

It didn’t really matter at the moment because here and now the boy was ready to fight him. No matter how hopeless it would have been, the boy was not going to just give up. Obi-Wan felt a tiny spark of surprising fondness. The spark pierced through the haze of hate and rage and he was able to see the world without the red tint of violence once more.

Slowly, Obi-Wan crouched down and set his dripping beskad on the floor, deactivated his lightsaber and clipped it back on his belt.

“It’s alright,” his voice came out almost like a growl and he cleared his throat before he tried again. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Slowly he reached up and began to unclasp his mask-cowl from his gorget. “I’m here to help.”

The boy remained tense and wary as Obi-Wan tipped his head and pulled his mask-cowl off. His untrimmed, sweaty hair fell over his forehead into his eyes, but without his visor and the HUD disrupting his vision Obi-Wan was able to truly see the boy in front him.

And the Force sang when their eyes finally met.

Obi-Wan’s lips curled into a small tentative smile as he held the boy’s gaze. “Hello there.”

*

CC-2224 had been sure he was going to die. If it wasn’t the long necks culling him for the hit Trainer Burts delivered for defying her during training it would have been the mysterious stranger that burst in and eviscerated the Kaminoans in less than five minutes.

Even if the stranger hadn’t pulled out two different kinds of swords and started chopping up the long necks, CC-2224 would have been able to tell he was dangerous. He’d always had a sense of people that way. He could tell that all the trainers thought he and his brothers - Vode the Prime called them – were little better than flesh droids. That they didn’t even have the autonomy of animals, really. He could tell that the Kaminoans thought them products to be bought and sold.

He could tell that there was something wrong with the Prime.

They used to not see much of the Prime. The Alphas and the trainers had most of the responsibility to train them, the clones, but after the Alphas were… After the Alphas were gone, the Prime had come in.

The Prime was a strict task master, but he wasn’t cruel. He always seemed a little distant, almost like his mind wasn’t completely there, like he was functioning on autopilot or through a fog. CC-2224 thought that might have something to do with the muddy, oily feel that seemed to hang around him. Unlike with the other trainers though, the ones that wore armor, CC-2224 didn’t think the oily slick was Prime’s fault. He never hurt them unnecessarily. He never yelled and screamed out of hate or anger.

He called them Vode, he praised them for doing well, he would give them little nick-names.

“You’re a good fighter, verd’ika. You’ll be a good leader,” the Prime had told him one day after a group simulation. “Gar dinui kote gar aliit⁴.”

CC-2224 didn’t know what that meant, but somehow, the same how he knew which trainers were the meanest, which ones hated them the most, he knew that the Prime’s words were… nice. Fond even.

Ever since that day the Prime – though only when the other trainers and the Kaminoans weren’t paying attention - would call CC-2224, Cody. Or at least that’s what CC-2224 thought the Prime was calling him. He didn’t speak the Prime’s other language, though he knew it was the same language the armored trainers spoke amongst themselves.

The clones, his brothers, they knew that the Prime was not there by choice. They knew he was a prisoner, a slave, just as much as they were.

And here was another armored warrior standing in front of CC-2224 blood smeared over his painted armor and dripping from his weapons. After the first Kaminoan’s neck was mysteriously snapped without anyone touching it, CC-2224 knew the stranger wouldn’t stop till every long neck was dead.

Though he wore armor like the trainers it was very different. It was all articulated plates, chain links, and thick fabric hanging down to his knees in front and back. Instead of the jagged three pronged symbol and blue and black paint that the trainers had, this warrior had a tusked animal skull on his shoulder with brown, bronze, blue, green, white, and black all painted expertly across his armor. Not to mention just how unusual his weapons were. The trainers mainly carried blasters and vibro knives. This warrior had those too, but he’d killed all the long necks with a metal sword and a laser-sword. The laser-sword being one of the most terrifying weapons CC-2224 had ever seen in his admittedly short life.

He was a terrifying sight altogether, but that was nothing compared to how he felt. The warrior felt like a Kaminoan hurricane. The ocean storms so strong and so wild that the whole facility would tremble under their might, swaying on its stilts. Just being in the same room as him while he killed the cloners made CC-2224 feel like he’d just stood outside on one of the walkways to the outer training buildings and let the stinging salty sea gales beat against his body.

There was even a heavy tingling smell of ozone hanging in the air.

Despite all that though, CC-2224 may have been only three years old and staring down what seemed like a force of nature made flesh, he would not be taken down quietly. He was well trained. He’d earned his skills through blood, sweat, and tears and though he knew he was about to die he would not just lay down and take it.

The warrior had gone stock still after decapitating the last Kaminoan and CC-2224 tried to keep his breath quiet and steady. He must have failed because the warrior had slowly turned toward him and stared at him through his blank t-shaped visor.

The feeling of a raging storm in the room had lessened only slightly, now that they were the only ones left alive. CC-2224 was thrown when the warrior crouched at his level and set down his weapons. He was even more shocked when the warrior took off his mask to reveal a Human face underneath.

He was pale skinned and his hair was an odd reddish color, something CC-2224 had never seen before. His eyes were an unnaturally bright burning gold.

“Hello there,” the warrior greeted with a surprisingly smooth voice.

CC-2224 didn’t respond, still wary even though he was able to finally register that while the warrior felt scary and wild and violent he didn’t feel mean, not like the trainers. And he didn't feel threateningly indifferent, not like the Kaminoans. Actually he felt a bit like the Prime, though without the muddying and the not-right oil slick.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

Truth, CC-2224 realized surprised though he made sure his face stayed still, to not show his thoughts.

“I’m sorry that I scared you,” the warrior said.

Also truth, and a little bit of a blow to CC-2224’s pride. No matter how accurate it was. The warrior had actually been very scary.

“You weren’t hurt, were you? During the fight,” the warrior asked, his brows wrinkling over his golden eyes.

He wasn’t getting that feeling, that uncomfortable sickly feeling of warning in his belly that he did when faced with one of the more dangerous trainers, so CC-2224 allowed himself to finally respond.

“I’m not hurt.”

The curl that appeared at the corner of the warrior’s mouth was gentle almost, kind. It made something in CC-2224 unknot.

“That’s good. I’m glad.” The warrior slowly let his knees sink to the blood smeared floor so he was sitting back on his heels instead of crouching. “My name is Obi-Wan,” he said still kind, still patient. “What’s your name?”

CC-2224’s brow creased. Didn’t the warrior know they weren’t allowed names? He gave his designation as his grip on the scalpel eased just slightly and he lowered the microscope to hang at his side.

“I’m clone CC-2224.”

Something like a strike of electricity arced through the warrior- through Obi-Wan, and CC-2224 tensed. He was angry. That was anger that sparked from the warrior like lightning in a storm cloud.

Just as quick as it appeared it was also gone again. The wild feel of a hurricane wasn’t gone, exactly, but the furious flash of anger was absent.

“I’m sorry,” the warrior- Obi-Wan said. “I’m not angry at you.”

…Truth. He was not angry at CC-2224. But what was he angry at?

“Is there something else you like to be called?” Obi-Wan asked, still surprisingly patient for all that he’d just had a very startling mood swing from CC-2224’s point of view. “Something your friends call you?”

Friends, perhaps he meant the other clones, his brothers. The Vode as Prime said. That made CC-2224 pause. Perhaps that was what Obi-Wan wanted. Something that was not a number. Something that was his that did not automatically mean clone. Could CC-2224 risk telling him?

Something, that feeling that told him of danger or of safety said, yes, he could risk it. Contrary to all apparent evidence, Obi-Wan wouldn’t hurt him, not for anything.

“Cody,” CC-2224 answered with his heart racing in his chest. “The Prime calls me Cody sometimes.”

“Cody, huh? Kote,” Obi-Wan repeated with a pleasant quirk to his mouth and a glint like humor and approval in his eyes. “That’s a very fitting name.”

Their gazes met and suddenly Cody felt like Obi-Wan could see inside him. He felt like the full might of that hurricane was concentrated on him, but he also felt like he was utterly and completely safe. Cody blinked a little dazed with the sensation of having the warrior’s deep and undivided attention in such a way. He never experienced anything like it before. No one else, not any of the trainers, long necks, or his brothers could read into a person the way Cody could. The way Obi-Wan was reading him now.

Obi-Wan held Cody’s eyes, unwavering and intent as the man said, “Gar yaihi’l be kote, verd’ika.”

You are full of glory, little warrior.

*

TBC...

Chapter Text

The little clone, Cody, had no mental shielding. It was easy for Obi-Wan to watch his clever, intelligent mind spinning, analyzing the situation and Obi-Wan himself. He expects the boy’s Force-sensitivity is the only reason he hasn’t tried to attack Obi-Wan with that scalpel and microscope yet.

For all that Obi-Wan presented like a violent bloodthirsty storm in the Force, he had absolutely no intention of hurting little Cody – Kote, Jango named him Glory – and the boy could sense that.

The longer Obi-Wan stayed kneeling before the child looking at him both with his eyes and with the Force, the more he began to understand just what the Kaminoans had done to him. Cody looked to be about six years old. Maybe a little older. And yet Jango had only been missing for three years. That meant accelerated aging. It explained how the cloners could go through two experimental batches – the Nulls and the Alphas, Jango called them, aliit, vod’ade¹ Obi-Wan will never meet – and still produce a thousand clones old enough to be trained.

But was it purely physical or was it mental and emotional accelerated aging as well?

He stretched out his awareness and examined Cody as gently and unobtrusively as possible. Mentally the boy seemed to be a very mature six maybe seven, Obi-Wan feels comfortable assuming the same emotionally. His presence in the Force however. There is nothing that can disguise such newness.

As Yoda’s presence in the Force reflects his many centuries of life so too does Cody’s reflect the exact opposite. In the Force there is no difference in age between Cody and Boba who is a Human toddler in truth.

It almost makes the Dark surge up with rage once more, but Obi-Wan had noticed Cody’s reaction to his anger moments ago. The boy did not respond well to such abrupt negative emotions. He shared his anger with the Force, but was still unable to pull back on the Dark inside him. Obi-Wan was sure his eyes were completely yellow as he was like a dam with the spillways open, the Dark side still actively flowing through him.

There were more pressing matters at hand, though.

Gar yaihi’l be kote, Obi-Wan had said to the little boy. You are full of glory. And as he studied the little boy’s presence in the Force, Obi-Wan thought again just how apt of a name Jango had given this little boy.

Though he may not be as powerful in the Force as Obi-Wan, Cody shone brightly. His determination, intelligence, and strategic mind were something quite amazing to witness. Even at his young age and even younger experience, Cody had honor and a firm grasp of what was right and what was wrong. He must care about the other clones very much, because in his presence his protectiveness and care was on display.

And he was a warrior already. He hadn’t dropped the scalpel yet and the heavy microscope could no doubt be used just as effectively as Obi-Wan’s mace pommel if Cody needed to.

“I don’t know what that means,” Cody admitted warily, a slight furrow between his brows.

Obi-Wan was able to sense the small spike of pain the boy felt as the expression pulled at his still open wound around his eye.

“Gar yaihi’l be kote,” Obi-Wan repeated easily. “It means, ‘you are full of glory’. That’s what Kote means. Glory.”

Cody’s mouth pursed as he thought that over, then he set it aside. “You speak the same language as the trainers. The Prime’s language.”

“I do,” Obi-Wan nodded and his own face twisted in an ugly scowl. “It is Mando’a, the language of the Mandalorians, but Death Watch- the trainers, by the laws of my people they were no longer considered Mandalorians. So, I killed them like I killed the cloners.” He blew out a long breath and forcibly smoothed his expression out again. “I assume the ‘prime’ is the Human you were cloned from.”

There was a flash of shock through the little boy at the revelation that the trainers were dead. Not grief or anger, but almost disbelief. Obi-Wan figured that to a child, your abusers must seem invincible, especially armored warriors like the Death Watch.

He continued to eye Obi-Wan closely, warily. “The Prime started training us a few months ago, but,” he scowled as a surge of protectiveness suddenly lit up his presence, “the Prime isn’t like the others. He isn’t here because he wants to be. You didn’t kill him too, did you?”

Obi-Wan was sure that if he answered affirmative, Cody would actually lunge and try to attack him. The boy’s grip on the scalpel was tightening and his muscles were tense. His felt fondness well up in him again for this fierce little protector.

“The Prime is named Jango,” Obi-Wan said keeping his body posture open and nonthreatening. “I came to rescue him. He’s my brother.”

Cody’s blinked surprised, “Oh,” then confused as he looked Obi-Wan up and down. “You don’t look like the Prime.”

Lips twitching, Obi-Wan conceded with a shrug. “Jango and I were adopted by the same man. We are not blood related.”

“Adopted?” Cody’s brow was furrowed again. “What does that mean?”

Heart aching, Obi-Wan gave the little boy a smile. “I can explain later, but your wound, Cody. Can I patch you up a bit, before we continue.”

Again the little boy hesitated, thinking over the threat level and danger, but after a short moment he slowly nodded.

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan smiled at him and reached to his belt telegraphing his movements as he pulled some bandages and an antiseptic wipe from one of the pouches. “Do you think you can come a bit closer? I can’t reach you from there.”

Cody bent and placed the microscope on the floor, but kept the scalpel. Then he stepped closer to Obi-Wan and watched intently as the man gently raised the wipe to the tacky, drying blood smeared down the boy’s face.

“How did this happen? It’s an oddly shaped wound to have gotten during training,” Obi-Wan murmured keeping his eyes on the jagged laceration, siphoning some of the little boy’s pain into himself as he worked. It wasn’t exactly advisable given how difficult a time he was having taming the Force inside him, taking the boy’s pain into himself was just feeding the hungry Dark, but Obi-Wan couldn’t bring himself to cause the little boy more discomfort.

It was obvious the little boy could tell he was doing something with the Force, though he didn’t know what. Cody’s warm brown eyes had a sharply curious glint as he stared at Obi-Wan’s face while he patched him up.

“Trainer Burts wanted me to break CC-1010’s arm during hand-to-hand training. I refused. She backhanded me and her armored glove broke the skin.”

A vicious part of himself was very satisfied that all the dar’manda were dead, and even better by his own hand.

“That was very brave,” Obi-Wan told him. “Do the Kaminoans have any high grade bacta I can put on your wound? The stuff I have isn’t strong enough to keep it from scarring.”

“It’s locked up,” Cody said with a shrug. “They didn't want us to steel any supplies to treat ourselves. I don’t mind if it scars.”

Obi-Wan had a sudden flash in the Force, a memory, Cody’s memory, of the one time the clones attempted to hide a major injury from the Kaminoans and trainers. That clone with the broken wrist had been taken away from the barracks and never returned.

The Dark rose up, but Obi-Wan breathed through the rage. It was over. No more clones were going to be culled. None of Jango’s eyayahe were going to know that fear ever again.

“You were protecting your brother,” Obi-Wan said. “It’s an honorable scar to have.”

“Brother,” Cody repeated with a considering look. “The Prime calls us vode, he said it means brothers.”

“It does,” Obi-Wan smiled warmly. “Jango is my ori’vod, my older brother and I am his vod’ika, little brother.” He tore open a small packet of bacta and smeared it down Cody’s laceration then activated the adhesive strips on the bandages and gentle pressed them over the long curved wound.

“There, you’re all patched up.”

Cody lifted his empty hand up to prod to the bandages and Obi-Wan let him. He dropped his hand and looked at Obi-Wan cautiously. “What’s going to happen now? You came for the Prime and all the Kaminoans and trainers are dead. What are you going to do with us, me and my brothers?”

Obi-Wan had picked up his beskad and was giving it a quick wipe down with a cloth from his belt when Cody asked his question. Sheathing his now mostly clean sword, Obi-Wan looked around at said dead Kaminoans and sighed. He rose gracefully to his feet. “I need to speak with Jango. You can come with me and speak to him too, or I can take you back to your brothers and we’ll come explain what’s happening later.”

A determined, serious expression hardened at Cody’s little, bandaged face. “I need to know what’s going to happen to my brothers. I’ll come talk to you and Prime.”

Lips twitching with more fondness and pride, Obi-Wan nodded graciously. “Alright. Let’s go.”

They made their way from the labs, unfortunately having to edge around pools of blood and step over dismembered body parts. Neither Obi-Wan or Cody felt much remorse for the slaughter of the scientists.

The walk to the Prime’s- to Jango’s apartment was made in silence, Obi-Wan monitoring the little sparks and fluctuations in Cody’s Force presence. And Cody not so surreptitiously darting curious looks at Obi-Wan.

Once they got to the door, Obi-Wan waved his hand at it and it slid open. He felt Cody’s surprise like a little static shock. He cast a little wink at the boy and only received wide eyes and confusion.

“Is it done, Obi-Wan?”

Stepping into the tiny apartment, Obi-Wan saw Jango seated on the thin uncomfortable looking cot in the main room. “All the dar’mandase and the demagolkase are taken care of.”

Jango had Boba on his lap, the little toddler munching on a ration bar and playing with the wrapper. He looked his younger brother over, noting the tacky rust colored blood positively smeared over his armor, his bare face, and his completely yellow eyes. He’d never seen Obi-Wan’s eyes completely and totally yellow before. It was disconcerting and it explained the feel of static charge in the air the moment he entered the apartment.

“Your beskar’gam is going to be a bitch to clean.” It wasn’t what he’d wanted to say, but Jango couldn’t bring himself to ask about the obviously dangerous levels of Werde² his brother was using at the moment.

“I’m going to repaint it anyway,” Obi-Wan said with an unconcerned kind of shrug that Jaster would have disapproved of. Beskar’gam and paint were important, almost sacred. Neither one were to ever be taken lightly.

Not that Jango actually thought Obi-Wan took them lightly. At least not while he wasn’t high on the Dark side as Obi-Wan liked to half-jokingly describe it.

Movement at his brother’s hip grabbed Jango’s attention. “Kote?” he blinked at the little clone in confusion wondering if maybe the mind kriffing the Sith Master had done on him was causing him to hallucinate. Then he noticed the bandage on the boy’s face. “Kote, me’bana?”

The boy didn’t answer, but he straightened to attention and stared forward a slight furrow of confusion on his brow. Obi-Wan placed a gentle, light hand on his shoulder and immediately the boy relaxed. As much as a harshly trained clone could relax.

“Jango’s asking what happened?” Obi-Wan said. “Mando’a is his first language, and sometimes it’s hard for him to speak in Basic. Especially when he’s wounded.”

Cody was still confused since the Prime had always slipped into his own language during training. He looked the man over closer and that’s when he noticed the absence of the muddy shadows that used to hang over him or the sickly oil-slick that clung to him.

Jango was watching as his little clone’s face turned shocked and then even more confused. Poor kid, this day was probably the most confusing of his short life. Especially if he’d already made Obi-Wan’s acquaintance, Jango thought with a rusty hint of humor.

“What- where did the muddy clouds go?” the kid asked confusing Jango along with him. “What happened to the oily slick that stuck to you?”

About to ask what the hell the kid was babbling about, Jango caught the glint of amused satisfaction and intrigue on his little brother’s face. Ah, he thought wryly, that was Obi’ika’s weird Ka’ra osik face. Apparently at least one of his clones was a Ka’ra’ad, interesting.

“You’ll have to ask Obi-Wan, verd’ika,” Jango jerked his chin to his little brother even as he expertly stopped Boba from chewing of the ration bar wrapper. “He’s the one with the dini’la mind powers.”

Obi-Wan snorted and gave Cody’s shoulder a light comforting squeeze. “You said you knew that Jango wasn’t here of his own free will,” the boy nodded and Obi-Wan continued. “That’s because someone did something to his mind to make it impossible for him to leave. When I found him I destroyed all the things that were making him seem cloudy and oily.”

Cody nodded again, though he wasn’t sure he understood exactly. He got that Obi-Wan had powers of some sort and when he added that to the hurricane the warrior felt like, it made sense. It even made sense that the reason Jango felt similar to the trainers and long necks and yet didn’t act like them was because his mind was being messed with. Cody just hadn’t realized that was something you could fix.

“I found Cody with the Kaminoans,” Obi-Wan turned and finally answered Jango’s question. “He’d been injured by one of the dar’manda and they were-” his face creased in an expression so dark and forbidding that Jango was actually shocked, “-they were debating whether he should be decommissioned or not.”

Jango felt a black rage swell up inside him and it actually felt good. It had been three long years since his could purely feel his own emotions. When the Sith had captured him and messed with his mind the first time it had seemed like all his thoughts and feelings came from very far away.

“Gar kyrayc demagolkase?” Did you kill the monsters, he asked.

“Of course,” Obi-Wan replied and there was a bloodthirsty kind of quirk to his mouth that Jango could definitely relate to. “The only beings left in this facility are you, me, and your one thousand clones.”

“Ner eyayahe,” Jango murmured feeling his shame and guilt return. “When is backup coming?” He hit his little brother with a scrutinizing look. “You did call for backup before coming to get me, right?”

“I did.” Obi-Wan didn’t roll his eyes, but it was a near thing. “A battalion of Supercommandos should be two to three days behind me. I came from the Core and they had to travel from Manda’yaim.”

“How did you find me?” Now that he had a moment to think clear headed, that was something that Jango couldn’t fathom. He was fairly sure the Sith Master had done some Dark magic to keep anyone from finding Jango or Kamino.

“That is a long story,” his brother dodged, but Jango didn’t have the energy to call him on it right then. “Now we need to talk about what’s going to happen next. Cody here requested to be a part of the conversation since it’s his brothers’ futures we’re discussing.”

Jango scoffed at that. “We’re taking them with us, of course.”

“With you where?” Cody pipped up, a cautious but determined expression on his face.

Eyeing the young clone’s expression, Jango answered, “Home, verd’ika. We’re going to take you home, to where Obi-Wan and I grew up. Where our buir, our father lives. Where our people live.”

Cody thought about that for a moment. “Where’s ‘home’?”

He said the word like it was foreign concept. Obi-Wan could tell the boy knew what it meant, at least the definition of the word, but he didn’t truly understand it. And that just made Obi-Wan ache and burn.

“Home in a planet called Mandalore,” he said as he crouched once again to Cody’s height. “It’s a planet far, far away from Kamino, where you and your brothers will be cared for and protected and nothing like what’s been going on here will ever happen to you again.”

Cody stared into Obi-Wan’s bright golden eyes and heard truth, truth, truth in his words.

“Will you come with me?” he asked suddenly and when Obi-Wan’s brow furrowed he repeated, “Will you come with me to tell my brothers we’re going home?”

Obi-Wan felt a thick wave of affection and joy for this little boy. He smiled gently and happily as he said, “Of course, ner kot’ika. I’ll come with you anywhere you want.”

*

The next two days were chaotic and only partly because Obi-Wan was the only fully functioning adult in a massive facility housing one thousand six year old toddlers. Jango was still recovering from the constant blood draining and bone marrow and tissue harvesting the Kaminoans did on him for genetic material. As well as the mind karking the Sith left behind.

That of course had nothing on the post-traumatic stress that was slowly but surely making itself known the longer Jango was wholly in control of his own mind and body again. Boba it seemed was the only being in the whole facility that could keep Jango calm when he was on the verge of some kind of panic induced rage episode.

Obi-Wan had attempted to calm him once and ended up with a fist to the jaw for his trouble. His brother, of course grudgingly apologized after he’d calmed down, but it was decided that if Jango had another episode he would be left mostly alone.

He was definitely going to have a long road to recovery ahead of him with many visits to the mirbaar’ure- the mind-medics when he got back to Keldabe.

Meeting the other clones had been for Obi-Wan an experience in utter fondness and abject rage. How anyone could look at these small, innocent, wary faces and see nothing but a tool to be used and discarded was beyond him. And hadn’t that been a lovely bit of trivia to find out. Cody told him that the trainers, the dar’mandase had called him and his brothers no better than flesh-droids.

Obi-Wan had actually had to release his rage into the Force or he would have set the whole facility trembling. As it was, Cody was able to pick up on his emotions and had stared at him wide-eyed and startled until he could apologize and change the subject.

Though Cody was unique among his brothers in that he was the only one of a thousand clones that was Force-sensitive enough to amount to a hill of beans, it didn’t take Obi-Wan five minutes in their barracks before he realized that each and every single one of them had a unique soul. In the Force they were all individual and different. They may have been physical carbon copies of Jango, but on the inside, their minds and their hearts were their own.

The news that the long necks and trainers were dead was met with some caution, some hope, and a quiet hesitant sort of excitement. Obi-Wan himself and Jango to a lesser extent was met with curiosity and some wariness, though the fact that Cody apparently vouched for him by way of trailing after him wherever he went seemed to ease most of the brothers’ concerns.

And Obi-Wan wouldn’t be exaggerating when he said that he positively adored Cody. His immediate and slightly overwhelming connection and fondness for the boy was probably exacerbated by the fact that he still hadn’t been able to lessen the Dark side inside him, but Obi-Wan would freely admit that Cody was special to him.

The Force sang of him whenever he looked further than skin deep. The Force exclaimed of honor and indomitable willpower and glory as it twirled around Cody in a warm sunset kind of feeling. The Force whispered to Obi-Wan when he looked at Cody. It whispered that Cody was his, that Cody was meant for him.

How Cody was supposed to be Obi-Wan’s he was a little reluctant to name. But he didn’t deny that while the possessiveness came from the Dark, the pure connection they formed in the Force and the need to care for and protect him came from the Light.

He just had to decide if their connection meant Cody was just meant to be his Apprentice or if the clever, glorious little boy was supposed to be something more.

There wasn’t much Obi-Wan could to do in the facility until the Supercommando battalion came out of hyperspace and commed him for coordinates, since he decided to leave slicing into the Kaminoan computer system for when their professional slicers got there.

Thankfully the clones were fairly self-sufficient and most of the essential processes in the facility were run by droids so no one was going to starve in the next two days. The only thing Obi-Wan could do other than spend time with his brother and the clones was to clean up after himself.

He did the Kaminoans first.

About twelve hours after he killed every adult in the facility except Jango, Obi-Wan made his way back to the labs. A squad of mouse droids were hovering at the doors making distressed sounds and Obi-Wan silently apologized to them as he stepped over them and opened the doors.

The smell was… not something he was used to. Usually dead bodies didn’t start to smell like dead bodied for at least a day. The Kaminoans apparently had a faster decomposition rate than most other species and a slightly decaying fish tinge. No matter, Obi-Wan slipped his mask-cowl back on and waited for the air filters to cleanse the smell before he continued on with his work.

His work being levitating a bunch of dead Kaminoans and dumping them off the side of the facility and into the ocean. It took three trips, but Obi-Wan was finally able to clear out the twenty-sum-odd dead cloners from the labs.

He hadn’t really been counting when he killed them and truthfully most of the bodied had been dismembered so if wasn’t for the literal head count, Obi-Wan would’ve had to guesstimate just how many cloners he’d taken out in the labs. The others he’d killed in the halls had been dealt with first.

Once the last bodies were tossed into the seas, Obi-Wan walked past the labs on his way toward the Death Watch barracks. The dozen or so mouse droids were still making distressed noises even as they worked on scrubbing the dried blood away, but they were doggedly doing their duties, no longer impeded by corpses.

The job of tidying up the dead dar’mandase would be both easier and harder. Easier in the way that because of the beskar armor Obi-Wan hadn’t performed nearly as many eviscerations or vivisections when killing them. Harder because he’d have to strip them of their armor and that was always tricky.

Some Mando’ade, especially Death Watch, liked to rig their armor to blow if someone other than them attempted to take it off. Jaster sternly disapproved of the practice, even for the strict religious sects that believed you lost your soul if someone removed your helmet. He said beskar’gam may be sacred to Mando’ade, but you can always find your armor again if it’s stolen and you can regain you soul if you are still alive. You can do neither of those things if you blow up with your armor.

Obi-Wan wasn’t particularly concerned he’d trip any rigged armor, though. The Force would warn him and he knew how to disarm such things.

It was slower work than the other dead bodies. Divesting a Mandalorian of their armor while they were in the first stages of rigor mortis was not pleasant and unfortunately it was something Obi-Wan had been forced to do before. When the Supercommandos were out on campaign whoever was available would assist with preparing their fallen warriors for either transport home or battlefield funerals. He’d been given that job more than once.

There were no blessings murmured over these bodies as he efficiently divested them of their armor however. No remembrances whispered. He did take holopics of their faces, however. They may have been Death Watch and he may not mourn them, he may in fact curse them to the deepest pits of hell and dishonor for what they helped do to his brother and the eyayahe, but they might be Clan or kin to someone in the Haat Ade.

Obi-Wan may have killed them but he wouldn’t deprive his own people of the opportunity to mourn.

Fifteen Death Watch dar’manda he stripped down to their kute, including the two guards from outside Jango’s apartment. He took holopics of seven Human faces, three Weequay, two Pantorans, and a Zabrak.

He debated finding somewhere to store the bodies to maybe be transported back to Manda’yaim, but then he shrugged. It wasn’t worth the hassle. He floated them out of the facility to drop them in the ocean.

The water smashing up against the building’s stilts was churning up with feasting predators already. Obi-Wan watched for a moment after the bodies disappeared below the surface, spotting fins and tails and the occasional wide toothy maw break the surface.

Back in the facility, Obi-Wan didn’t bother finding another room to continue working on the armor. Floating beskar or things encased in beskar was a pain in the ass, and Obi-Wan wasn’t going to haul nearly a ton of beskar’gam to another room by hand just so he didn’t have to work in the smell of dried blood.

He found a Death Watch armor repair tool kit, so Obi-Wan began working on completely disarming and removing the few traps and bombs he’d come across.

About an hour in he became aware of a bright, warm glowing presence at the door. Glancing up he smiled behind his mask when he saw Cody watching him and the diligent mouse droids work.

“Cody, did you need something?”

The little boy shook his head as looked around the room. “I just wanted to see what you were doing?”

“Come over here and see,” he beckoned as he unclasped his cowl from his gorget and removed his mask, clipping it to his belt. Obi-Wan always felt like he needed Cody to see his face when they spoke. Even knowing the boy could feel him in the Force didn’t stop the yearning to look at him with his naked eyes.

“That’s Trainer Patt’s chest piece,” Cody murmured as he came and sat on the bench next to him.

Obi-Wan’s nose wrinkled. “Is it? I didn’t ask his name before I killed him.” Then he grimaced. It had gotten progressively harder for him to keep his responses calm and normal. The longer he stayed consumed by the Dark the more caustic and sardonic he became.

Cody didn’t seemed to mind though, he simply nodded. “What are you doing?”

“Sometimes Mandalorians- Mando’ade think it’s smart to rig their armor to blow if it’s taken off them by anyone but themselves,” Obi-Wan explained. “Armor is special to us though, the metal we make it out of is just as special, so I’m dismantling all the booby-traps and explosives before we take it all back to Manda’yaim.”

“Oh.” Cody leaned over and watched as Obi-Wan pried a wire free then yanked a thumbnail sized bomb out of the circuitry altogether. “Can I watch?”

“Sure,” Obi-Wan grinned at the curious, clever little boy. “You can even help a little if you’d like. Though you’ll have to do exactly as I say. This can be dangerous work.”

“Yes, sir,” the boy replied reflexively, a determined but excited expression on his face.

“Alright.” Obi-Wan’s eyes creased with his smile. “Here, I need you to hold this tool in place for me while I fiddle with this lead.”

Cody followed directions well, Obi-Wan thought after fifteen minutes and two more rigged armor pieces. He was an extremely fast learner. Unnaturally fast for a developmentally six year old. His comprehension and critical thinking was also abnormally advanced. Obi-Wan chose not to think too hard on why that would be or he might just start shaking the building again with his rage.

Jango had said he thought Kaminoans messed with the clones in more ways than just accelerated growth. He just hadn’t been mentally with it enough to analyze further than noting the discrepancies.

The clones, Obi-Wan knew, were going to need a lot of specialized care. Not just because of the abuse and the training they endured.

Obi-Wan and Cody worked companionably together for almost an hour. The whole time Obi-Wan calmly explaining how the different devices he was pulling from the armor worked and Cody watching him raptly, a growing sense of awe and worship inside the boy for this strange, terrifying warrior that made him feel so safe and so… cared for.

Then Cody stood to go retrieve one of the last pieces to be worked on. The Zabrak’s helmet, judging by the hollow horns protruding from the crown. Obi-Wan watched as the boy politely stepped out of the way of a mouse droid still scrubbing the floor and picked up the helmet.

The moment the boy’s hands touched it, Obi-Wan heard a deafening alarm in the Force. He looked on in horror as the helmet’s visor blinked an ominous red and a beep like a trigger echoed from inside.

Obi-Wan acted on instinct. He threw out both hands directing streams of the Force. One stream to shove the helmet from Cody’s grip so hard and fast that it lodged itself in the wall. The other to wrap around the boy in an almost bruising grip and yank him into Obi-Wan’s chest.

The boy yelped in surprise, then the air was knocked from his lungs as his back collided with Obi-Wan’s stiff brigandine. Wrapping his arms tightly around him, Obi-Wan spun away and curled his body completely over Cody’s.

He was just barely in time. The second he crouched with Cody the explosion went off. It wasn’t quite as strong as a grenade, but it blew out the whole wall and sent a wave of heat and shrapnel shooting at them.

Obi-Wan wrapped the Force around Cody like a protective bubble and gritted his teeth as he felt the back of his neck and ears get singed and peppered with sharp shards of metal.

Then everything was quiet and an alarm started blaring through the facility as the sprinklers in the ceiling were set off. The water was slightly salty tasting as it dripped down Obi-Wan’s face over his lips, and it stung like hell against his small wounds. Thankfully, all Mandalorian explosives were made very stable since they were around explosions all the time. The helmet blowing hadn’t triggered any of the other booby trap bombs to go off.

Slowly, Obi-Wan loosened his hold on Cody, the little boy curled up tight in his arms his eyes squeezed shut and his fingers turning white where they’d dug into Obi-Wan’s vambraces.

“Are you alright, Cody?” he asked urgently as he eased his grip on the Force and the protective bubble dissipated, letting in the water from the sprinklers. The boy was quickly soaked as well.

“Yes, sir,” Cody replied shakily opening his eyes though he still refused to let go of Obi-Wan’s vambraces. “What-what happened?”

“A delayed timer, I think,” Obi-Wan murmured as he dropped back onto his butt pulling the boy the rest of the way into his lap. Shaking those tiny hands from his forearms, Obi-Wan forced Cody to turn toward him so he could look him over for injuries. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

“No- I mean, yes, I’m alright,” Cody assured him then blinked up at his concerned expression. “Obi-Wan…” he paused, curious and surprised, still slightly dazed from the explosion. The little boy unconsciously raised a hand and lightly touched Obi-Wan’s cheek garnering a confused crease between the man’s brows.

“You’re eyes,” he murmured peering close into Obi-Wan’s gaze.

“What?” Obi-Wan wrapped his hand around Cody’s and brought it lower to press against his chest. “What about them?”

“They’re blue,” the boy said with a little bit of a smile curving at his mouth, then he tilted his head and his gaze went a bit distant like he was seeing something far away. “And your storms are almost gone.”

“Storms? What are you-” Then Obi-Wan stopped and blinked down a the still shaking and yet completely unharmed little boy on his lap. He turned his attention inward and blew out a long relieved breath.

The Dark side had dissipated. Either from his selfless act of protecting Cody, or simply his powerful drawing on the Light to form the shielding bubble, Obi-Wan was finally balanced again. He was sure their was still a ring of golden yellow around his pupil, since that was now his natural state and he could feel a small waiting pool of the Dark inside him. But he was also sure his irises had mostly returned to his original blue-green color.

“What happened to your hurricane?” Cody asked curiously when Obi-Wan turned his full attention back on him.

Obi-Wan let out a slightly strangled chuckle. He pulled the boy back to his chest and into a tight thankful embrace. “I’ll explain later, Cody. I promise. Let’s just sit here for a moment and be glad we didn’t get blown up.”

Slowly, Cody lifted his arms and wrapped them around Obi-Wan’s neck in return. When he received nothing but acceptance, his grip tightened and he buried his small face into the skin above Obi-Wan’s groget.

Feeling the fine tremors still wracking the little body in his arms, Obi-Wan closed his eyes and pressed his own face into Cody’s soaked shoulder. His heart was pounding with fear and love and he knew exactly what the little boy was meant to be to him.

As he held Cody in his arms he wondered how many ancient Sith Lords actually took their own children as Apprentices.

*
TBC...

Chapter Text

It took about an hour to figure out how to shut off the alarms and the sprinklers after the explosion. By the time they did the trainers’ barracks were flooded and the mouse droids were on the verge of revolting. The kids thought the whole thing was hilarious though and about fifty of them decided to play in the sprinklers like it was a water park.

Obi-Wan and Jango had their work cut for them attempting to corral the soaked kids to dry them off and change their clothes. The last thing they needed when they were the only adults among a thousand children was to have half a hundred of them come down with a cold.

Eventually everything was calm again and the clones were all sitting down in the refectory having late-meal. The massive room was filled with the enthusiastic chatter of countless developmentally six year olds and as Obi-Wan looked around, for once not in his full armor since his kute had gotten soaked and everything needed to dry out. He thought that the kids were very resilient, the first night after Obi-Wan had killed all their abusers, the late-meal had been dead silent. Until Cody had asked Obi-Wan a question about his armor and then the den had slowly risen to acceptable levels.

Now it seemed like every meal was going to be a struggle to keep the eyayahe from starting a food fight.

On the third day of Obi-Wan’s stay on Kamino, he braved the perpetual rainstorm outside to retrieve his ship and move it to the hangar where the Death Watch and the supply ships docked. The whole trip took him about thirty minutes of scaling the domed facility again and then twenty minutes of running diagnostics and checking for any messages sent to his ship instead of his comlink from their Supercommando backup.

It gave him time to think without having to worry and care for one thousand miniature copies of his older brother. Time to really contemplate what he was going to do now that he’d figured out what the Force had been heralding at him every time he peered at Cody’s glorious presence.

He wondered if this was what Jaster had felt the first time he saw Obi-Wan at that backroom sabacc game all those years ago. Had the Ka’ra whispered to Jaster that Obi-Wan would eventually be his? His son, his family. When he’d first come to Manda’yaim Jango and Jaster had told him how they’d met. How Jaster ended up adopting Jango after his family had been killed by Death Watch. Had Jaster felt this way when they first met in that wheat field on Concord Dawn? Had he looked into Jango’s face and realized that they would eventually be father and son?

Jaster was Force-sensitive enough to hear the whispers of the Ka’ra, the Manda, so perhaps he’d known when he first met his sons that eventually they would be his. Obi-Wan would have to ask him when they all got back to Manda’yaim, because he was a little terrified now that he wasn’t overflowing with the Dark side. Balanced in both aspects of the Force once more, Obi-Wan realized that the moment he’d set eyes on Cody ready to fight him to the death with nothing but a scalpel and a microscope that the little boy was meant for him.

The Dark clouds the mind, if one lets it, and Obi-Wan in his rage and hatred had let it distort his thoughts to an extent and hadn’t been perhaps cognizant enough to distinguish if Cody was meant to be his Apprentice or his child. Now he knew. Cody was supposed to be both.

He was strong in the Force, not as strong as Obi-Wan, but he was somewhere on the spectrum between Feral and Savage. That he was the only Force-sensitive clone made him unique, but Obi-Wan had spent enough time with him and could see into Cody’s Force presence to know that the boy was special in his own right.

Obi-Wan was absolutely sure that even if Cody had been functionally Force-null like Jango, he would have wanted to adopt the boy in a heartbeat.

Because that’s what Obi-Wan yearned to do. He yearned to say the Gai bal Manda and claim Cody as his child. There was of course numerous problems with that.

The first being that Cody had no idea what it meant to have a parent, a kind loving authority figure. He was grown in a test tube and the only adults he’d ever known were either unfeeling scientists or abusive trainers. Or Jango who had to struggle through Sith mind manipulation just to function on a daily basis. Obi-Wan was the first functioning adult he’s ever met that hadn’t been a soulless monster.

The only family or even family-like structure Cody was familiar with were his brothers. All of whom cared for and protected each other, but didn't have the defined roles and responsibilities of a family unit.

Not to mention that adoption held a very special role in Mandalorian society. Cody knew next to nothing about Mandalorians, true Mandalorians, and so wouldn’t understand just how important it would be.

That last one was easily solved at least. Obi-Wan had packed so quickly to leave Manda’yaim that he hadn’t even realized he snatched up a couple of the education datapads that Feral and Savage had used when they’d first come to Mandalore. They were culture and language learning modules.

All Obi-Wan would have to do was load them onto the Kaminoan’s education system and the clones could get a crash course in their new home and rightful culture before the Supercommandos came.

Hopefully, once Cody had worked through the quick modules, he would have a pretty good understanding of what Obi-Wan was offering him when he eventually brought up reciting the adoption vow.

After that the only problem would be what the hell Obi-Wan thought he was doing becoming a parent. It was one thing to teach the younglings the ways of the Force, or to help out with the Foundlings, but being an actual parent. And for a clone of his older brother. Obi-Wan knew he was going to be in way over his head, but foregoing was not an option.

He was pretty sure if he decided to let Cody go, not only would the Force revolt against him but his own heart would break.

Obi-Wan loved the little boy too much already to just walk away from him. And it had only been three kriffing days.

Completing the landing procedures in the Kaminoan’s hangar, Obi-Wan made a last check through the ship for anything worth bringing back into the facility then lowered the main ramp and exited.

He found four clones waiting not so patiently for him a safe distance from his ship. Obi-Wan felt his mouth curl in a smile and he reached up to remove his mask-cowl since he felt no danger around them. It seemed to make the clones uncomfortable when he walked around with his mask on. Knowing that the dar’mandase trained them in full intimidating armor, Obi-Wan always indulged them by removing his mask-cowl when able.

Clipping his mask to his belt he smiled at the clones. “To what do I owe the welcoming party?” he asked teasingly as he stepped up to them. “I thought Jango was supervising some rec time in the main training hall.”

Cody fidgeted as he nodded, seeming uncharacteristically embarrassed and nervous. “He let us come meet you when we asked.”

“I’m not mad,” Obi-Wan assured them though Cody’s embarrassment outweighed his nerves. Curiously he looked at the other three clones all watching him intently. They were Wolffe, 1010, and 6454, Cody’s friends- or closest brothers.

Not all the clones had names yet and not all the ones with names had revealed them to Obi-Wan and Jango. Both men were patient and didn’t push. They were after all Mandalorian and many Mandalorians that adhered to a stricter interpretation of the Creed didn’t reveal their names without ties of aliit or extreme trust. That and a lot of the beroyase- the bounty hunters simply went by “Mando” out in the galaxy. Obi-Wan and Jango not being exceptions to this trend when the situation warranted it.

1010 didn’t seem to be able to contain himself any longer because he suddenly burst out, “Did you really pick Cody up without touching him!”

Obi-Wan blinked at him a moment then chuckled lightly. “Yes, I did. It was the fastest way to get him away from the bomb.”

“See! I told you!” Cody huffed at his now wide eyed brothers. “I told you he can do strange things like I can!”

“We believed you, Cody,” Wolffe assured him not particularly sincerely.

“No, you didn’t,” he scoffed and scowled. “You guys just dragged us out here to ask Obi-Wan himself.”

“Wait a minute,” Obi-Wan held up a hand before the boys could dissolve into an argument. “Cody, can you move things without touching them?”

The little boy turned back to Obi-Wan. “I’ve only done it a couple times and the trainers never noticed, but I slid a battle staff to Fo- 1010 once during trainer-clone sparring and I-” he paused, seeming a little sheepish. “I grabbed the scalpel from a one of the long necks’ work stations when you uh-”

“I see,” Obi-Wan cut him off with an understanding nod. “Do you perhaps want to know why you can move things without touching them or why you can see inside of a persona’s thoughts and intentions the way you do?”

“What do you mean Cody can see a person’s thoughts?” asked 6454 with a confused look to the brother in question.

“You know how I can always tell when the trainers are-er were in a bad mood?” Cody started a little hesitant.

“They were always in a bad mood,” Wolffe grumbled but was ignored.

“It’s because I could kind of see like clouds and oil slicks and something kind of like thorns hanging around them.” The other clones looked at Cody, with varying degrees of curiosity and confusion, but none of them were hostile or particularly disbelieving. Perhaps they were thinking back to times when Cody had warned them to be on their best behavior because a trainer was in a less than forgiving mood.

“You asked, after the explosion,” Obi-Wan spoke into the considering silence, “where my hurricane went. Is that what I seemed like to you? A storm like a hurricane.”

Cody shrugged and focused his gaze very intently on Obi-Wan seeming to scan him up and down. “It’s the closest thing I knew to how you felt. Now you feel more like when a hurricane is coming, when the sky is dark, wind is blowing but the actual storm hasn’t arrived yet. And the sun is shining,” Cody said looking a little surprised. “The sun almost never shines on Kamino so your sunlight seems really bright to me.”

The fond, tender smile curling at Obi-Wan’s lips could not be suppressed, not that he tried at all. “That’s a very accurate reading of my presence, Cody. Well done.” The little boy’s cheeks flushed in pleasure even as he straightened his posture and lifted his chin as if coming to attention.

A habit Obi-Wan was eager to break him of.

“So Cody has special powers?” 1010 asked peering at his brother as if he too could see the powers they were talking about.

“Cody and I are Force-sensitive. It means that we can sense and use an energy source called the Force.” Obi-Wan crouched down to be on the boys’ level while he explained. “The Force is an energy field created by and found in all forms of life. Every living being in the galaxy is connected in the Force, touched by it, filled with it, though some like Cody and I are able to actually manipulate and wield it.”

The boys seemed to understand. Obi-Wan knew that the concepts were comprehensible to developmental six year olds as he’d learned all this even before that age. But he could see in the Force how fast and efficient the clones’ unshielded minds were processing this information. It was disconcerting since it was unnatural for genetic Humans at this age. The longer he’d been in this facility the longer the list of apparent alterations the Kaminoans made to Jango’s genetic code was becoming.

“Obi-Wan,” Cody looked at him with an almost eager curiosity. “What else can you do with the Force?”

Obi-Wan’s lips twitched as he answered, “All things are possible in the Force.” Then when the boys’ scowled at him, he chuckled and said, “I can do a great many things. I can levitate things, move faster than the eye can track, read into the heart and mind of a person, and I even sometimes have dreams or visions of possible future events.”

The boys seemed suitably impressed by that, but then 6454 asked, “Can you levitate one of us?”

This was not the first time Obi-Wan had been looked in the eye by a youngling and asked to float them in the air. It was a favorite past time of the foundlings and Obi-Wan had to discipline Maul’s brothers more than once when Savage attempted to float his brother around the training yards without supervision.

It seemed even younglings born and grown in isolation and abuse thought the idea of flying was the neatest thing since sliced bread.

Looking at the four eager, hopeful pairs of eyes, Obi-Wan sighed good-naturedly and stood up. “Alright, but only for a few minutes and only to my head height. I don’t want to get tired and drop you.”

Of course he then spent the next hour levitating Cody, Wolffe, 1010, and 6454 around the hangar. He floated them up as high as twenty feet then brought them swooping down like a space ship. It was a work out, but their bright overwhelming joy and glee were convenient sources of power in the Dark side so Obi-Wan felt safe enough to draw on that energy and extend his stamina a little longer.

He was concentrating on making sure the boys had fun and were safe enough that he only distantly registered Jango coming up behind him.

“So this is where you’ve been?” his brother commented with a dry amused tone. “I thought it was taking you a very long time to re-dock your ship.”

Obi-Wan glanced over at him then back to his little clone spaceships swooping around the hangar. “They got curious. I didn’t see the need to deny them.”

Jango snorted. “You mean you’re a complete pushover with younglings. I know the foundling guardians are always complaining to Jaster that you wind the kids up with all your Force tricks and games.”

In Jango’s arms Boba was watching the clones floating in their air with innocent yearning and fascination. Obi-Wan grinned and extended a little of the Force to gently lift the toddler into the air.

“Obi-Wan!” Jango snapped as his son started to float away.

“Yay! Ba’voo, highew’!” little Boba chanted and clapped his hands as he drifted through the air, though only about five feet away from his father and a foot above their heads. Obi-Wan wasn’t an idiot. He knew Jango was more than capable of kicking his ass.

Chuckling under his brother’s black glare, he conceded in self-preservation. “Alright, young ones, I believe it’s time to stop.”

The clones all protested and groaned like regular children as Obi-Wan set them all back on their feet. Boba he floated back into Jango’s arms, the toddler much more openly comfortable voicing his complaints though he settled easily enough against his father’s chest. The moment the kids saw his raised eyebrow and unmoved expression they straightened up and intoned, “Yes, sir,” on reflex.

Obi-Wan didn’t show his displeasure at the address, he simply gave them a smile and ushered them back into the facility.

As they escorted the clones back to their brothers, Cody fell back from his friends to walk next to Obi-Wan.

Feeling the boy’s shyness and hope, Obi-Wan gave his shoulder a quick squeeze and smiled gently down at him.

“Will I be able to do that, Obi-Wan?” he asked with a glance back to the hangar.

“Perhaps,” Obi-Wan said. “I can teach you, if you like.”

Cody thought about that then tentatively reached out and touched Obi-Wan’s gloved hand hanging at his side. “Can I-” his brow furrowed and he stared intently at the floor before their feet even as his fingers loosely wrapped around Obi-Wan’s. “Can I stay with you, if you train me?”

Heart pounding in his chest, Obi-Wan curled his hand around Cody’s, so small and delicate despite the blaster callouses already forming. “Cody,” he waited until the boy’s warm brown eyes were looking up at him. “Even if you decide you don’t want to train in the Force, I want nothing more than for you to stay with me.”

Truth the Force chimed and Cody’s eyes widened even as his cheeks tinted with pleasure and he slowly started to smile. The expression rapidly became just as bright and shining as the hope and happiness in his Force presence.

They spent the rest of the walk back to the other clones holding hands, their presences in the Force twining and dancing with contentment.

Upon entering the massive training gym where the other clones were entertaining themselves, Cody was given temporary charge of Boba so Jango and Obi-Wan could have a private conversation. The reason Jango had gone to retrieve his brother in the first place.

“We’ll be in my apartment, verd’ika, so if Boba or any one of you need anything don’t hesitate to come and get us.”

“Yes, Prime,” Cody nodded seriously and wondered back toward his friends when Jango dismissed him.

The clones all insisted on continuing to call Jango Prime, and though Jango seemed not to mind, Obi-Wan couldn’t help being discomforted. It made him feel like the clones just viewed themselves as lesser, as simple offshoots of the main source. And they weren’t. They may have been clones from Jango’s genetic code but they were each and every one of them completely unique and individual.

Since he was the only one that had an issue with it, however, he didn’t protest.

Once they were out of the training gym, Jango turned to Obi-Wan. “Your comlink went off while you were gone. The frequency access code was changed so I couldn’t answer it, but the call source had a True Mandalorian ID.”

Obi-Wan had taken his comm off his vambrace when he’d gone to move his ship and left it with Jango in case the Supercommando battalion tried to contact him. “I forgot to give you the new codes. We changed all of them after you were taken.”

Jango just nodded. He would have done the same and wasn’t disappointed by his buir and brother’s caution. “They left a message. I figure we’ll listen to it and you can call them back.”

“I sent them a message confirming your safety and the securing of the facility, but I didn’t want to tell them anything else,” Obi-Wan said knowing the Haat Mando’ad ship would have received his message immediately upon exiting hyperspace.

“This should be an interesting briefing then,” Jango commented with a slightly morbid twist of humor. Then he glanced over at his brother with a considering, knowing look. “You want to say the Gai bal Manda with Kot’ika, don’t you?”

Blowing out a long breath, Obi-Wan nodded. “He’s meant to be mine,” he said turning imploring yellow tinted blue-green eyes on his brother. “I felt it the moment I saw him ready to fight me with nothing but a scalpel in a lab filled with dismembered cloners. Cody is glorious in the Force and he’s meant for me.”

“Meant for you how?” Jango pressed. “Is this just more Force osik and you’ll claim him just to train him as your apprentice, or do you really genuinely want to know him as your child?”

Breath hitching, Obi-Wan accepted his brother’s skepticism and demand for answers. The clones were genetically tied to Jango and so by the Creed Jango was responsible for their care until they were adopted or were able to go their own ways. His brother may be suffering from years of Sith torture and mind control, but his honor as a Mandalorian would never change. He’d protected the clones as best he could while held prisoner himself and now free he will continue to protect the clones. Even if he had to protect them from his own brother.

Obi-Wan understood this and so when he answered his brother’s demand he did so plainly, honestly. “Even if Cody had the Force-sensitivity of a rock, I would claim him as my child in a heart beat. Yes, the Force is whispering that Cody and I are connected, but I know even if it was silent my heart wouldn’t change. It may have taken a little longer, but eventually I still would have offered to pledge the Gai bal Manda anyway.”

It was the truth, too. Obi-Wan believed wholeheartedly that even if the Force hadn’t connected them, eventually they would have found each other. There was more to the whispers in the Force than just Apprentice and Son, of course, but Obi-Wan wasn’t in a frame of mind to meditate on it, yet. All he knew at the moment was that Cody and him were connected. Their connection was such that it could take many forms in different circumstances, but here and now, it was the form of student and child.

Jango stared into his brother’s eyes for a long moment. He didn't have the Ka’ra to tell him when a person was lying or being honest, but he knew Obi-Wan. He knew that his little brother, for all that he was a big bad Dark side user, had a heart the size of Mand’yaim. If Obi-Wan believed that he would love Cody even without the Force pushing them together, then Jango believed him.

“You have my blessing, vod’ika,” he said solemn, but kind. “Should Cody accept your offer, I will be glad to give him into your care.”

Obi-Wan felt like his a tight ball of tension had dissipated from his chest and a gust of relieved, happy breath exploded from him. He grabbed Jango and yanked him closer to press their foreheads together in a brotherly mirshmure’cya.

“Vor entye, Jango,” he murmured and sighed when his brother reached up and squeezed the back of his neck in comfort. “Ni kar’taylir gar, ori’vod¹.”

“N’entye,” Jango huffed at his sappy, emotional brother. Still didn’t stop him from returning the sentiment of love, though. “Ni kar’taylir gar, Obi-Wan.” He squeezed the back of Obi-Wan’s neck a last time then pulled away, turning back toward his apartment.

“Come on. We need to get in contact with the Supercommandos,” back to business, though he couldn’t resist throwing a last bit of teasing at his brother. “I can’t believe Jaster is finally getting those grandchildren he kept bugging us about. And all it took was some Sith kidnapping and an illegally cloned child army.”

Obi-Wan snorted and smirked at his brother as he replied, “Actually, you and I are late to the game.” At Jango’s confused expression he said, “Maul adopted his two much younger brothers just before you went missing, remember? He beat us to the bu’ade boat and Jaster spent a few good months proclaiming him the new favorite son.”

“Ugh,” Jango grimaced at the reminder. He and Maul would never be vode, but over the years they’d managed to be something like grudging friends, mostly for Obi-Wan’s sake. So it wasn’t like Jango disliked the Zabrak. Still, “Maul isn’t even officially adopted. How can he be the favorite?”

“He still gave Jaster grandchildren first,” Obi-Wan smirked at the scowl on his brother’s face.

“Our buir and his feral murder children, I swear,” Jango grumbled as he let them into the apartment.

They let the banter dissipate as they took seats on the cot and newly scrounged up chair ready to get down to business. Jango handed back his comlink and Obi-Wan typed in the frequency access code.

One of the Supercommando commanding officers appeared in the holo-projection above the unit fully armored. “Ad’Alor, we received your message and the landing coordinates. However, we are unable to find the planet. Please respond with further instruction.”

The holo-image disappeared and the brothers looked at each other concerned.

“I thought you said you had to find actual coordinates to the planet?” Jango said. “That you couldn’t do your Force navigation thing because you’d never been to Kamino before.”

“I did,” Obi-Wan said, brow furrowed in thought. One of the downsides of the Sith hyperspace navigation technique was that you had to have been to your destination at least once. He’d never been to Kamino before and so had to navigate using coordinates and established hyperspace lanes. “There’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to find the planet. I gave them the galactic trade standard coordinates.”

“No normal reason,” Jango corrected. “You also said the Sith was hiding me from you with the Force. Could he have hid the entire planet as well?”

“That’s not…” but was it possible? This was the Sith Master, by all accounts a clever and powerful Force-user. And all things were possible in the Force. No Force-user, not Sith or Jedi or otherwise, could honestly claim to know everything about the Force. “Let’s call the battleship back and see what they have to say.”

Obi-Wan input the battleship’s code and the call was connected almost immediately. Instead of the CO, however it was Jaster’s head and shoulders that materialized over Obi-Wan’s comlink.

Jango gave a sharp intake of air next to Obi-Wan and Jaster’s eyes shot to him. The Mand’alor’s face crumpled in relief, before the man quickly swept all his feelings to the side for now and turned to Obi-Wan. The quicker they could land the quicker he could take his son in his arms after all.

“Obi-Wan,” Jaster began, voice rough though steady, “I think it’s some kind of Force shielding around the planet. I can tell something is there, something is hidden, but I can’t see it. The other Ka’ra’ade on board say something similar, but everyone else only sees blank space.”

Obi-Wan wondered why he didn’t have a problem finding the planet once he dropped out of hyperspace. If the other Force-sensitive Mandalorians were affected by the shield as well, then it wasn’t simply targeted at Force-nulls.

“Are you following the coordinates I gave?”

“The nav-computers are focused on the exact coordinates and they warn that it’s empty space,” Jaster answered.

Obi-Wan hummed and closed his eyes as he sent his awareness out into the Force. There was still a fog around the planet. A Dark spell shielding Kamino, hiding it from all those that want to find… Hmm. He examined the web of deception around the planet and listened to the whispers in the Force. It wasn’t hiding Kamino itself, Obi-Wan realized. It was hiding Jango’s location. After all commercial and civilian ships had to be able to find the rest of the planet and its main population somehow.

The Sith shield would only work on those that wanted to find Jango. Obi-Wan hadn’t been effected by it perhaps because he already knew Jango was here, or because he'd seen him in the vision on Tython, or even because he was searching for the facility and not Jango specifically. It didn’t matter. He knew how to at least make the planet visible to the navigator and main pilot.

“Jaster, the Sith shield is hiding Jango. Because you and the Supercommandos are looking for Jango it’s hiding the planet from you.”

Jaster nodded, not really understanding how that could be but trusting Obi-Wan’s judgment. “How do we find the planet then?”

“Search for me,” Obi-Wan said, simply. “Have the bridge crew repeat aloud that you’re coming to my location, that you’re looking for me.”

Though somewhat skeptical of such a simple solution, Jaster did as his son suggested and almost immediately after the crew had spoken the words, a massive blue planet materialized in the view screen and on their nav-computers.

There were exclamations of shock and amazement from Jaster’s side of the communication. The Mand’alor himself muttered about dini’la Ka’ra osik before he turned his full attention back on his sons. “We’ll be flying around the planet and dropping through atmosphere directly over the facility within the next couple of hours.”

“We’ll meet you on the landing platform,” Obi-Wan assured him, silently thankful that the landing platform outside the hangar was created with large supply ships in mind. It would be a tight fit but the medium sized True Mandalorian troop transport should be able to land safely.

“I’ll see you soon, my sons,” Jaster murmured his eyes warm and yearning as they looked on Jango. Then he disconnected the holocall and the apartment was quiet for a long moment.

At his side, Obi-Wan could feel the roiling grief and love and longing in his brother. He leaned his armored shoulder against Jango’s and sent him a wave of comfort in the Force. Jango couldn’t exactly tell what Obi-Wan was doing, but he could feel some of his turmoil ease and knew that his little brother was helping him.

“Come on, vod’ika,” Jango said after a long moment of the two brothers silently soothing each other. “Let’s go tell the eyayahe that it’s time to go home.”

*

They decided it would perhaps be better not to spring the revelation of a thousand clones of Jango on their buir the moment he stepped off the ship, so it was Obi-Wan and Jango alone that greeted their father and their verde.

The moment Jaster got within touching distance of Jango he grabbed his son and held him tight and unyielding in his arms. His helmet was hanging from his belt so Jaster was able to press a trembling kiss to Jango’s temple and bury his face in the younger man’s neck.

“Su cuy’gar, ner ad’ika,” Jaster murmured tearfully against his skin. “I thought I might never see you again.”

Jango’s whole body quivered at the words, at the love and grief he could practically feel pouring from his buir. He held onto Jaster so tight his knuckles turned white and his fingers ached. “Su cuy’gar, Buir. I missed you so much.”

Father and son embraced for a long moment, no one wanting to separate them before they were ready, least of all Obi-Wan. Then Jaster took in a steadying breath and pulled back to look his son over. His warm brown eyes were wet and his mouth was pinched with his emotions.

When he took in Jango’s true state, Jaster frowned. “What have they done to you, my son?” he demanded, anger and protectiveness obvious in his darkened expression. “You’re skin and bones and much too pale.”

Obi-Wan spoke up then before Jango could attempted to brush it off. “I didn't put it in my message, Buir, in case it was intercepted, but there are many things we must tell you. The reason for Jango’s ill-health being the least of them.”

Turning to see the grave look on his younger son’s face Jaster nodded slowly. “Tell me, Obi-Wan. Tell me what other sins I am to lay at the Sith’s feet.”

The verde closest to the reunited Aliit be Mand’alor grew tense and it filtered through the others gathered on the platform until all the observing warriors were listening intently. The other two hundred verde were still on the transport since Obi-Wan had reportedly already dealt with any threats.

Still mostly held in his father’s arms, Jango blew out a breath and nodded agreement for Obi-Wan to break the news.

“The Sith were using Jango to create an army,” Obi-Wan held his father’s eyes and finished, “an army of children.”

Jaster was enraged. Children were the most important, and any threat to a child would be handled with extreme prejudiced. If the Sith weren’t already marked for death, they certainly would be now. But something about this didn’t make sense, he could sense there was vastly more to this.

He looked from one son to the other and asked, “Where did these children come from?”

And because Jango, fresh off of three years of Sith torture and mind control or not, was still a smart ass he responded with a wry curl of his lips. “Let’s just say you finally have all bu’ade you could possibly want.”

*

TBC...

Chapter Text

To say that Jaster was shocked by the one thousand identical faces turned in their direction was an understatement. He kept his expression open and pleasant, unwilling to frighten any of the children with either a slack jaw or a contorted scowl of abject rage.

The Sith cloned his son. The Sith kidnapped Jango, tortured him, and stole his genetics to commit the worst sin in the Mandalorian Creed. Demagolka.

Of course Obi-Wan and Jango didn’t just spring the clones on him. He might have had a heart attack if he wasn’t at least a little prepared. They briefed him quickly in a small conference room on the way to the main training gym. Apparently the only room other than the refectory large enough to old all the children.

Mind control, Obi-Wan told him with a grim face and half golden eyes. The Sith invaded Jango’s mind and left Dark compulsions, traps, and suggestions behind. The only consolation Jaster had was the satisfaction of knowing the Sith magics had to be periodically renewed because Jango was so stubborn and defiant that his will power kept degrading them.

The mind control is gone, but Jango is not healed. That much Jaster knows just looking in his son’s eyes. There’s a long road ahead of Jango, but Jaster and Obi-Wan will be right there with him. He’ll be fine. Eventually.

“After they-” Jango grit his teeth as he picked up the telling from Obi-Wan’s explanation of evil Sith magics, “after they killed the Nulls, the first batch of clones, I killed some of them. The Sith decided they needed leverage on me to keep me docile or at least distracted.”

Shame, Jaster thought with his heart breaking as he listened to Jango speak. His son felt shame for being at the mercy of the Darjetii.

“He had the Kaminoans give me an unaltered clone. Boba.” There was softening of Jango’s face and Jaster thought, oh, this clone was his child. “After that they’d threaten Boba if I ever put up a fuss. Not that I didn’t try, I just-”

Jaster put a hand on Jango’s shoulder and gave his son a gentle smile. “I understand, Jango.”

Jango blew out a breath and looked away, though he didn’t shake Jaster’s hand off. Obi-Wan picked the story back up.

It was an awful story. Jaster was sure if he was more attuned to the Ka’ra he would have probably been tapping into the Dark side he was so angry. At the abuse of his son and the abuse of over a thousand innocent children. All bred and trained for some unknown sinister plot of the Sith.

He felt it was safe to assume the clones were meant to be an army for the Sith’s coming war. A war approaching sooner than they’d thought. The clones accelerated aging put the war at perhaps six or seven years out if they were lucky. By then the clones would be developmentally equivalent to a Human of twenty years old. And more than battle ready, if Jango’s assessment of the training and education given to the clones was anything to go by.

The only bright spots, if one could find bright spots in such horror, were his sons’ ade. Jango was Boba’s father, no doubt about that, but apparently Obi-Wan had formed a fondness and connection with one of the clones. The only Force-sensitive clone and according to both Obi-Wan and Jango a fierce little warrior already.

“His name’s Cody,” Obi-Wan said with a genuine if small smile on his face. “Jango started calling him kote, and so he turned it into his name. And it’s such a good name for him too. If I had to describe his presence in the Force with one word it would be glorious.”

Obi-Wan having been the most resistant of his children – official and unofficial – to adopting a foundling must be smitten by this child, indeed. It would be amusing if Jaster wasn’t so proud and excited for his sons.

His excitement for his new bu’ade was only dampened by the knowledge that there were a thousand more little boys wearing Jango’s face that needed to be loved and cared for too. And there was no way Jaster, Obi-Wan, and Jango could take on that privilege for all of them. Not with Mandalore to rule and a secret war with the Sith to wage.

But that was a problem for when they were all back on Manda’yaim and away from this hellhole.

“Take me to the children,” Jaster had said once he’d gotten the bare bones of the situation.

Knowing that there were one thousand clones and seeing one thousand clones was apparently two completely different things, because Jaster’s breath was knocked out of him when he stepped through the door and was met with the children themselves.

Ten of Jaster’s verde, including a medic and a slicer, had come along for the rushed briefing and to meet the kids. Jaster heard one of them curse and another mutter a prayer as all those little faces watched them warily.

“Verd’ike,” Obi-Wan stepped forward with a reassuring smile that immediately eased some of the children’s tension, “this is Jaster, he’s our father, our buir that we told you about. He’s also the ruler of Mandalore. He and our vode, our brothers in arms, have come to help us take you home.”

A wave of whispers filled with hope and disbelief traveled over the children. Jaster felt his heart lurch and he murmured to Jango.

“Rejorhaa’ir ni solus demagolkase kyrayc.” Tell me the monstrous assholes are dead. Jaster turned his head and met his son’s burning gaze.

Jango grinned like a satisfied predator. “Obi-Wan ru naastar kaysh an.” Obi-Wan destroyed them all.

“Ori’jate,” Jaster nodded and turned back to the children. Yes, very good.

The children were understandably still wary of the newcomers in armor so like their abusive trainers, but they’d mostly gotten used to seeing Obi-Wan in his armor and with him and Jango there to reassure them and break the ice soon the verde were mingling. It was heartbreaking watching the children slowly but eagerly opening up. Each Commando had a large group of kids gathered around them in no time, peppering them with questions and comments and tales of the last few days after the trainers and the long necks were killed.

It was known among the clones that Obi-Wan was the one that had slaughtered their captors and instead of making them frightened, they practically hero-worshiped him.

Mandokarla, Jaster thought with fondness. Though he probably shouldn’t have expected anything less from clones of Jango.

“Buir.” He turned to Obi-Wan. At some point his son had acquired a toddler on his hip, who he handed off to Jango, and a little boy at his side. “This is Boba and Cody.”

Jaster looked at the boys and his first thought was a memory he had of Jango the first time they’d met. He hadn’t even been a pre-teen yet, still a child. Young enough that the resemblance between Jango, the toddler in his arms, and the little boy standing next to him was almost mirror image. And yet there was something about the two children that Jaster could tell they had entirely their own personalities. He was sure there would be some similarities to be found with his Jango. Especially since Jango had a hand in training Cody and was raising Boba, but other than the bleed over that happens with prolonged exposure, Jaster knew he’d have no trouble seeing the boys themselves beneath Jango’s face.

Smiling from one curious face to the other, Jaster greeted, “Su cuy’gar, ad’ike.”

“Soo coo’gar!” Boba chimed with an enthusiasm that charmed Jaster immediately. His ready response indicated that even with Sith mind control Jango had been attempting to follow their Creed, teaching his child and speaking their language.

Cody was much more calm in his response and very exacting for a developmental six year old. The crease of concentration between his brows surprisingly – or perhaps not so – reminded Jaster of Obi-Wan.

“Soo-um su cuy’gar, Mand-Mand’alor Mereel,” the boy returned the greeting, catching and quickly correcting his own pronunciation.

That had Obi-Wan’s enthusiastic teaching all over it.

“You don’t have to call me Mand’alor, ad’ika,” Jaster assured the boy kindly. “You can simply call me Jaster. Since I hear you’re going to be staying with us in the palace.”

Cody’s cheeks pinked and he shot a cautious look over his shoulder to Obi-Wan. The young man gave him a smile and pressed a hand to his shoulder briefly. Turning back to Jaster, Cody offered a small if genuine smile of his own. “Thank you, Jaster. Obi-Wan said I can stay with him and I-” his eyes flicked around bashful and subtly pleased, “I’m excited to see what the palace is like.”

The boy’s hesitant demeanor in the face of genuine kindness and unrestrained affection reminded Jaster a bit of Obi-Wan too. The boy had still been throwing off his Jedi stoicism and detachment when they’d first met and any show of affection verbal or physical had been met with a surprise and barely restrained revelry.

Seeing it in Cody broke his heart even more now than it did then. Obi-Wan at least hadn’t been abused and mistreated. Cody on the other hand had. Jaster was determine to shower his new potential bu’ad with as much affection as he could stand.

When it became clear that the new armored people weren’t a threat and the clones were comfortable interacting with them, Jaster commed his ship for a dozen more of his verde to come and help supervise. How his sons had looked after one thousand precocious half trained children with Jango’s genetics without losing one down a hole or dying themselves Jaster was mystified.

Having more hands and eyes on the situation gave Jaster, Jango, and Obi-Wan the opportunity to debrief with the three medics – the other two on the med-team having come with the second group - and the slicer.

Jango explained to the medics the little he knew about the children’s altered genetics and their accelerated aging as well as their training and the types of injuries they’d usually acquire. Obi-Wan gave the slicer the location for the main computer storage servers and the cloners’ lab. The medics and slicer started in the lab, breaking into the computers and medical droids, collecting as much data on the clones as possible. Then the slicer went to the servers and stripped everything he could off of them.

They needed to know how the Sith were paying for this. Who knew about the clones. And what the Sith were going to do with them.

The Aliit be Mand’alor retreated to Jango’s tiny apartment for a more personal and detailed reunion.

Jango told his father and brother what exactly had happened on his hunt for Montross. Montross, who had not been in the facility when Obi-Wan got there and so was in the wind since he hadn’t returned in the interim either. He described as best he could what the Sith did to him in the very beginning. The torture that caused the disturbance in the Force that reached Obi-Wan all the way on Manda’yaim.

And he told them in greater detail with a tense expression, shame in his heart, and grief burning his eyes about the first batch of clones. The Nulls, twelve children, six dying just after being taken from their tubes and six being murdered by the Kaminoans when it was clear they were too independent and aggressive. Then he spoke about the Alphas. The batch of one hundred clones that Jango had trained personally. Their accelerated aging sped up to almost three times the Human norm, and the single clone who’s aging somehow glitched causing him to grow much faster.

The Kaminoans kept that one alive, to study and experiment on. To see where they went wrong.

Then Jango told them how the Alphas, the entire batch disappeared over night a few months ago. Apparently they weren’t satisfactory after all.

The Alphas had been training the other clones in the leadership and command skills that Jango had trained them in and so when they were… decommissioned, Jango was given the role of training his eyayahe. It was probably the only thing that kept him from really losing it after the last Sith violation on his mind when he vehemently protested the Alphas’ fate. Training the clones and caring for Boba kept him sane long enough for Obi-Wan to find him.

Having a better picture of his son’s torture and captivity, of the eyayahe’s abuse and mistreatment, did nothing to diminish Jaster’s rage or his thirst for blood from the Sith. The Sith may be wanting war, but they have no idea what they’ve opened themselves up for.

And speaking of blood lust. Jaster had of course noticed the blood smeared and dried over Obi-Wan’s armor.

“Obi-Wan, why have you not cleaned your armor?”

His youngest son didn’t even look down at said soiled armor. “When the Taungs were Mand’alore it was common practice to paint your armor in the blood of your enemies, those that wronged you or your clan.”

Jaster took in the more prominent golden yellow in his son’s eyes, they unrepentant expression on his face. “I am aware of the old customs, Obi-Wan. Yet, it has in fact been a few thousand years since we’ve had a Taung Mand’alor or since this particular custom was regularly practiced.” He eyed the random smears and splatters, the blood spray and tracks with no pattern or artistry.

“If you’re attempting to convince me you’re faithfully trying to follow an old Way, you’re doing it wrong,” Jaster informed his son. “The blood was used in lieu of paint to mark symbols and crests and other designs on the armor. It was not left to dry splattered and streaked over preexisting paint.”

Obi-Wan’s expression contorted in a split second of vicious, violent defiance, his eyes turning wholly yellow and the ozone in the air increasing to an almost electrical charge. Jaster remained steady and calm in the face of his son’s rising force of nature. He held Obi-Wan’s burning yellow gaze and simply raised a challenging eyebrow. The power at his son’s disposal and the violently threatening air he was deliberately releasing into the room was immense, but he was still Jaster’s son. He’d soothed away Obi-Wan’s nightmares and sent him to his room for misbehaving, he would not be intimidated by his own child no matter how much more powerful he was.

Then as fast as the danger had risen it was gone again and the young man sitting across from him was no longer a creature of potential destruction and slaughter. In the face of Jaster’s calm and unwavering presence Obi-Wan was simply a conflicted young man again.

Blowing out a long breath, Obi-Wan met his father’s gaze, an apology silently shining in his once more mostly blue-green gaze. “You’re right, Buir. I should not have mistreated my armor or claimed adherence to an old Way to excuse it.”

Jaster knew it was more than just mistreatment of armor. He knew that the Dark could cloud the mind, could make one do and say things they would never otherwise do. And since Jango’s capture, Obi-Wan had been straddling the line much more on the Dark side than he usually did. It had worried him immensely.

Over the years Jaster had come to understand that however much a Force-user wielded the Dark versus the Light – if they wielded both - depended on the type of person they were. Maul walked almost totally in the Dark and was perfectly fine.

Obi-Wan on the other hand strove to be balanced in all things. Too much in the Light would not negatively effect him except to cause discomfort and a feeling that a piece of himself was missing or dormant. Too much Dark on the other hand caused mood swings, excessive violence, and a twisted kind of rationale that made letting blood splatter dry on his armor as a sign of his victory seem like a good idea.

“There are armor cleaning chemicals and materials on the transport,” Jaster said sternly though he placed a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder to communicate his forgiveness. “I expect your armor to be clean by the time we reach Manda’yaim.”

“Yes, Buir.” Obi-Wan ducked his head, humble and chastised.

Unfortunately flying the five-ish days back to Mandalore with one thousand developmental six year olds on a medium sized troop transport was not feasible. After some debate it was agreed that they couldn’t stay on Kamino for very much longer. The chances that the Sith Master or one of his agents might pop in for a surprise inspection was too great. Still one troop transport even with the addition of the Death Watch’s abandoned ships was not enough passenger space to make the journey. They decided to contact Mandalore and request three more transports to meet them at their closet allied planet. Which happened to be Ryloth.

Ryloth was actually in the opposite direction of Mandalore, but it was safe and had plenty of uninhabited land to park a transport filled to the brim with secret clones. Obi-Wan being the liaison between most of the planets they’d allied with took on the job of contacting the Rylothian government and informing them that the Mand’alor needed to park on their planet for a few days.

Since they’d started training and supplementing the Twi’leks’ planetary security force, the rates of slave raids and pirate attacks had come to nearly a complete halt. The people of Ryloth and the government were very grateful for the Mandalorians’ help. They agreed to let four large Mandalorian troop transports meet and park on their planet with no issue. And no questions asked.

That settled, it was time to begin the momentous task of loading up a thousand kids and leaving Kamino behind. All the verde came off the ship for the operation and there was twenty-four hours of chaos trying to get the kids’ meager belongings packed and stowed away on the transport ship. Not to mention the rations, hygiene products, medical supplies and equipment, and the weaponry and ammunition used for training. No one had known about the clones and so they had not come prepared with enough supplies to sustain them on the journey back to Mandalore. With raiding the Kaminoans’ supplies they’d be able to keep the kids fed and otherwise for the few days they’d be stuck on Ryloth waiting for pick up.

Of course Mandalorians never left a weapon behind if they could help it and the medical supplies, the top grade stuff the cloners stocked, was invaluable. So as much as they could fit was packed and stowed away on the ships they were commandeering from the dead Death Watch.

Perhaps the hardest part of the entire operation was transferring the decommissioned clones. The twelve Nulls and just over two dozen other clones deemed unworthy.

The medics had looked the preservation stasis chambers over and decided it was best to leave them intact until they could get to Manda’yaim and give the children proper burials. It broke Jaster’s heart and enraged Jango that nowhere in the entirety of the facility could they find evidence of the Alphas’ bodies. Whatever the Kaminoans did with the Alphas after murdering them they left no trace behind. Their slicer couldn’t even find documentation on the computers. There was just a simple entry of decommissioning in the lab logs and nothing else.

Obi-Wan had gone cold and stiff at this information, turning on his heel and storming away. He wasn’t seen again for hours.

A full day after Jaster landed on Kamino they were ready to depart. The kids were on the main transport, the former Death Watch ships were already in orbit waiting, and explosive charges were set on the facility’s stilts and in the facility itself.

Jaster had asked why they felt the need to blow the whole place up, not that he was going to stop them, he was just curious. Jango said he needed the cathartic explosions and Obi-Wan said that the Dark side was twisted and sickly throughout the facility. It would be wise to destroy the whole place before it could fester into a malignant Dark side nexus.

The Mandalorian transport was floating above the buildings steadily rising into the atmosphere when the timers went off and the entire facility exploded in a ball of flames and debris. The whole thing was live streamed from the outside cameras into the storage bay where all the clones were. Their cries of surprise and excitement as they watched the only home they’d ever known go up in flames was loud and heartfelt.

A few of the clones even began crying, with relief or grief, probably a combination of both. Cody sitting in Obi-Wan’s lap watching the destruction turned into his armored shoulder and hid his tears as he wrapped his arms around the young man’s neck and held on tight. Obi-Wan rubbed soothing hands up and down the little boy’s hitching back and sent a wave of love and comfort to him through the Force.

“It’s over now, dear one,” Obi-Wan murmured and pressed his lips against Cody’s temple in a whisper light kiss. “It’s over. You’re going home.”

The bright swelling light of Cody’s presence drowned out most everything else as the boy’s happiness and joy broke through the shadows of his grief. Obi-Wan closed his eyes and just held his… his foundling in his arms for a long while after that.

*

Their stay on Ryloth was four days of frantically attempting to keep one thousand curious, frighteningly capable little boys from running off into the wilderness. They couldn’t just keep the kids locked up on the ship for days so the Mandalorians worked out a rotation of about a hundred kids at a time getting one hour of outside play time per day. Even with twenty verde supervising every outing there were still mishaps.

The most terrifying of which was a group of wandering clones getting cornered by a hungry pair of gutkurs, massive carnivorous insects native to Ryloth. Thankfully, Obi-Wan was on guard-supervising duty at the time and had heard the warning in the Force as well as felt Cody’s spike of fear.

He Force-sped toward them and front flipped over the gutkurs to get between the slavering beasts and the kids. Then he connected to the insects’ minds with Beast Control and sent them away back off into the forest.

“Incredible!”

Obi-Wan turned around, his fists on his hips and a stern unimpressed look on his face. “This, young ones, is why we told you to stay near the ship.”

“Can you teach me how to do that, Obi-Wan?” Cody asked completely ignoring the scolding, his eyes wide with awe.

Sighing, Obi-Wan lamented that Jaster is going to be so amused and vindicated when he hears about this. It was a common Mandalorian jab from parent to child that may your ade be just like you. Apparently Obi-Wan and Jango were each responsible for one half of Jaster’s gray hairs so the older man will see this as fitting justice.

“Maybe, Cody,” Obi-Wan conceded unable to deny his foundling in the face of Cody’s excitement. “But only if you and your brothers get back to the ship.”

Needless to say their fear was entirely forgotten in the face of Obi-Wan’s feat of Force powers. It wasn’t thirty minutes before every single clone had heard increasingly exaggerated retellings of how Obi-Wan tamed the insectoid beasts.

Jaster was in fact terribly amused by his son’s despairing.

When the three additional Supercommando transports finally landed on Ryloth, the clones were divided up into four groups of approximately two hundred and fifty kids on each ship. Then with a quick “thank you for the stay” to the Clan Assembly, the governing body of Ryloth, Mand’alor Mereel gave the order and the transport ships lifted off into space.

With a significantly less number of clones to watch over there was down time and moments of calm on the transport once more. On their first day in hyperspace, Obi-Wan decided that evening it was time he followed the edict of his Mand’alor and finally cleaned the evidence of slaughter off his armor.

He hadn’t gotten fifteen minutes into it when Obi-Wan discarded the regular cleaning chemicals and picked up the paint stripper instead.

Since Jaster had defeated Tor Vizsla and finally united Mandalore Obi-Wan’s armor had been painted in the same manor. The only change being the addition of the long hunt/marching to war symbol he’d painted on his left pauldron.

His brigandine was painted with a thick valor brown V down the chest outlined in duty green, the color scheme carrying on in his thigh pieces and his greaves. His pauldrons were nobility bronze and his vambraces and gauntlets were reliability blue outlined in green. His visor on his face mask was outlined in new beginnings white and justice black.

A Mando’ad’s armor paint and symbols said a lot about them. It told other Mando’ade the kind of person, the kind of warrior they were. What was important to them, even the values they held.

Obi-Wan’s paint colors and design had said something about the kind of person he was when he painted his armor. The kind of Ad’Alor he wanted to be to his people. The kind of adviser he sought to be to his Mand’alor.

Obi-Wan was no longer the person he was when he painted his armor. Not that the reliable, dutiful, optimistic young man was gone. Just that it was not what he needed to be displayed on his armor now. Too much had happened to Obi-Wan in the past years. It was time for his paint to change to reflect that.

He just hadn’t decided or really come to terms with what his new color and design should be. And so he stripped every speck of paint and left his armor bare beskar. Which was a statement in itself.

The only things he repainted on his armor was a the symbol of a bronze shield overlaid by a black Mythosaur skull on his right pauldron to display his loyalty to Jaster and his place in the Aliit be Mand’alor and the long hunt symbol in black on his left pauldron, the symbol of marching to war.

When next he saw Jaster after cleaning and stripping his armor his father looked pained at the sight, but didn’t say anything. Armor was as personal as it was public. It was not in their culture to question another Mando’ad’s choices.

The days in hyperspace on the journey home were mostly spent educating the clones about Mandalore, its history, its culture, and the language. The clones were very fast learners. By the time they reached Manda’yaim, every child had completed the history and culture primer modules and had made a good first start on learning the language.

They seemed fascinated by everything they learned. And as all children that age were wont to do, they peppered any and every Mando’ad they crossed with questions. The modules exposed them to a lot of concepts and ideas that were either mostly foreign to them, or not completely understood due to their very limited world view. One of the concepts they had the most trouble comprehending was the cultural practice of training Mando’ad children as warriors, but not expecting them to actually be warriors. They were also confused when it had to be made starkly and bluntly clear that the way they had been trained, through deliberate pain and fear, was not acceptable in true Mandalorian culture and was in fact punishable by law.

Pain was a part of training of course, everyone gets hurt in a spar, accidents happen. And some aspects of training can be scary to children, like their first times shooting blasters and slugthrowers with live ammunition, or learning to operate a jet-pack. But purposefully harming or frightening a child was unacceptable. It took more than a few heart breaking conversations for the clones to understand that if anyone treated them the way their dar’manda Death Watch trainers had, they should tell a trusted adult and failing that one of the Aliit be Mand’alor directly.

The clones also thought the information on foundlings particularly interesting. A number of them were very curious about the fact that being foundlings didn’t automatically make them a Mandalorian. That once a foundling was of age and could care for themselves that they were free to decide how they wanted to live the rest of their lives. Be it swearing the Resol’nare or making their own way in the galaxy.

Obi-Wan thought that a good number of the clones would eventually leave them. He felt it in the Force, and though there was a sadness to the thought there was also acceptance and understanding. The life of a Mandalorian was not meant for everyone.

Through all the questioning and exploration going on during the journey, Obi-Wan was growing increasingly antsy, because Cody had finished every single history and culture module and had yet to ask him about any of it. Somewhere in the back of his mind Obi-Wan had hoped Cody would bring up adoption so that he could take the opportunity to offer to say the Gai bal Manda. But Cody never asked.

Throughout the journey, Obi-Wan would catch Cody watching him with a serious contemplative expression on his face, but the little boy never asked, never spoke up.

Obi-Wan was starting to worry that Cody might not actually like the idea of being adopted. That he might not want to be Obi-Wan’s son as well as his apprentice. It would devastate him, Obi-Wan realized, if when he finally got up the courage to offer and Cody rejected him. And still, he would accept Cody’s choice. In Mandalorian culture it was the child that chose to accept or deny a parent. If all Cody wanted Obi-Wan to be to him was a teacher, a mentor then… then that is what Obi-Wan would be.

As Jaster had told him all those years ago when he offered Obi-Wan the Gai bal Manda, it wouldn’t change anything if they weren’t father and son officially. Obi-Wan would still consider Cody family, he would still love Cody with all his heart.

In addition to learning everything Mandalorian, Obi-Wan had started the first steps in teaching Cody about the Force. The boy was a quick learner in this too, but training to use the Force was all about learning foreign ephemeral concepts and theories. For a novice that hadn’t been training since infancy, it took a little bit of a shift in world view to train as a Force-user.

Luckily Obi-Wan had plenty of experienced training older Force-users in wielding the Force. Their rehabilitation of Manda’yaim had required a lot more Force-users than just Obi-Wan and the dozen and a half Force-sensitive Armorers. They’d put out the call to any that had a touch of the Ka’ra and Obi-Wan was in charge of crash course training them until they were experienced enough to perform Master Basil’s semi-Sith Alchemy rehabilitation techniques.

He also took periodic rotations teaching the Ka’ra’ad children whose parents sent them to Keldabe for a little training. Not to mention Feral and Savage put him through his teaching paces regularly. So adjusting his teaching strategy for Cody was simple.

When they finally touched down in the Supercommando fleet hangar just outside Keldabe Cody and Obi-Wan could play push-pull with a ball for nearly half an hour before the boy’s grip on the Force faltered. Which was actually pretty good for such a short training period.

The eyayahe were beyond eager to finally get off the transports when the ramps opened and a warm blast of Manda’yaim air caressed their faces for the first time. Cody stuck with Obi-Wan as they disembarked and Obi-Wan was glad. He wanted to see the look on Cody’s face when he first saw the Keldabe bio-dome, the acres of brightly colored crops around the city, and the rapidly expanding forests just beyond.

He was not disappointed. Cody gasped when he stepped out of the shadow of the hangar and looked out over his new home. His presence in the Force expanded rapidly in awe and surprise and boundless excitement. Obi-Wan realized that Cody’s presence in the Force was much like a sun rise or sun set, always glowing warmly like the orange colored light of a sun just barely touching the horizon. Until he experienced strong positive emotions. Then his presence would swell like the sun rising rapidly in the sky and brighten to a blinding yellow white.

It was beautiful to watch and Obi-Wan felt his love for this amazing little boy glow brightly inside his chest. He let his fondness for Cody permeate the Force and earned himself a bright smile from the boy. But he kept the true depth of his love behind his shields. Cody was not ready for that yet.

“I didn’t know something like all this could even grow on a single planet.” Cody’s words made Obi-Wan chuckle. The clones’ first exposure to a planet with landmass was Ryloth, but Manda’yaim as it was now was very different from the arid-desert climate of Ryloth. It would indeed seem like an entirely new experienced.

“I don’t think it was included in your modules, but Manda’yaim was attacked with orbital bombardment hundreds of years ago and the planet was reduced to sand and ash.” Cody glanced up at him with surprise and concern, but was quickly distracted again as a bird – transplanted from Concordia – soared past with a hunting cry. “When my Jedi teacher was in Mandalore we discovered a recording of an ancient Jedi Master that had theories on how to heal planets like this one with the Force.”

Cody’s mouth opened in shocked realization. “You-you did all this with the Force?”

Obi-Wan smiled down at him. “Not just me. I had lots of help from other Force-sensitive Mando’ade, but yes. I discovered how to make the ancient theories into true techniques and how to use them to heal Manda’yaim.”

“Wow,” Cody breathed and looked at Obi-Wan an expression that was a mix of awe and something else, something like longing. “Do you think you could teach me how to do that too?”

“In time,” Obi-Wan assured him, unable to stop himself from sweeping a gentle hand over the boy’s curly brown hair. “I want to teach you many things, Cody. And it will be my pleasure and privilege to do so.”

Truth, Cody heard in the air, the Force Obi-Wan had explained. He smiled up at the strange warrior that had slaughtered a room full of living beings in front of him and made him feel so safe and warm and cared for. He’d already known that his future was on Mandalore. He’d felt it in the Force. Now he was certain that more accurately his future was with Obi-Wan. And he was very happy with that.

*
TBC…

Chapter Text

It takes a week before all the clones are settled in their new home. About a hundred clones had already been adopted mostly by verde that had been on the transports carrying them to Manda’yaim. Either Jaster, Jango, or Obi-Wan were witness at every adoption to ensure that the clones understood their rights as foundlings and their rights as Mando’ade. That they understood that they could refuse the adoption, that they had a choice.

Thankfully all the adoptions were wholly accepted and every clone seemed a mix of excited and curious to have a parent or parents to care for and love them unconditionally.

Jaster had contacted Duke Kryze the moment they were on planet and requested any New Mandalorian geneticists or psychiatric doctors interested in coming to Keldabe. He didn’t explain why until they were in the palace, the clones’ existence still being kept mostly under wraps. It was imperative that news of the clones didn’t reach outside the system, for the clones’ own safety and for the peace of the galaxy.

Sentient cloning was illegal in the Republic and since the Mand’alor couldn’t very well tell the Senate that the Ven’Alor had been kidnapped by a Sith Lord and involuntarily cloned over a thousand times, the only conclusion anyone would come to was that the Mandalorians were amassing an army of child soldiers. That Jango, the Mand’alor’s son and heir was the genetic template made it even more incriminating.

So the clones were a Mandalorian secret. One would think keeping a thousand clones a secret would be hard but once the adoptive parents were informed of the risks to their children and the Mand’alor explained the situation to the Clan Leaders, the Governors of his territories, and his Supercommando Commanding Officers, he knew that the chances of rumors of the eyayahe reaching outside of Mandalorian space were slim. Children are the most import after all. Children are the future.

And Mando’ade took their children’s safety and well-being very seriously.

Once the New Mandalorian geneticists, doctors, and mental health professionals arrived and were briefed on the situation the clones other issues were addressed. Mainly the abuse they suffered and the risks and consequences of genetic alterations and accelerated aging.

It hadn’t really dawned on Obi-Wan until he’d been listening to the geneticists admit that without access to the Kaminoan’s proprietary cloning and genetic alteration processes it was very unlikely that they’d be able to solve the problem of the clones’ aging.

Cody was going to age much faster than a normal Human child. His body and mind would both mature at approximately twice the speed. That meant he’d become an adolescent and then an adult within the next… seven to eight years. Obi-Wan had known this. Intellectually. But when one of the geneticists mentioned shortened life expectancy, his vision whited out and his blood started rushing in his ears.

Traitorously, his mind did the math. He and Cody would be developmentally the same age at fifty. And then Cody would be older than him. Every year after that Cody would be progressively older than Obi-Wan. He didn’t realize he had started shaking the palace as he came to the inevitable conclusion. Cody would die a gray old man decades before Obi-Wan.

It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.

“Obi-Wan, breathe.” His father’s voice came from far away.

“Obi’ika, it’s alright. We have time. We’ll figure it out, I promise you.” Obi-Wan distantly felt his buir’s strong arms wrapped tight and steadying around him. “Cody will be alright, I promise.”

Obi-Wan let out a gust of air like a sob and curled into his father’s chest as he locked down on the Dark side and the palace settled once again. “I don’t want to bury him, Buir. Ner kote’la ad’ika. I don’t want to watch him go marching far away.”

Jaster’s breath hitched then he sighed and held on while his youngest son cried into his embrace leaving fingerprint bruises on his back from his white-knuckled grip.

“You won’t, ner tracyn’ika,” he murmured into Obi-Wan’s hair, vaguely noting that the room had emptied around the time the ground started shaking. “You won’t. We have time, Obi-Wan. We’ll stop it. We have time.”

Mando’ad parents were no strangers to seeing their children march on ahead of them. They were a warrior Creed and so it is inevitable. But there was a vast difference in your child dying in battle and your child succumbing to old age long before their time. Jaster vowed that would not be Obi-Wan’s fate.

It was after this heart breaking revelation that Obi-Wan realized he couldn’t wait. He couldn’t stand to wait any longer. He wouldn’t waste any more time being too nervous to offer Cody the Gai bal Manda.

Obi-Wan took an hour to meditate in his room. To center himself and put aside all his fears and anxieties, both about the future and about Cody’s answer. Cody deserved to be offered adoption by a calm, confident, and steady Obi-Wan. Not an Obi-Wan that was an emotional wreck.

When he felt ready to face his foundling, Obi-Wan followed the bright rising sun that was Cody and found him and several other clones playing some kind of ball game in the gardens with Feral and Savage.

Maul’s little brothers, now both teenagers or nearly, had been a little cautious of so many children suddenly taking up space in the palace and in the foundling houses. But once they realized that their place in the Aliit be Mand’alor was not at all in jeopardy they took to entertaining and causing mischief with the younger children like birds to the sky. Obi-Wan predicted a lot of chaos for a very long time.

He watched the children playing for a moment basking in the feelings of happiness, excitement, and determination. Apparently the game had a series of bases set up randomly around the garden and whoever’s turn it was to kick the ball had to touch as many bases as possible before the other children could catch the ball and tag him with it.

There was lots of sliding on the ground and jumping over plants and benches and pathways. Obi-Wan knew the foundling minders were not going to be happy with the amount of dirt and dust already smeared on most of the kids.

One of the clones was running the bases and Savage had a mischievous grin on his face. It made him look startlingly like Maul as he used the Force to make the ball chase the boy. The little clone shrieked and started zigzagging randomly through the garden.

“That’s cheating! No Force stuff!”

Savage chuckled and made the ball start chasing a different clone and the game promptly descended into chaos.

He watched several clones tackle and fail to bring Savage – who was already shaping up to be physically bigger than his older brother - down to the ground. Sighing, he stepped out into view.

“Alright, that’s enough, verd’ike. I believe it’s almost time for late-meal and you all need to get cleaned up.”

There was a round of groans and moans and protests, but Obi-Wan just raised an unmoved eyebrow at the kids.

Several straightened almost to attention before they caught themselves and relaxed while there was a round of disappointed but genuinely respectful, “Elek, Obi’Alor.”

Once the clones had figured out the hierarchy in the palace and on Mandalore, most of them started calling him Ad’Alor. When he’d protested and insisted they could still use his name they changed to Obi’Alor. Considering the way most of the clones earned their names, by being teased by their brothers or in recognition of some skill or quirk of personality, Obi-Wan figure he was now stuck with the moniker for good.

After all most of the clones still called Jango, Prime. Though they usually changed it to Prime’Alor when addressing him around other adults.

As the clones made their way into the palace, Obi-Wan nodded for Cody to stay and called to Savage and Feral.

“Could you holocall Maul and ask him for a visit as soon as possible?” The two brothers agreed easily though obviously curious.

“Don’t mention our new guests,” Obi-Wan cautioned them. “Not over intergalactic comms.”

“Sure, ori’vod,” Savage nodded and Feral flashed him a smile then they trailed after the clones out of sight.

Obi-Wan wanted to ask Maul if he’d heard anything about a clone army for the Sith before he’d abandoned his former master. He didn’t expect his friend to actually have much insight, but they had to follow every lead.

“Are we going to dinner now, Obi-Wan?”

Glancing down at Cody, he felt nervousness start to bubble up in his belly again. He shared it with the Force and smiled.

“Not yet, I wanted to talk to you for a moment.”

Cody nodded though there was a curious, slightly wary look in his eyes.

Obi-Wan checked his shields to make sure he wasn’t projecting his anxiety. “Come on, let’s go to my sitting room.”

The sitting room next to Obi-Wan’s lab-study had long since been unofficial labeled as his. He’d filled it with his preferred furniture and stocked the wet bar-mini kitchen with this favorite tea, shig, and alcohol. In the week since coming to Manda’yaim Cody had showed a stark preference for the fluffy pellet bag chair Obi-Wan had acquired on a gambling planet somewhere in the Mid-Rim.

Cody spent the walk to the sitting room chattering about the game they’d been playing, what the other clones had said about their various temporary and permanent living arrangements, and the placement tests the tutors were making them take.

“I have no doubt you will be very advanced in the tests, Cody,” Obi-Wan assured the boy as he moved to make them both cups of shig. Most of the clones had shown a preference for spicy things, Cody being no exception. “Just about the only thing the Kaminoans did that wasn’t horrific was the basic learning modules they’d made for you and your vode.”

“They were mostly battle strategy and military based stuff though,” Cody protested, still with a look of mild concern.

Obi-Wan flashed the little boy a wry smirk. “Cody, dearest, Mando’ade are a warrior culture. Battle strategy and military history are already on our required curriculum. You’ll do very well.”

Seeming a little reassured by that Cody took his shig from Obi-Wan and blew on the hot drink a little too vigorously sending a small splatter of liquid across the low table.

Obi-Wan’s lips twitched hiding his amusement behind his cup as he took a sip. Then he couldn’t stall any longer and he inhaled deeply, attempting to steady himself. It only half worked.

“Speaking of learning modules, Cody, I know you finished the Mando’ad culture primers we gave you on the journey here.”

Cody nodded, his eyes suddenly intent on Obi-Wan, both of his hands wrapped around his cup of shig.

“I-I wanted to ask you about the- what you thought of our Mando’ad adoption traditions.” Force, he was ridiculous. Just say it! Jaster had just said it. Had his father been nearly this nervous when he offered to Obi-Wan?

Cody’s expression did an odd thing then. A little frown flickered at his brow before it was forcibly smoothed out and his warm brown eyes darted away. His presence in the Force, still mostly unshielded, quivered with nerves. Obi-Wan felt his stomach begin to drop, but he let the boy speak in his time.

“I’m happy that many of my brothers have already been adopted,” Cody said very diplomatically and skillfully evasive for a six year old. “And I hope many more of them will find- will find good parents.” The little boy stumbled on his words and a feeling a bit like sadness or longing made his presence dim.

“That’s very good, Cody,” Obi-Wan murmured. Confronted with his little glory’s sadness he found his strength. “But I meant for you. Would you like to be adopted?”

Cody’s face fell, but he did a surprisingly effective job of quickly hiding his sharp disappointment. “I would like to stay here, Obi-Wan. I- you said that you would train me and I- I would like to stay with you. I don’t need to be adopted.”

Oh, his poor sweet Cody. A tender smile curved at Obi-Wan’s mouth as he reached across the table and gently pressed under the little boy’s chin to get him to raise his lowered gaze.

Looking into Cody’s deep brown eyes, Obi-Wan felt all the love and protectiveness inside him grow almost painfully large in his chest.

“Cody, dear one, no matter what happens I will always want you to be here with me. If you decide tomorrow that you don’t want to train in the Force, I will still want you by my side. And if when you’re old enough and you decide you don’t want to swear the Resol’nare you will still have a place with me.”

He watched hope, stark and bright grow in his little boy’s eyes. “What I’m really asking, Cody, is if you would like to be my son. If you would like to officially be a part of my family.”

“You- you want to adopt me?” Cody’s eyes were wide and his breathing a little fast, but the painful longing leaked into his words.

“Yes, Cody. I would love nothing more than to say the Gai bal Manda with you,” Obi-Wan said projecting all his certainty and sincerity into the Force for the boy to feel.

“Even,” Cody swallowed and asked hesitantly, “even if I’m not good at using the Force?”

Obi-Wan smiled and stroked his thumb over the boy’s cheek. “You will be marvelous as a Force-user, but yes, Cody. Even if there wasn’t a speck of Force-sensitivity inside you, I would still want you as my son.”

A smile so bright and so wonderful broke over Cody’s face and suddenly Obi-Wan had a lap full of trembling child. Cody’s arms wrapped around his neck and his little hands clenched in the back of Obi-Wan’s jacket so hard he heard a couple stitches pop. Obi-Wan didn’t care, he just cradled Cody in his arms and pressed a kiss to the side of his head as he felt his collar grow damp with relieved joyful tears.

“Thank you,” Cody’s breathing hitched and he rubbed his face into the warm skin of Obi-Wan’s neck. “Thank you, Obi-Wan.”

“No, dearest,” he protested and pulled Cody from his hiding spot just enough that they could look at each other. “Thank you, Cody. Thank you so much for accepting me.”

“Well, duh,” Cody huffed at him like he was being silly. And Obi-Wan just grinned, not the least bit put off that it seemed like the teenage sassiness was coming in early. “Of course I want you to be my- my buir.” He smiled pleased and bashful then looking at Obi-Wan through his eyelashes, “I love you.”

It felt a bit like his heart was about to explode. The Dark side crashed like ocean waves inside him with the power of his emotions and the Light side sang a lovely joyous tune in his ears with the contentment his son’s acceptance brought him.

“I love you, Cody, ner kote’la ad’ika. My glorious son.” He took Cody’s small hands in his, rubbing the back of them soothingly with his thumbs. Cody’s eyes glinted eagerly as he realized what was about to happen. Obi-Wan could feel the anticipation and excitement in the Force.

He gazed loving and tender at his son. “Ni kyr’tayl gai sa’ad, Cody-”

“Kenobi,” Cody rushed in cutting off the last syllable of his name. He blushed but determinedly repeated, “Cody Kenobi.”

Obi-Wan’s smile was surely splitting his face even as the Dark side churned possessive and pleased inside him. The Light simply chimed with the rightness of it.

“Ni kyr’tayl gai sa’ad,” Obi-Wan vowed again, then spoke his son’s full name for the first time, “Cody Kenobi.”

I know your name as my child, Cody Kenobi.

Cody let out an excited squeak combined with a joyful sob and he threw himself into Obi-Wan’s arms again. “Buir!” he burst out then, “Oops, I mean- um, ner buir.”

Chuckling, Obi-Wan just squeezed his son to his chest and carded his fingers through the back of his curly hair. “Ner ad’ika.”

And just like that Obi-Wan became a parent. Of course upon that realization he immediately had to share his utter terror with the Force before Cody could pick up on it. He decided that at least for his first day of fatherhood he would just bask in the joy. He had plenty of time for panic about kriffing it up later.

As they embraced, father and son shared their happiness and love with murmured words and warm ripples in the Force.

*

The very next day, it was back to the business of ruling Mandalore and waging war on the Sith.

Cody was in lessons with the other clones and foundlings, Boba was in the palace daycare, and Feral and Savage were training with their specialized combat tutors. So it was just Jaster, Jango, and Obi-Wan in the Mand’alor’s office drinking shig and wishing it was tihaar.

“Intelligence finally worked through everything our slicer grabbed off Kamino,” Jaster handed Obi-Wan and Jango a datapad each so they could both look at the information. “The money for the clones was funneled down through the Banking Clan, for once no Trade Federation laundering.”

“No evidence of connections to the Sith?” Jango scowled darkly at the datapad.

“I didn’t say that,” Jaster corrected. “The Kaminoans had some documentation of their ‘client’s’ demands and requirements, both in terms of genetic alterations and training. Apparently they were told the army was for the Republic so the clones needed to be instructed on the Republic government, laws, and member planets.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not anything we didn’t already know.” Obi-Wan was skimming down the distasteful and rage inducing list of client requirements. “And the Sith lie. They could have just told the Kaminoans the army was for the Republic to lend validity to their patronage.”

“No,” Jango dropped the datapad on the low table they were gathered around and shook his head. “No, I trained them, I know what they were teaching the clones. They had already started on the pro-Republic propaganda. If the Sith’s end goal was to have an army to attack the Republic or even just to attack independents systems, there’s no point in indoctrinating the clones with loyalty to the Republic. It’s wasted effort if they wanted the army strictly for themselves and it’s actively detrimental if they wanted the army to fight the Republic.”

Jango was right, of course, and Obi-Wan told him so. He was after all their foremost military strategist after Jaster. He’d know what one would or wouldn’t want their slave army of child soldiers to be taught.

“So, we can assume that the Sith actually wanted the army for the Republic,” Jaster didn’t like the thought one bit. However, “It makes sense considering the Republic doesn’t have a federal military force to speak of.”

“Also, since we know that the Sith has ties to the Senate,” Obi-Wan pointed out. “That the Sith is actively manipulating and using the Senate.”

“The Sith want a galaxy wide war and you can’t have a war without at least one army,” Jaster said grimly.

“I-I think it’s more than that.” Jango had a pained expression on his face and he was rubbing at his head. “Some of my memories are still sketchy even after Obi-Wan fixed all the mind kriffing, but I remember what happened when I was taken.”

Jaster sucked in a sharp breath and Obi-Wan narrowed his eyes listening intently.

“My hunt was a trap,” Jango said and his family nodded already knowing that. “It was a trap specifically for me, but it was also a test. Montross was supposedly hunting a dar’Jetii, Komari Vosa, the padawan from Galidraan. I followed her trail to find him, but found her first. After I was forced to kill her another man, a Sith appeared and said that I’d passed the test even though ‘his master’ had already picked me out for the ‘job’.”

The appearance of another potential Apprentice was concerning, but since they already knew Sidious played fast and loose with the Rule of Two, not surprising. The realization that was deeply disturbing, though, was-

“The Jedi,” Obi-Wan breathed, horror and certainty filling him. “They wanted to see if you were capable of killing a Force-user with Jedi training and then they made a thousand clones of you. They even had you training them.”

“The Sith wanted an army capable of killing the Jedi.” Jaster came to the same conclusion as his son. For later contemplation went the unspoken mystery of the incongruous nature of a Republic loyal army of Jedi killers.

“But why me specifically?” Jango asked, though he didn’t doubt for a moment that they were right. “I’ve never fought a Force-user that wasn’t Obi-Wan or Maul before and never outside of the palace training yards. The Sith don’t even know how much Jedi training you’ve had. How could they know I wouldn’t get my head sliced off within a minute of battle?”

“It’s not a secret that you’re the head of our military,” Jaster reminded him. “They didn’t know you could, but they probably figured the chances were fairly high.”

“But plenty of Mando’ade could kill a Jedi. They’re not unkillable. They die in the field on their idiotic Senate missions all the time.”

“Choosing you was probably two fold,” Obi-Wan said a dark angry look in his eyes. “They haven’t been able to weaken Mandalore even though they’ve certainly tried more than once, but if our Ven’Alor mysteriously disappeared,” he looked from his father to his brother pointedly. “Jaster was devastated while you were gone. I was not doing much better and morale for Mandalore was at an all time low.”

“Deal a blow against Mandalore while building an army against the Jedi, their two greatest oppositions in one swoop.”

Jango blew out a breath as something else occurred to him. “It could have been much worse. In five- ten years when the clones are battle ready. Suddenly an army wearing the face of the Ven’Alor shows up out of nowhere and attacks the Jedi. Regardless of Yoda’s affection for you and the Council’s silence on your Force-use, it would start another Jedi-Mandalorian war.”

Even though Jango rarely moved in the wider galaxy without his full beskar’gam, including his helmet, it wouldn’t take much for someone to dig up a holopic of his bare face from somewhere. Especially if a clone army suddenly attacked the beloved Jedi. The progenitor’s identity would be discovered very quickly and then it would be war.

The pot of shig and their cups on the table started to tremble and Jaster and Jango jerked their heads toward Obi-Wan. His eyes were rapidly turning yellow, but when he noticed their alarmed attention he huffed and shoved his rage into the Force. He’d been losing control way too often lately.

After this discussion was over he resolved to go to his room and meditate to figure out what was going on with his emotional control. It was dangerous for him to lose himself in his emotions this way.

“Thankfully, that’s not going to happen,” Obi-Wan said when he was relatively calm again, ignoring his father and brother’s slightly wary and concerned looks. “I found you and the clones and they will not be used to-to kill the Jedi.” His maan’aliit. His first family.

Jaster was reluctant to say it, but he was the Mand’alor and he wouldn’t ignore the danger. “The Sith won’t give up though. They’ll try something else to get them their anti-Jedi weapon.”

“The Jedi need to be warned,” Jango added grimly.

Obi-Wan shut his eyes and gritted his teeth. “We can’t.”

Jango blinked at him in shock. “What do you mean we can’t?”

“We can’t tell the Jedi about the clones,” he said. “They’re too close to the Senate. There’s too much of a chance that Sidious will get wind of it.”

“He’ll know the clones are gone, Obi-Wan. Not only did we take them but we blew the facility. There’s no way Sidious doesn’t know his plan failed. What does it matter if we tell the Jedi?”

“If the Sith Master figures out that the Mandalorians and the Jedi are actual allies, that the Jedi are aware of just how much of a threat the Sith are and that it’s the Mandalorians that told them,” Obi-Wan felt it in his gut and heard it as a warning in the Force. “He’ll get back at us in anyway he can. Whether he’s ready for his galactic war or not.”

He nodded to Jango with a grave expression.“And you’re right. Sidious probably does already know we have the clones and it wouldn’t take more than a few whispered words in some Senate ears before we have Republic representatives knocking on our door for sentient rights violations.”

His brother cursed and Jaster actually let out a growl. The Sith would have no problem threatening their children, the clones. If he sicked the Republic on them his Mando’ade will take up arms and fight for the eyayahe. And that would surely start a war with the Republic.

“We’re not a Republic planet,” Jango’s voice rumbled angrily. “They’d have no right to interfere with us.”

“They won’t care,” Jaster stated a very displeased scowl on his face. “And it wouldn't matter. Even if the Senate decides to do nothing like they do in Hutt Space and the Outer Rim, if the media got wind of rumors of cloned child soldiers, the citizens would turn against us. Our reputation in the wider galaxy is improving, but it wouldn’t take much to destroy that.”

The ensuing silence was heavy as they contemplated the grim realization that they may have saved Jango and stolen the clones, but the Sith still have the upper hand. If they wanted to protect the clones they couldn’t tell the Jedi, but the Jedi needed to know the lengths to which the Sith would go to destroy them. Leaving them to be blindsided was dishonorable bordering on complicit.

“We can’t leave them in the dark, though,” Obi-Wan sighed, dragging his fingers through his hair agitated. “We have to tell them something, warn them somehow.”

Jaster reached out and put a comforting hand on his son’s shoulder. “They are our allies, Obi-Wan, and your maan’aliit. We’ll figure something out. We won’t just leave them totally ignorant.”

Obi-Wan nodded and gave his father a wan but thankful smile.

Pulling away Jaster chugged his shig and poured himself another cup. He tapped at his datapad again and brought their conversation back to the beginning. “Other than the evidence of the Banking Clan bankrolling the clones’ creation and the pro-Republic propaganda in their learning modules, there isn’t much else of value or interest. The lab logs and the documentation on the science behind the cloning has been forwarded to the relevant parties.”

Meaning the New Mandalorian and the rare True Mandalorian scientists that had answered the Mand’alor’s call.

“There isn’t much we can do on that front, but be patient.” He looked from one son to the other. “So what are our next steps?”

They thought over the Mand’alor’s question and Jango spoke up first.

“We need better intel on the Republic. Even if the Sith was strictly going through the Banking Clan for money, someone in the Senate has to have been in the know on the clone army.”

It was actually illegal at the moment for the Senate to have a federal military so someone in the Senate had to be prepared to push some bill or law through to legalize it all when the time came.

“In the last three years we’ve made a lot of headway allying with Republic planets,” Obi-Wan said. “We have alliances and trade agreements with about dozen so far and are in talks with several others. It would be to our advantage to have a closer eye and ear on our allies and therefore the goings on of the Senate.”

“The more Republic planets we ally with the more the Senate’s decisions will effect Mandalore.” Jaster nodded. “We can’t wage this secret war on the Sith any longer without our own agent in the Senate.”

Suddenly, Obi-Wan’s face contorted in abject reluctance. “Ugh. We need an ambassador.”

Jango frowned in confusion, “What do you mean?” Jaster took mercy on his youngest and explained about the Republic Chancellor’s offer to Obi-Wan on Naboo. Jango predictably thought it was hilarious.

“And of course Obi-Wan is the perfect candidate,” he commented, with a grin.

“He is our best negotiator,” Jaster agreed though his own amusement was more subdued and quickly left behind. “Do you think being an ambassador for Mandalore would put you in a position to gather intel and even manipulate things if need be?”

Obi-Wan hummed rubbing at his stubbled chin in thought. Absently he realized he needed to shave, he just kept forgetting. Either that or just give up and grow a beard already.

“I wouldn’t have voting power. But I would have speaking rights and opportunity to gain influence with Senators other than our allies. I’m not sure about my chances of manipulation however,” he cautioned. “I don’t know what kind of backroom deals go on in the Senate. I don’t know what kind of dirty laundry and skeletons I’d be able to exploit, or what kind of bribes are most acceptable.”

He shrugged. “Without knowledge of that kind, I’d blunder around too much in the beginning and severely weaken my chances of making Mandalore appear like a strong, powerful ally to acquire.”

“So you need intel to be able to gather intel,” Jango concluded succinctly.

“Pretty much,” Obi-Wan smirked at Jango’s eye roll. His brother really didn’t like politics.

“How do you even go about getting that kind of information?” Jaster was bewildered by the concept. Mandalorians were generally so simple in their politics, though the New Mandalorians were a little more complex. This all seemed so convoluted and superfluous.

Obi-Wan had a deep thoughtful expression on his face. “When I was searching for you,” he looked at Jango, “I had to do some research and went to Alderaan as my best bet of having the information I needed. I met the prince consort in the public archives. He’s also the Senator for Alderaan. He seemed like an intelligent and clever man.”

“How would this help you?”

“Well,” Obi-Wan hedged, a plan starting to form in his mind. “We made friendly acquaintance for all that our meeting was so brief. And as a member of the royal family and a Senator he would definitely move in the same circles as the elite of the Republic.”

Jaster huffed. “For those of us not so well verse in Republic politics, Obi-Wan.”

“Right, sorry,” he grinned a little sheepishly. “What I’m saying is a lot of backroom politics and business happens at social functions. If I want to know how the seedy underbelly of the Senate works I just have to attend some of their parties.”

“And you think you can wrangle an invite to a Republic party from this Alderaanian prince?” Jango studied his little brother closely. He wasn’t keen on Obi-Wan socializing with their enemies, but if this was the only way.

“Prince Bail Organa’s birthday is in six months,” Obi-Wan said. “I won’t even need an invite. I’ll just bring him a present from the Aliit be Mand’alor as a birthday gift and a token of my gratitude for his assistance with my ‘hobby’ research.”

“They’d let you in without an invite?” Jango asked dubiously.

Obi-Wan shrugged not particularly concerned with that aspect of it. “He recognized me on sight just from my armor. I imagine his security and intelligence agents will be able to vouch as to my identity as well.”

“It’s a good plan.” Jaster of course expected nothing less from Obi-Wan. “But one party is not going to be enough.”

“No,” Obi-Wan frowned in reluctance and determination. “It’ll take time to not only build up a rapport with the politicians, but to understand the political culture. This will have to be a long hunt.”

It seemed every hunt recently has been a long one. It was frustrating. Mando’ade, even one first raised as a Jedi, were at the core impatient creatures. They preferred direct confrontation rather than secret maneuvering and cautious moves.

“This is to our benefit,” Jaster decided after thinking it over. “All while you’ll be ingratiating yourself with the Senate elite, Mandalore will be gathering more allies and getting stronger. The clones will be growing, learning to protect themselves, and we will be slowly chipping away at the Sith’s pawns.” The Banking Clan and the Trade Federation first and foremost.

“By the time you’re ready to step into the Senate, Mandalore will be in a much stronger place and therefore you will have a stronger position among our enemies.”

Obi-Wan didn’t like it. He didn’t like the subterfuge and the cons and the thought of being away from Mandalore and his family just to attend parties filled with backstabbing politicians. But he was Ad’Alor be Mandalore, and for his people and his family he would do what he must.

Even if that meant essentially infiltrating the galaxy’s most powerful hive of scum and villainy. The Republic Senate.

*TBC...

Chapter Text

It was two weeks before Maul could leave his rapidly growing criminal empire to come to Mandalore. In that time another two hundred clones were adopted by Supercommandos, Clan Leaders, True Mandalorian civilians, and even a few New Mandalorians. Some of the clones however were still wary and unsure of this adoption process so a list was started of clones looking to join a clan or family.

Thankfully not a single entry on that list included their ID numbers. Well a couple of the clones were attached to their numbers for various reason so several names were variations thereof, but most of the children chose descriptive names like Quirky or Hotshot, a name based on an anecdote like Ponds and Fox, or found a more traditional name they liked such as Liam or Dan. Either way every single clone now had a name.

The clones that were still foundlings, waiting or unsure about adoption, were all considered House Mereel. Because foundlings were the responsibility of whichever House found them and because they were genetically Jango’s and he is House Mereel. They could be Clan Fett as well except that would put the sole burden of care for every clone on Jango and he was nowhere near mentally stable enough to take on that responsibility.

Cody was now Cody Kenobi of Clan and House Mereel. Every time Obi-Wan heard his son introduce himself as such it made him feel all warm and gooey inside even as the Dark side purred with possessive satisfaction.

He felt fierce pride too, because Cody was such a quick and clever child. He positively soaked up the regular school lessons he attended with the other clones and children at his level. He was a little slower when it came to his theoretical lessons in the Force, but that was to be expected for a child that had never been exposed to something like that before and so had little to no frame of reference. Especially for a child that had needed to hide and conceal his powers because he knew he would be punished for them.

Through their training, Obi-Wan came to the conclusion that his original analysis of Cody’s strength in the Force was fairly accurate. He fell on the spectrum somewhere near but below Savage in terms of sheer power. His comprehension and problem solving with Force theory however was very high and when he had a couple more years of training he would be at Feral’s level intellectually.

Obi-Wan figured that some Sith Lords would be disappointed that their Apprentice was weaker in the Force than them, even more so if said apprentice was their own son. He on the other hand knew that strength was not everything. It didn’t matter that Cody’s connection to the Force was weaker than his own, because Cody was clever and strength without intelligence was just a bludgeon when a small finely honed dagger could do so much more damage.

He couldn’t wait to see what kind of a Force-user, what kind of a man his glorious son would grow into.

When Cody was told that Obi-Wan didn’t just assist in instructing the young Ka’ra’ade but was also Savage and Feral’s primary teacher a good portion of the time, he was worried and a little hurt that he wasn’t his new buir’s only apprentice. Obi-Wan had to explain that Savage and Feral were his students only when their brother Maul was not there to teach them. When the time came and they were old enough Maul would officially take them as his Apprentices and they would leave Manda’yaim to train under him.

Cody was reassured of his place in his father’s life as his student and even showed willingness to learn with and from the two older boys. It was good for Savage and Feral too. Savage needed practice interacting with younger Force-users and tutoring Cody helped him better comprehend and learn the boring stuff like theory and history. Feral too benefited from more practice with practical Force application. Because it was a struggle for him to wield the Force he often got discouraged when seeing his brother’s much easier ability. Demonstrating and helping Cody learn the basics gave him a boost in confidence and much needed practice.

After all, to some degree a Force-sensitive’s connection to the Force was much a like a muscle. You could strengthen it with practice and training, but it can also atrophy when left disused. Feral would never be as strong as his brother, but he could be stronger than he was.

When Maul finally showed up, Obi-Wan took him aside privately and briefed him on everything. He couldn’t talk about his journey to Tython with Yoda, not just because Bant had broken rules using authorizations above her clearance to get him the information, but also because Yoda was still too close to the Senate. So he was eager to speak with his other teacher about his time on the mysterious planet of the ancient Je’daii Order.

“What is it with you and dangerous Force planets?” Was the first thing out of Maul’s mouth after Obi-Wan had finished telling him about Tython and all he had experienced there.

Rolling his eyes, Obi-Wan retorted, “Tython was nothing like Moraband. It was both Light and Dark. It felt almost like Manda’yaim is starting to feel. Though it was pretty much hyper-nuetral with its absolute balance, almost to the point of being passive.”

“Sounds boring,” Maul commented taking a large drink from the glass of tihaar Obi-Wan had poured him.

“It would have been a lot less boring if I’d been anything less than balanced myself,” Obi-Wan said wryly.

Maul scoffed and waved a dismissive hand at him. “So you went to the big dangerous Force planet and gave yourself visions of Jango. What else did you find?”

Obi-Wan explained everything he found on Kamino. The clones, Death Watch, the Kaminoans, and Jango’s Sith mind manipulation and control. Maul had a deep sneering scowl on his face then.

“Sidious loved to get in your head,” he said, his cultured voice dripping with hatred. “Whether with his words or the Force, he is a master at manipulation.”

“Will you look at Jango for me?” Obi-Wan was a little hesitant to ask, but he trusted Maul. “Make absolutely sure I was able to destroy all traces of the Sith in his mind.”

“If he’ll let me,” Maul answered plainly, and definitely did not feel affection for his old apprentice when he smiled bright and grateful at him. “Though I taught you well so you’re of course more than capable of destroying Sith mind tricks.”

Obi-Wan hid his pleased grin behind his own glass of tihaar. Truly his old teacher, his friend was secretly a softy.

“You didn’t know anything about plans for a clone army?” If anyone would know it would have been Maul.

“Sidious and Plagueis had many plans.” It was a disappointing answer, but not unexpected. “I was not even considered the Apprentice and so I was not privy to a great deal of their schemes.”

Obi-Wan scoffed in insult on Maul’s behalf. “Banite idiots,” he muttered. “I guarantee you their oversight will be their downfall.”

Touched and a little proud of the declaration, Maul flashed his teeth at his student in a vicious grin. “It brings me great satisfaction to know that it is my Apprentice causing Darth Sidious so much trouble.”

His grin dissolved and a grim expression replaced it. “Your hypothesis about the purpose of this army does not surprise me. All life except his own is cheap to Sidious. It would be nothing to him to breed thousands of child soldiers for the express purpose of throwing them at the Jedi like canon fodder.”

Obi-Wan’s stomach roiled and a sharp spike of anger rose in him at Maul’s dismissive and seemingly uncaring words. He shared the anger with the Force and blew out a breath. Maul did care, Obi-Wan more than anyone knew that he was just really bad at showing it most of the time.

“What is more concerning,” Maul continued though he shot Obi-Wan a look, he had caught his younger friend’s anger, “is the amount of people that must be complicit in an undertaking of this size. Not just the cloners, but members in the Banking Clan and the Senate as well.”

“He covered his tracks well and circumstances have hamstrung us from retaliation.” That almost more than the abuse of the clones had frustrated and angered the Mando’ade. The Clan Leaders and Jaster’s council were baying for blood and yet blood they cannot spill.

“Unsurprising. Sidious always has multiple angles for every scheme.”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan ground out, his frustration building just from talking about it. “We’ve realized. And despite our subtle campaigns against his allies we are still at least three steps behind.”

Maul was sympathetic even if his expression was still dismissive. Obi-Wan could feel it in the Force. He was sympathetic and vindictive.

“You know I despise Sidious to the very depths of my being,” and so very dramatic, Obi-Wan thought fondly. “Perhaps it is time I started making life harder for him as well. That is the way of the Sith of the Old Republic after all, sabotaging and murdering each other.” There was a predatory glint in Maul’s eyes and Obi-Wan found himself smirking.

It was a brilliant idea. Maul was already making waves in the criminal world with his rapid accumulation and revamping of various enterprises and operations. He was powerful and had resources and best of all was completely outside the law. Unlike Mandalore, Maul had no limitations such as galactic law and non-aggression treaties. He was in a perfect place to wreak some havoc on Sidious’s plans.

“Darth Maul of Dathomir, would you be willing to enter into an unofficial partnership with Mandalore and I to defeat our mutual enemy, Darth Sidious?” Obi-Wan voice was drawling and sharp like a baring of teeth. “I’m sure we can work something out to make it worth your while.”

As Maul had said, he felt a bit like he was back in the days of the Old Republic when the Sith were fighting each other and the Mandalorians, often times their allies, were waging war cross the galaxy. Considering he and Maul were both Sith and Mandalore was effectively at war, the comparison was apt.

Maul blinked at Obi-Wan for a moment of surprise then his own smirk grew and violent anticipation weighed heavy in the Force around them. “Darth Mercurus of Mandalore, I gladly accept. Darth Sidious made a grave mistake when he crossed us and I will take great pleasure in showing him the error of his ways.”

Obi-Wan rarely heard his Sith name spoken aloud and he probably will never stop being a little surprised at how right is sounds. He felt the Dark side swell inside him as if summoned by his title, bolstered by his ambitious vengeful thoughts.

Darth Mercurus’s golden eyes met Darth Maul’s yellow gaze and the two Sith Lords grinned at each other.

“Let’s get started, then, shall we?”

*

Maul stayed on Mandalore for a month. Planning and scheming and strategizing with Obi-Wan, Jaster, and Jango. Because he was a criminal and it was his burgeoning criminal empire they were essentially allying with, their partnership could not be made official with alliances or agreements. Jaster’s council and the Clan Leaders may know what the Aliit be Mand’alor and the Zabrak Darjetii were discussing behind closed doors, but without official recognition they could claim plausible deniability if it became an issue.

During that month, when he wasn’t plotting the down fall of the Sith, Obi-Wan was spending every moment he could with his son. He knew time was fleeting and so Obi-Wan wanted to make the most of it.

He discovered that one of the things he cherished most in their time together was when Cody’s bright inquisitive mind and natural curiosity were on display.

“Obi’bu,” Cody called sounding distracted and Obi-Wan didn’t bother keeping the happy grin off his face at the moniker as he answered.

“Yes, dear one?” He turned to see what had his son occupied and nearly had a heart attack when he saw him fiddling with his lightsaber. “Cody! Be careful with that!”

The boy startled and promptly almost dropped the weapon in his surprise. Obi-Wan cursed himself and darted over to snatch up his saber. Blowing out a breath when he had it in his hand, Obi-Wan looked down at his son.

“I’m sorry, Cody, I didn’t mean to frighten you, but my lightsaber is very dangerous. I should have told you before now, but I don’t want you touching it without me there.”

Cody’s cheeks were flushed with shame as he mumbled an apology, but Obi-Wan squeezed his shoulder. “It’s alright, Cody. You didn’t know. Now, what did you want to ask me?”

Resilient little boy that he was, Cody’s expression lightened. “I just wanted to ask you why your laser-sword-”

“Lightsaber,” Obi-Wan corrected automatically.

Cody’s lips twitched and his eyes twinkled. “Lightsaber,” he repeated and Obi-Wan huffed. He’d done that on purpose. “Why your lightsaber was um- not exactly singing, but making a nice noise?”

Obi-Wan was impressed that Cody could hear the songs of his crystals through his saber hilt. “That noise is the sound my kyber crystals make in the Force,” he said and started ushering his son over to the cushion filled lounge corner he set up in his lab-study for Cody. They sat down on their preferred cushions and Obi-Wan lifted his lightsaber with the Force.

“Kyber crystals are gems attuned to the Force and have special properties because of it,” he explained as he dismantled his lightsaber to reveal the two crystals inside. “They are a very powerful energy source and can form a connection with a Force-user, so the ancient Jedi found a way to make them into weapons known as lightsabers.”

Cody watched in fascination as a light blue crystal and a deep crimson-black crystal separated out from the other floating parts and came toward him. Cautiously he held out a hand and the two crystals settled gently into his palm.

“Oh!” His eyes widened as the individual songs of the crystals became louder to him. “Why do they sound so different?”

Obi-Wan enjoyed watching Cody examine the crystals with an adorable look of concentration on his face. He explained, “I found the blue crystal while I was still with the Jedi. All Jedi younglings complete something called the Gathering where they go to a planet in the Unknown Regions. There they must pass various trials set by the Force before a kyber crystal will reveal itself to them.”

It sounded like a lot of work just to go get a little singing crystal, Cody thought, but then again. He’d seen what his buir’s lightsaber was capable of. The trouble was probably worth it.

He listened to the songs of the crystals and focused on the crimson-black one. “Where did you get this one? It sounds a lot more-” a considering look crossed his face, “a lot more violent.”

Obi-Wan’s lips twitched and he nodded. “Kyber crystals are usually attuned to the Light side of the Force and it can be very difficult for Dark side users to wield them. The ancient Sith discovered a way to corrupt the crystals and bend them to their will. It’s called Bleeding because the crystals turn red during the process.”

Cody was a little young for the full lecture on enslaving semi-sentient rocks by bombarding them with hatred and rage.

“I told you that for a year after leaving the Jedi I was on a pirate crew.” Cody nodded. Some of his favorite stories were the ones about the mischief and trouble his dad got up to with Captain Hondo’s pirate crew. “I picked up that crystal as part of my haul from a job. It had been corrupted at some point by a dark-sider and was blood red. It used to scream into the Force which was actually kind of disturbing to listen to before I got used to it.”

That sounded slightly frightening. Cody was glad the crystal didn’t scream like that anymore. “Why is it black now?”

“Corrupted kyber crystals can be healed by light-siders. At the time of acquiring it I had no idea how to do that, so I just took to carrying it around with me. Kyber soak up emotions and sensations from the Force and the Force-users around them, it’s why the crystal chooses its wielder because they connect through the Force.”

Cody was listening to his lecture so raptly Obi-Wan couldn’t help feeling charmed by it. “I was learning about Mandalorian culture and customs at the time in preparation for swearing the Resol’nare, so it was soaking up all those thoughts and feelings from me just sitting in my pocket. It had connected to me, and so it started becoming Mandalorian as I was becoming Mandalorian.”

Listening to the heavy drum beat and war chant of the crimson-black crystal Cody was really intrigued by the idea. He also felt a bit of a kinship with the crystal. Obi-Wan kept the crystal with him, safe and cared for, like he was keeping Cody, and so it’s been fundamentally changed. He may be the same clone born on Kamino, but his entire life, his entire future had been changed the moment he’d met Obi-Wan in that lab surrounded by dead long necks.

“Are there other Mandalorian crystals?” he asked curiously.

“There is one other that I know of,” Obi-Wan said. “The Dha’kad’au, the Darksaber that your Jaster carries has a black kyber crystal. It’s original wielder was the only documented Mandalorian Jedi, Mand’alor Tarre Vizsla.”

Cody bit his lip, a little nervous to ask. “Can I get a lightsaber?”

“When you are old enough I’ll take you to one of the unaffiliated crystal deposits and you can search for your own saber crystal. The you can build your lightsaber.” That was still a bit of a conundrum he and Maul were working out. Savage was ready for his own lightsaber and Feral almost so. Soon they’d have to decide which of the non-Jedi kyber deposits Maul would take them to, like Christophsis or Dantooine.

“Can I find a Mandalorian crystal there?” Cody couldn’t keep the hope out of his voice.

Obi-Wan was quiet for a long moment, just studying his son. “It’s possible,” he finally said as he floated his crystals from Cody’s hand and quickly reassembled them into his lightsaber.

“I don't know where Tarre Vizsla found their crystal, but the crystals gain their color and song based on who they’re bonded to. It’s very possible you could find a Mandalorian crystal in a natural deposit.”

Possible, but not guaranteed, Cody thought. He really wanted to have a Mandalorian crystal like his dad. He admired and looked up to Obi-Wan a lot and wanted to be just like him when he was an adult. Strong and brave and kind. And a great Ka’ra’ad warrior. In Cody’s mind a part of that wish for himself now included a black Mandalorian kyber crystal for his future lightsaber.

Obi-Wan watched the emotions filter over his son’s face and leak through his rudimentary shielding. Cody really had his heart set on a Mandalorian crystal, he realized with a sigh. Truthfully the chances of him finding such a crystal in one of the natural deposits was slim. The only reason Obi-Wan had one was because he’d basically converted it.

An idea sprung to his mind. He stood moving over to his cluttered shelves filled with benign Force attuned objects, datapads, and a few beskar lined containment boxes. He picked up the smallest one where he stored what he called the evil earrings – they tried to mind-trick him into stabbing himself when he first picked them up – and Xanatos’s Bleeding Kyber. Unlocking the box with his thumbprint Obi-Wan snagged the crystal and locked the box back up.

Moving back toward the little lounge area, Cody had been watching him curiously and Obi-Wan gave him a smile.

“A few years ago I defeated a Sith Apprentice in battle,” he told his son sitting down on his cushion and holding his hand out to show him the blood red crystal. “This is the Bleeding Crystal that powered his lightsaber.”

Cody peered close at the crystal and scrunched his face up. The sound of the crystal was loud and mean and it kind of made him want to cover his ears.

“After I discovered that I’d rehabilitated a Bleeding crystal into a Mandalorian one, my Jedi teacher suggested that I document it,” Obi-Wan said. “He’d never heard of anyone doing something like that before and he’s over eight hundred and fifty years old, so he’d surely know.” Cody’s mouth dropped open at the number and Obi-Wan’s lips twitched with amusement.

“Unfortunately, I hadn’t paid much attention to the crystal changing until it had already been half-way there. It mostly stayed in my pocket after all.” He moved his hand closer to Cody in offer. “Why don’t you try and rehabilitate this crystal. You can keep a journal and document your progress.”

Cody looked at his father hopefully. “You mean it? You’d let me try to make this crystal Mando’ad?”

“It’s been sitting idle in that box for almost four years,” Obi-Wan said. Then a thoughtful smile curled at his lips. “Besides I think I was meant to hold onto it for you. It felt like the Force had given me a little nudge to pick up that lightsaber. Perhaps the crystal was always supposed to be yours.”

He liked that idea. Again Cody saw the parallel to him and his dad. Obi-Wan had said he thought they were meant to be together. Maybe it was the same for Cody and this crystal. And anyway, he wanted a Mandalorian crystal. Finding one in nature would have been a shot in the dark, but rehabilitating one himself was much more likely.

Slowly he reached out and picked up the crystal from his buir’s calloused palm. Immediately the crystal’s noise in the Force got louder and Cody winced. Touching it wasn’t exactly pleasant either. It made his skin feel unbearably itchy. He wondered how Obi-Wan could handle it so calmly.

“Ah, here,” Obi-Wan reached out and put his hands on Cody’s shoulders. “I’ll help you strengthen your shields so its cries won’t be so loud.”

They fell into a light meditation and Obi-Wan demonstrated for Cody how to purposefully strengthen and lessen his shields so the crystal wouldn’t be shouting in his head all the time. He was a quick learner and soon the crystal’s cries were only a dim whisper. Kyber had relatively weak presences in the Force so Cody’s beginner’s shields were mostly sufficient. They wouldn’t have held up so well against the more pushy Force artifacts like holocrons, though. Obi-Wan was glad he kept those locked up in a beskar lined box.

“Very well done,” Obi-Wan said sincerely when they rose from their meditation. Cody beamed at the praise. “Now, let me find you a blank datapad and I can help you decide what kind of data you need to record while you rehabilitate your kyber.”

Perhaps it was a little odd for a developmentally six year old to be so eager for an educational project such as this, but Cody loved to learn. And best of all he loved to learn from his buir. Obi-Wan returned from his desk with one of his spare datapads with a built in holo-camera. Father and son spent a happy afternoon collaborating on an unsuspectingly groundbreaking experiment.

*

Time passed and Obi-Wan shifted his time between coordinating political and economic difficulties for the Sith, training and caring for Cody - and sometimes Savage and Feral -, and preparing for his first steps into infiltrating the Republic Senate elite.

Jango was attending a mirbaar’ur, a mind-medic or therapist in Basic, and recovering from his captivity. After the initial adrenaline rush of being home, Jango’s mental health deteriorated and his trauma became much more evident. Fortunately, after looking into his mind Maul confirmed that all the Dark tendrils from Sidious were gone and so his trauma was his own. You wouldn’t think that would be comforting thought, but genuine mental health issues the Mandalorians could deal with. Kriffing Dark side Force osik, they’d need help.

Jaster and Obi-Wan of course stepped in to help care for Boba while Jango was unstable. Thankfully Jango wasn’t out of commission so severely for long and with his family’s continued help was able to take back over primary care of his son.

The vast majority of the clones were adopted, the only ones left unclaimed had chosen it. They stayed in the Foundling Homes and were treated with all the care and consideration as every other Mandalorian foundling. In the beginning there had been some concern that they might have to build more Foundling Homes, but as the months went on only one hundred and fifty clones were without family or clan. Including one of Cody’s closest brothers and friends, Wolffe.

When asked why he didn’t want to be adopted Wolffe just said that it didn’t seem right for him. Like he was waiting on something. Or someone, Obi-Wan thought. Perhaps it was the Force urging Wolffe to hold off. Perhaps there was another Force-user or even a Jedi that would find their way to Mandalore and a little Mandalorian clone. Wolffe seemed content with his situation so Obi-Wan didn’t worry.

Cody’s other brother-friends, Fox and Ponds, 1010 and 6454 respectively, were both adopted pretty early on. Fox by a Journeyman Protector in Keldabe and Ponds by one of the Clan Leaders from Concordia. All four boys communicated regularly via group holocalls.

So the months flew by and Obi-Wan was very busy. Though always in the back of his mind was the danger of the Sith and the inadvertent ignorance of the Jedi. He couldn’t leave the Jedi so vulnerable much longer. His conscience wouldn’t let him. When he meditated the Force didn’t indicate to what degree of transparency he should have with the Jedi, but it clearly indicated that saying nothing would have, shall we say, bad consequences.

It was a month until Prince Bail Organa’s birthday and Obi-Wan’s first foray into Republic high society. Savage and Feral were off planet with Maul, their older brother having finally settled on a kyber planet for them to find their crystals. Jango was doing much better, he was down from three therapy sessions a week to one and had started training again. Cody was learning in leaps and bounds. And Jaster was spoiling his bu’ade rotten.

Obi-Wan had no more excuses to put off a conversation with Yoda.

He chose to call when the temple would be just about ready for mid-meal, late evening for Mandalore. It didn’t take long before his holocall connected.

Master Yoda’s expression when he materialized above the holo-projector was one of fond scolding.

“Many months, it has been, since call your old teacher you have,” Yoda hummed and arched a green brow at him. “News, you have, yes? Busy, you have been, not just ignoring me, you were.”

Obi-Wan couldn’t help the slightly chastised, bashful curl of his lips. “I’m sorry, Master Yoda. I have indeed been very busy. A lot has happened since we spoke last.”

Yoda studied him knowingly. “Tell me, you should. Worried about you, I have been.”

Feeling fondness for his tiny teacher, Obi-Wan smiled, then sobered as he thought about what he wanted to say. “First, I must tell you that about five months ago I finally found Jango.”

Surprised, Yoda offered a genuine, “Pleased, I am, to hear this. Well, I hope, he is.”

Obi-Wan’s mouth tightened. “He’s getting there. The Sith took him and I’m sure you can imagine that they weren’t particularly pleasant jailers.”

A troubled expression creased at Yoda’s brow. “Well, you are?” he asked. “Duel the Sith Master, you did not.”

It hadn’t been a question and Obi-Wan was a little chagrined to say he agreed with Yoda’s ready assumption. Obi-Wan probably wouldn’t have fared particularly well against the Sith Master.

“He was not there. Jango only saw him when he had to renew the Sith compulsions and suggests in his mind.” It of course went without saying that Jango had no actual memory of what the Sith Master looked liked other than male, humanoid, and cloaked.

“A mind healer, does Jango need?” Yoda asked. “Send one to Mandalore, I can.”

Truly, Obi-Wan had been gifted with the best teachers. “Thank you so much, Master Yoda, but fortunately Jango doesn’t have the need for Force healing. I was able to burn out the Sith manipulations and my second teacher confirmed that he was completely free of the Sith Master’s touch.”

Nodding in acceptance, Yoda studied his student intently listening to the Force whispering in his long ears. “Happy, I am, that returned to you, Jango was. Something else, wish to tell me, you do.”

“Yes, Master,” Obi-Wan answered turning grim. “I can’t tell you much. For you safety and ours, but the Jedi Order is in great danger. You know the ultimate goal of the Sith is galactic domination as it always is, and the main obstacle in their path is and always has been the Jedi.”

Humming thoughtfully, Yoda commented, “Know this already, we do. Making preparations, we are. Slow, perhaps in changing, the Jedi are, but progress, there has been.”

That at least was a relief, that the Order was actually doing something so they won’t be caught off guard by a galactic scale war. Still, “When I found Jango I discovered… evidence of a more concrete plan to destroy the Order. And had we not stepped in I fear the results would have been disastrous.”

Yoda wanted to assure his student that the Order had everything well in hand, but something in Obi-Wan’s demeanor stopped him from being so dismissive. Perhaps it was the thick ring of yellow around his pupils or the severe expression on his young face. Either way, Yoda felt that he should take this warning however vague it was with the consideration it was due.

“Put a stop to this plan, the Mando’ade did?”

Obi-Wan grimaced. The truly frightening thing about the situation with the clones was that they were actually supposed to be an army for the Republic. They would have been trained to slaughter the Jedi and the Sith would have had to manipulate things so that it would have been done with the full sanction of the Senate.

“We put a stop to this plan,” he confirmed, but his severe expression didn’t change. “However, what we understand about the plan is that in order for it be effective the Senate would have had to be complicit in and even sanctioning of the destruction of the Order. You need to be wary of the indifference of the Senate and you need to be mindful of the Jedi’s public image.”

That last caused Yoda’s brows to raise. It’s true that the Jedi were often met with mixed, sometimes even negative attention from the citizens of the wider galaxy, but Obi-Wan was implying that a negative image of the Order for the general populace could contribute to their demise. It was a troubling thought and one that Yoda didn’t particularly know how to address.

“Speak to the Council, I will,” he said after a moment of tense thought. “Discuss cultivating allies in the Senate and improving our image we will.”

Obi-Wan felt some of his tension drain from him. He didn’t smile but his expression was lightened and relieved. “As you say, Master. And if the Order needs some assistance with public relations the Mando’ade will be happy to consult. We have after all made some great progress on boosting our own image.”

Yoda’s expression shifted to match his student’s levity. “Welcome Mando’ade advice, I always will. Jaster, a great help he has been, in my training of young Anakin.”

Anakin, Obi-Wan thought with a small smile remembering the energetic little boy with the supernova presence in the Force. “How is he adapting to the Jedi, Master Yoda? I believe it’s been four years, I suppose he’s a padawan now.”

Yoda hummed and Obi-Wan could plainly see the fondness in the ancient master’s expression. “The Council, Master Jinn petitioned, for his padawan, Anakin he wished to take.”

Obi-Wan couldn’t help the slight moue of distaste at this information and Yoda gave him a pointed look. “Classes on padawan tutelage, the Council decreed Master Jinn must complete, before another padawan, he could teach. Watch over them, I will. Left to their own devices, they will not be.”

Feeling chastised again he nodded to the Grand Master. Though the image of judgmental, stubborn Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn required to take classes meant for nervous young Knights was amusing. Before he could say anything more on the subject though his bedroom door opened and a young sleepy voice called out to him.

“Obi’bu, can I come stay with you?”

Turning, Obi-Wan smiled at his son concerned and comforting. “What are you doing out of bed, dear one?”

Taking that as permission, Cody closed the door behind him and hurried over to his buir. Not even noticing the holo-projection in his rush, the boy scrambled up into Obi-Wan’s arms and settled against his chest. “I had a nightmare.”

Wrapping his arms around his son easily, Obi-Wan sighed resigned when he saw the wide curious eyes of his old teacher watching the scene. At least Cody was so young that the resemblance to Jango wouldn’t be immediately apparent.

“I’m sorry you had a nightmare, dearest, but can you be patient until I’m finished with my holocall? Then we can get you back to bed.”

Cody blinked up at his dad confused for a moment until he turned around and realized that there was a blue-tinted projection of a green creature with large eyes and long ears watching them silently. He stiffened in surprise and curled closer into Obi-Wan’s arms.

Smiling softly down at his son, he stroked a hand over his disheveled curly hair. “It’s alright. This is my Jedi teacher, Master Yoda. Can you introduce yourself?”

Apparently those were the magic words because this surprise child of Yoda’s old student straightened up and peered at him intrigued.

Cody looked at the strange creature and after the initial shock realized that he had a kind look about him. And Obi-Wan had told him a few stories of his time living with the Jedi and his training with Yoda on Manda’yaim. He knew now he had nothing to be afraid of.

“Hello there,” Cody greeted in an uncanny imitation of his buir’s Concord Dawn tinged High Coruscanti accent, then he shifted back into his progressively more Mandalorian accented Basic. “I’m Cody Kenobi, Clan and House Mereel.”

Shock and yet happiness fluttered over Yoda’s expression as he smiled at the little boy. “Please to meet you, I am, child of my old student. Grand Master Yoda, my name is. Tell you of me, your father has?”

The old master cast Obi-Wan a look then and he knew Yoda was going to hold this surprise personal development over his head for a very long time.

“Yes, sir,” Cody nodded, then with an eager if skeptical look asked, “Is it true you hunted frogs in the palace gardens at night?”

Yoda’s lips twitched and his large eyes glinted with mischief. “My secret, that is. For sure, no one can say, no witnesses, there are. Maybe catch me in the act, you will, when meet in person, we do.” Then he flashed Cody his sharp pointed teeth causing the little boy’s eyes to go wide and he let out a bright giggle.

Obi-Wan watched fondly, grinning as his old teacher and his son interacted for the first time. He knew that Yoda and Cody would not meet in person for a very long time, but still just knowing that they were getting along even over holocall was comforting.

“Alright, don’t rile him up, Master Yoda,” Obi-Wan interrupted them indulgently. “It’s late here and I need to get him back into bed.”

Yoda hummed and eyed his student for a long moment. He knew that Obi-Wan would not have neglected to tell him about his son unless it was for a very good reason. Considering the whispers of the Force, Yoda was supposed to pay attention to little Cody. He needed to remember this interaction because something about it would be important in the future.

“Perhaps, tell me sometime, how a foundling, you acquired,” Yoda commented casually.

“Perhaps,” Obi-Wan responded though the sharply protective glint in his student’s eyes told Yoda it would be a long time before he learned the truth. “Say goodnight to Master Yoda, Cody.”

“Goodnight, Master Yoda,” Cody said obediently as he rubbed a small fist at his eyes tiredly.

“Goodnight, young Cody,” Yoda bid as he watched Obi-Wan slide the boy from his lap and usher him off to the side out of view.

“We’ll speak again soon, Master Yoda. Please think about what I told you.” Obi-Wan’s grim expression was softened by an imploring look in his eyes.

Nodding seriously, Yoda assured him, “Speak to the Council, I will, Obi-Wan. May the Force be with you.”

Obi-Wan returned the sentiment sincerely and disconnected the call.

On opposite sides of the galaxy a young father was soothing his son to sleep and an old Master was listening to the vague and cautionary whispering of the Force. Much was going to change, Yoda knew. He just had to make sure the Jedi Order was ready for it.

*

TBC...

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan stood in the palace hangar with Cody held tight and secure in his arms. His son had his little hands over his shoulders, fingers curled around the edge of the back piece of his gorget and his legs wrapped around his waist.

“I’ll be home before you know it, Cody,” Obi-Wan murmured into his son’s temple, his eyes squeezed closed, savoring the warmth of his son’s body and presence.

Cody’s breath hitched like a hiccup. “I want to go with you.”

Sighing, Obi-Wan kissed the side of his head. “I know you do, ner kote’la ad’ika. But I’m going to be meeting a lot of dangerous people. I need you to be safe here on Manda’yaim.”

“I can fight,” Cody insisted. “I was going to fight you with a scalpel, remember.”

Huffing amused, Obi-Wan pulled back and met his son’s sullen gaze. “I remember very well, verd’ika. But these people are not the kind of dangerous you can simply stab and be done with it.”

Cody’s scowling scoff was simply darling. “Sounds like a pain in the ass.”

Frowning, Obi-Wan declared, “And that’s why you are no longer allowed to talk to Maul.”

Lips twitching with humor, Cody’s warm brown eyes glinted in mischief. “But Ba’vodu Maul lets me practice saber movements with his lightsaber.”

“Does he now?” Obi-Wan drawled through gritted teeth. He was going to skin that smug tattooed… Cody’s eyes were still twinkling and Obi-Wan sighed in resignation. His son was turning out to be such a little shit stirrer. He was weirdly proud.

“Alright, one last hug then I have to go.” Cody’s face fell again, but he didn’t protest. He threw himself back against his dad wrapping his arms around his neck and shoulders so hard Obi-Wan was a little worried about the boy getting bruises from his armor.

Returning the embrace just as hard, Obi-Wan carded a hand through the back of Cody’s curly hair and held his other hand flat against his back. He could feel the little boy’s heartbeat below his palm and the steady pulse of his love in the Force.

Finally it was time to separate and Obi-Wan reluctantly let his son go. Lowering him to the ground, he knelt down and gave Cody warm kisses on his brow with a firm press of his lips and a gentle tap of his forehead.

“Be good for Ba’buir and Ba’vodu Jango. I’ll call you as soon as I land and every night until I leave again.” Obi-Wan met his son’s eyes and let the absolute truth of his words echo in the Force.

Cody heard it and nodded. “K’oyacyi, Buir.”

“K’oyacyi, ad’ika,” Obi-Wan returned and stood, gently ushering his son toward where Jango was standing with Boba. The brothers had already said their goodbyes that morning so it was just Jaster that stepped up to him then.

“Be careful of those Republic shabuir,” Jaster told his son with a firm hand on his armored shoulder. “And be safe. I don’t like you being in enemy territory alone.”

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes at his father. “I’ve gone into enemy territory plenty of times, Buir.”

“Yes and every time you were allowed, even encouraged to shoot back.” He gave his youngest son a pointed look. “At a fancy Republic party I doubt you’d make a good impression by stabbing someone even if they started it.”

Lips twitching despite the seriousness of his endeavor, Obi-Wan attempted to reassure his father. “I’ll be fine. And if I have to stab anyone, I’ll make sure there’s no witnesses.”

Sighing and shaking his head at his son, Jaster smiled fondly. Then he looked over Obi-Wan’s newly painted armor, a furrow on his brow. “Are you sure this is the right message to send, Obi-Wan?”

Obi-Wan hadn’t been planning to paint his armor this way, but the moment he’d picked up the spray can he knew that while he was among the Republic elite every smile, every expression, every word would be a pretty lie. In his armor at least he would be honest.

“None of the aruetiise will understand and those that get curious enough to ask or research it, well,” he shrugged. “Armor painting traditions are very old after all. Much of the original symbolism has changed or been lost to time.”

It was risky, Jaster thought. But every Mando’ad is entitled to their armor and none can refuse them that right. Besides, if anyone can walk among the Republic Senate with war and vengeance painted across their chest, it’s Obi-Wan.

Jaster pulled his son in a tight hug then let him go. “K’oyacyi,” he demanded.

“K’oyacyi,” Obi-Wan replied then he turned away from his family and walked onto his ship.

*

It was three days of hyperspace travel between Mandalore and Alderaan. Obi-Wan spent those days reviewing the research his Not-An-Empire Council compiled for him of every important political figure expected to attend Prince Consort Bail Organa’s birthday celebration.

The reading was tedious but it kept Obi-Wan’s mind off the fact that this was the first time he’d be away from Cody over night since they met. It made his chest ache, but it was only for two weeks maximum. He didn’t expect to stay on Alderaan longer than three days, two of those being strictly travel days. He could tough it out.

The trip was uneventful and when Obi-Wan entered Alderaanian airspace on the third day, he was prepared for the hail from air traffic control.

“Cruiser, this is Alderaan air control, state your name and business on planet.”

Unlike last time, Obi-Wan did not say he was here for recreational research and tourism.

“This is Ad’Alor Obi-Wan Kenobi of Mandalore here to attend Prince Bail Organa’s birthday celebration.” There was a long moment of silence over the line before air control returned.

“Please continue on to Aldera, Ad’Alor Kenobi. Air control will direct you from there.” The voice was stiffly polite, a touch bewildered.

Obi-Wan thought it would take longer to get authorized, but apparently Prince Organa had put him on the list. How curiously convenient.

He signed off with Alderaan control and entered atmosphere flying toward the capital city. Air control of Aldera directed him directly to the palace guest hangar, where diplomats and envoys docked their ships.

Obi-Wan was mildly amused to note that his was the smallest ship in the hangar among great space yachts and luxury transports. He landed in the indicated bay and completed shut procedures in short order. Then he slipped his mask-cowl on, grabbed his luggage bag and stepped off his ship.

There was a slightly nervous looking man in sophisticated Alderaanian clothes waiting for him. The man gave a little start when he got a good look at him in his full armor, but didn’t display any other reaction.

“Welcome to the Royal Palace of Alderaan, Ad’Alor Kenobi.” He gave the Alderaanian gesture of respect for someone of higher rank and Obi-Wan returned it with a polite Mandalorian salute.

“I wasn’t expecting a welcoming committee considering my attendance at the celebration must come as a surprise.” He decided that he should speak in his natural High Coruscanti accent, though exaggerated since it had softened after years living around Mando’ade. He’d used his father and brother’s Concord Dawn accent last time he was on Alderaan for discretion sake, but if he was going to have to interact with Senators it was better not to invite any classist snobbery.

“Prince Bail gave orders that should you ever visit Alderaan again, you be allowed entrance and accommodations in the palace.” The man, an assistant or advisor most likely, had a very solid, pleasantly bland sabacc face.

“I’m honored by Prince Bail’s hospitality,” Obi-Wan replied. And it wasn’t even a lie. He hadn’t realized he’d left such a flattering impression on the Prince during his very short visit previously. “Will I be able to greet the Queen and Prince Consort this afternoon?”

“If you’ll follow me,” the assistant gestured they should continue on to the palace. “Unfortunately, the Queen and Prince Consort are having a private celebration today. They will be greeting all their guests at the formal celebration tomorrow evening.”

Not particularly put out by this, Obi-Wan continued making polite small talk until they reached a set of rooms in the guest wing of the palace.

“This will be your suite, Ad’Alor. Should you need anything please do not hesitate to comm the service center with the datapad by the door. If you should wish, dinner for the guests will be served in two hours in the informal dining hall, but you are of course welcome to come and go from the palace as you please.” The man politely took his leave.

Obi-Wan was not going to have dinner in the palace. He’d rather take his time holocalling home. After that he might explore the city a little. Maybe get something to eat in his wandering.

After scanning the room for monitoring equipment, he took off his mask and pulled out his long distance holo-comm. Obi-Wan input the code for the Keldabe palace and waited for the call to connect. When it did Cody’s excited face and Jaster’s indulgent expression materialized over the holo-projector.

“Obi’bu!” Cody practically shouted when he saw his father for the first time in three days. “I miss you! Are you at Alderaan yet? When are you coming home? Did you meet the Prince?”

For the first time in three days, Obi-Wan relaxed and he was able to smile warm and bright at his son even as his father attempted to settle some of the energy.

“Give your buir a moment, Kot’ika. He can’t answer all your questions at once.”

Obi-Wan chuckled and met his son’s sheepish smile. “It’s alright, dearest. I missed you too, very much. And yes, I have finally gotten to Alderaan.”

They talked for an hour, Obi-Wan thought perhaps he should feel a little bad since by his calculations Cody should be at his regular lessons right then. But he was listening to Cody give him a blow by blow of absolutely everything he’d done since Obi-Wan had left and he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Too soon they had to disconnect and Obi-Wan’s heart broke when Cody’s face fell and his little bottom lip quivered. His son didn’t cry though. He put on a brave face and wished his father well before they had to separate again.

Sighing heavily once the holo-comm was disconnected, Obi-Wan let himself sit still and quiet for a moment. He couldn’t bring himself to explore the city after missing his son like that and just decided to down a couple ration bars for dinner then meditate for a few hours. He was going to need it too.

Shielded from the Dark side, Obi-Wan felt off balance and slightly bereft. It would be very ill-advised to leave himself vulnerable when it was more than likely that the Sith Master would either be attending himself or have an agent at the celebration. He couldn’t afford to have his true nature exposed, so he was cut off from the Dark. However, he needed to be as clear minded and even keeled as possible if he was going to navigate the perils of the Republic Senate for the first time, so meditation it was.

After the last three years of having the Dark more prominent inside him, now that his brother was home and his son was waiting for him, Obi-Wan found it easier to gain a measure of serenity in just the Light. Though he spent most of the night meditating anyway. It kept his mind from spinning.

The next morning, Obi-Wan decided that a little showmanship was in order. He stayed mostly in his suite until it was evening. Figuring the surprise and intrigue of the mysterious Mandalorian Prince suddenly appearing at the celebration would stir up interest and curiosity.

Through the years of meeting and negotiating alliances on behalf of the Mand’alor, Obi-Wan discovered that politicians and the social elite loved a good mystery and usually had no qualms about setting aside their own standoffish snobbery to investigate.

Soon enough it was time for the celebration to begin. Obi-Wan donned his armor, though he traded out his utilitarian belt for a pouch-less aesthetic one with an eye-catching buckle and his usual combat style boots for a shined black leather pair with fashionable if functional buckles up the side. Unwrapping a hip length black cape from its travel protections he attached it to his shoulders with its magnetic fasteners.

After some debate he’d decided that it would draw less speculation if visually he was symmetrical so he moved his beskad to his right hip with his blaster alone holstered on his left. When he was wandering around Mandalore and even sometimes out in the galaxy, he didn’t feel the need to shield his saber since it was so different from a traditional Jedi’s lightsaber that it wouldn’t be immediately recognized for what it was. But here with the possibility of the Sith Master or his spies among the crowd he would keep his saber hidden and so he would look oddly unbalanced with his beskad and blaster on his left side and nothing on his right. Drawing his beskad cross body wouldn’t slow or impede him any should the need arise so it wasn’t much of an imposition.

Peering into the fresher mirror, Obi-Wan combed and lightly styled his hair in a masculine side part. He was still getting used to having a beard, but it seemed to lend him an air of authority and age that he would need, so he made sure it was neatly trimmed and groomed. Then he carefully slid his helmet on over his head and secured the chain mail cowl to his gorget. With that he was finished with his preparations.

Tucking the long carved wooden box that held the birthday present for Prince Bail under his arm, Obi-Wan took one final steadying breath and marched from his suite. As he made his way through the palace he was aware both in the Force and from observation that his appearance was garnering a lot of attention. Some of it wary, most of it burningly curious.

When he finally reached the large door to the ballroom, Obi-Wan was met with an actual herald. It seemed the Alderaanian Royalty liked their celebrations somewhat old fashioned and traditional. Obi-Wan’s Mandalorian nature couldn’t help thinking it was all ridiculously superfluous, but there was an old saying, when in Corellia do as the Corellians do.

The herald had an even better sabacc face than his welcoming committee from yesterday afternoon. Not a single ounce of surprise or wariness to be found on the man’s expression.

“Your name, sir, so I can announce you.”

Obi-Wan gave the man his name and formal title then waited patiently for the doors to open.

*

Prince Consort Bail Organa couldn’t help looking around through his many, many guests trying to spot the lone Mandalorian. Upon returning to the palace the previous night after a rather - shall we say - indulgent afternoon with his wife Queen Breha, his advisor had informed him that the Prince of Mandalore had made a surprise appearance and was now staying in a suite in the guest wing.

After he’d met the prince attempting to gain entrance to the Aldera Public Archives while decked out in an impressive array of weaponry, Bail had been curious about him, Mandalore, and Mandalorians in general. He’d had their intelligence agency look into the matter and what he’d found had been interesting indeed.

He’d of course known about the Mandalorian mercenary assistance in the Liberation of Naboo, but he hadn’t known that the conflict had been a precursor to Naboo forming an alliance and trade agreement with the non-Republic independent system of Mandalore. He’d also raised an eyebrow at just how many Republic planets Mandalore had approached and allied with. And he’d noticed that each and every planet or system had suffered in some way and been neglected by the Senate. Such suffering was then almost immediately alleviated once the planet or system signed an agreement with Mandalore.

It was a pattern that had been going on for the last seven or eight years at least. Bail added that to the intel that Mandalore had ceased all its essential imports and was somehow almost entirely self sufficient now. Even though it was common knowledge that the Mandalorian Excision had left the entire planet barren and barely livable. He came to the obvious conclusion that Mandalore was strengthening itself. He just wondered for what purpose.

He’d been new to the Senate when the Mand’alor’s message had arrived and Bail unlike so many of his colleagues believed Mand’alor Mereel when he said he didn’t want conflict with the Republic. However if Mandalore wasn’t careful in whatever they were working towards now, the Senate might start contemplating something foolish. Like another attempt at an Excision.

The other bit of interesting or worrying intel he’d received about Mandalore was that something had stirred them up three almost four years ago. No one outside the sector had been able to figure out exactly what it was, but if you knew how to look at the data, it was obvious it had angered the legendary warriors. And they had turned their anger toward inconveniencing the Trade Federation, Banking Clan, and a number of other powerful people and organizations in the galaxy.

Then half a year ago the second of Mandalore had made a very short and attempted discrete visit to their Archives. Bail of course looked into the data Kenobi had been searching through and wondered what could be so interesting to a Mandalorian, even a royal one, about mono-geographical architecture.

Now the Mandalorian Prince was presumably returned to attend his birthday celebration. Bail, who disliked such self-indulgent social functions actually found himself eager for his party for once.

“What has you so restless, darling?”

Bail glanced over at his wife on his arm and smiled at her. “I’m curious to see if the Prince of Mandalore will attend the celebration.”

Breha eyed her husband knowingly. “You have been very fascinated with Mandalorians lately. Should I be worried about your wandering eye?”

Scoffing, Bail cast an amused look at her. “You know, my love, that any wandering my eyes do will be to wander next to yours.”

Pushing up on her toes, Breha brushed a publicly appropriate kiss on her darling husband’s cheek. “Of course, darling. Our eyes only wander together.”

He was about to reply when the ballroom doors opened again and the herald announced another guest arriving to the celebration.

“Ad’Alor Obi-Wan Kenobi, Clan and House Mereel, Ad’Alor be Mandalore.”

At the entrance to the ballroom, Obi-Wan stood patiently as the herald’s voice rang out across the massive room thanks to the small microphone discretely pinned to the man’s lapel. He was then treated to a greeting of puzzled susurrus through the crowd of rapidly growing surprise and curiosity, even a hint of fear.

Understandable, he thought, since he was a fully armored Mandalorian with very visible weapons just casually strolling through their space. A bit like a wolf among the sheep. Taking in the impractical, ostentatious outfits and head pieces, Obi-Wan thought that very few if any of these people know how to throw a punch much less properly defend themselves.

Seeing such costumes made him think of Padmé Amidala, the Nabooan Queen he’d met four years ago. She’d been decked out in the most impractical clothes he’d ever seen and yet still he had no doubt that she’d be able to defend herself even sporting a beaded headdress and voluminous gown.

At the other end of the ballroom stood Queen Breha Organa and Prince Consort Bail Organa. They were elevated a few feet above the crowd by a small dais and Obi-Wan made a confident b-line for them.

As he strode across the room he was oddly aware of the swaying of his cape down his back and the tails of his tabard against his legs. It reminded him that his armor was displaying a very particular message to all who looked upon it now, even if none of them knew how to interpret it.

When he’d finally decided on how to paint his armor, Obi-Wan started with a base coat of black over the entire suit. Then he’d taken a brush and painted metallic gold across the knuckles of his gauntlets. He drew gold lines down the outside half of his thigh plates and greaves, along with a few other lines of gold here and there over his vambraces, arms, and brigandine. He outlined his T-visor and carefully precisely painted the kar’ta be beskar’gam on the front piece of his gorget in the same bright shimmery gold.

Justice and vengeance. That’s what black and gold meant. It was a dire warning and an ominous promise. Made more so by the gold barbed circle that symbolized marching to war and a long hunt on his left pauldron. The only other bit of color was the small bronze shield - bronze for nobility - on his right pauldron and the red Mythosaur skull painted on top of it, in honor of his family, his leader, and his people.

For hid first public appearance, even the buckles on his belt and boots were gold along with the fasteners for his cape. His black cape as well was embroidered with a thin gold border of kar’ta inspired geometric design.

No one in the room looking upon him now understood what his armor was proclaiming to the galaxy, but they knew a predator when they saw one.

He was darkly amused when the milling, staring crowd parted for him like it was an act of the Force. It made his journey toward the Queen and Prince Consort much easier so he wasn’t going to complain.

Stepping up to the dais, Obi-Wan stopped on the bottom step, his head lower than the royal couple, and pressed his right fist over his heart in a respectful salute to ones of equal status. The Organas returned the greeting with a respectful gesture from their own culture, also a greeting to one of equal rank.

“Thank you, Queen Organa, Prince Organa, for your generous hospitality,” Obi-Wan said and he could tell by the almost imperceptible eyebrow twitch that Bail Organa was surprised by his High Coruscanti accent.

“You are welcome in Alderaan, Ad’Alor Kenobi,” the Queen said and he was a little curious to note that she was actually sincere. “We are most honored that you decided to join us for this celebration.”

“I thought it would be a good opportunity to present Prince Organa with a gift,” Obi-Wan said and brought the wooden box into view. He was amused by the little spark of alarm he could feel coming from the security guards on the edges of the room. He’d snuck it past them with a little nudge of the Force. “A token of my and the Aliit be Mand’alor’s gratitude for the your assistance last time I visited your lovely planet.”

Bail Organa had very impressive shields for a Force-null, but Obi-Wan was still able to pick up his puzzlement. “There is no need for any such token, Ad’Alor. My assistance was freely given.”

Obi-Wan’s lips twitched behind his mask, impressed that the man was as sincere in this as his wife. “Your freely given assistance may seem like a minor thing to you, but for me and for Mandalore it was much more valuable.”

Perhaps a little too honest for a conversation among the elite, but Obi-Wan was after all a Mandalorian. As a general rule, they were an honest, straightforward people.

Prince Organa studied him for a second then elegantly reached for the box taking it from Obi-Wan’s hands.

The wooden box had no lock, only a simple metal latch. The Prince opened the lid and peered inside his eyes widening almost imperceptibly.

Obi-Wan had commission the dagger inside that box especially for this purpose. It was meant to be worn concealed so it was relatively short, less than a forearm in length with an unobtrusive cross-guard and a pommel that was little more than an extension of the grip, the signet for the Alderaanian Royal House etched into it. It was sitting in a leather sheath tooled with a signet to match the pommel.

Other than the Alderaanian crests there was nothing particularly fancy about the dagger, it was utterly functional. The best kind of gift for a Mandalorian. Obi-Wan had first thought of gifting Prince Organa with something flashier, more suited to the Republic elite, but decided against it. He was Mandalorian. He may be forced to socialize and integrate with these politicos and socialites, but he would do so with as little deception where he could.

Queen Organa’s expression was speculative as she looked in the box from next to her husband.

“It is a unique gift,” she said turning her gaze on Obi-Wan. “Are all gifts given to foreign dignitaries of a similar nature?”

He tipped his head in a habitual gesture to indicate a smile while wearing his mask. “Most gifts given among my people are of a functional, practical nature,” he said plainly. “However, weapons are part of my religion, your Highness, and they are only gifted to outsiders as a sign of respect.”

From the look on Prince Organa’s face when he looked up at Obi-Wan he realized the importance of such an admission.

Obi-Wan held the Prince’s gaze through his visor. “Will you accept this gift, your Highness, as a token of Mandalore’s thanks?”

To his credit Prince Organa took a second to truly contemplate his answer. Obi-Wan was pleased with the thoughtfulness. He hadn’t discussed it with Jaster, but he knew he couldn’t hold to Clan Mereel’s normal adherence to the helmet aspect of the Creed while in enemy territory. It would alienate most of the beings he’d have to interact with. But he had to make a display of assimilation, had to send a message. And Prince Organa’s answer would dictate the exact circumstances in which he made that display.

“I’m sure you’re aware that while Alderaan is a pacifist planet, we will defend ourselves if we must,” Prince Organa said, confident and sure. Obi-Wan waited patiently for his next words. “Should the need arise, I would be honored to wield this dagger in defense of myself and others.”

Perfect, Obi-Wan thought as he heard the muttering and whispering from the nosy onlookers. In reply to the Prince’s acceptance, Obi-Wan raised his hands and unfastened seals around his neck. He tipped his head forward and pulled his mask-cowl off smoothly, raising his head and giving it a small toss when his mostly still neat hair fell across his forehead.

There were gasps of surprise and twitters of intrigue in the crowd. The Queen and Prince’s expressions were mostly pleasantly stoic, though Obi-Wan could feel their own surprise in the Force.

He smiled at the Alderaanian royal couple, friendly and pleased, though the expression truthfully just barely touched his eyes. Clipping his mask-cowl to his belt on his left hip, his eyes still on them he said, “You are a wise man, Prince Organa. I think we will be great friends.”

His response more than the reveal of his face seemed to take the Prince by surprise, but the man gathered himself quickly. Prince Organa smiled back, genuine if restrained. “I look forward to cultivating a friendship with you, Ad’Alor. And please, since we are to be friends, call me Bail.”

Obi-Wan’s smile, while more genuine now, turned just a touch sharp with triumph, though no one else could tell that’s what it was. “In that case, I insist you call me Obi-Wan.”

“Any friend of my husband’s is welcome to call me Breha,” the Queen said with a sharply intelligent smile to their new acquaintance as she held out a hand expectantly.

Instead of a hand shake as was a common gesture in much of the Core, Obi-Wan lightly took her elegant, strong hand in his gauntlet-gloved grasp and brushed a feather light kiss to the back. “It would be my pleasure, my lady.”

Breha let out a quiet, pleased chuckle at the gesture. Bail’s lips were curled at the corner when Obi-Wan raised his head, amused by the charm bestowed upon his wife rather than jealous. “Enjoy the celebration, Obi-Wan. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to talk some more later on.”

Obi-Wan exchanged polite agreement and customary excuses then moved off into the crowd.

Well, he thought as he smoothly took a glass of alcohol from a passing server’s tray, that was a success. He’d been accepted readily by the royal hosts, he’d stirred up a fair amount of curiosity, and he’d made himself approachable by removing his mask. In the act, he’d also communicated his respect for Bail Organa, who was a highly respected Senator himself. Made himself appear generous, friendly, yet still faithful to the popular stereotypes of Mandalorians.

He’d proven himself not a completely unknown entity and so deemed relatively safe to approach, while still being mysterious enough to invite curiosity.

Taking a sip of the delightful Alderaanian brandy he’d snagged, Obi-Wan watched as a Senator in extravagant dress made her way toward him, a sheen of calculating curiosity in her dim Force-null presence, and a pleasant, insincere greeting smile on her face.

Obi-Wan turned toward her when she got close enough and readied himself for the start of a very long evening. There were a lot of speculative and somewhat greedy, ambitious eyes on him. He’d have to tread carefully while swimming these perilous social waters, but the Force was focused and intent around him. He knew that regardless of how precarious this endeavor was, he would not fail.

Justice for Mandalore and vengeance for Jango and the clones depended on it.

*

TBC...

Chapter Text

It’s been four years since Cody had met his buir. Since Buir and Prime’Alor - or Ba’vodu Jango - rescued him and all his vode from Kamino. Four years of actually having a home, of being cared for, of being loved.

It hadn’t all been perfect, of course not, but Cody would fight tooth and nail, he would rend anyone limb from limb that tried to take his home and his family from him. And he was a Mando’ad, he’d been trained to fight and to defend. He could make good on all his threats and promises.

Well, he was only almost eight years old – Human equivalent of fourteen or fifteen. So he probably couldn’t take on a fully trained verd, but he wouldn’t give up, he would go down fighting. Ba’vodu Jango called it Mandokarla and Ba’buir Jaster called it plain old stubbornness. Obi’bu would smirk and wink at him saying it was a bit of both.

Thankfully Cody hadn’t had to test his skills in anything other than sparring. And he was proud to say he was one of the best fighters of all the vode still in Keldabe. He could even almost win sometimes against Savage, and Savage was an adult now, large for a Dathomirian Zabrak and strong in the Force. He and Feral were pretty evenly matched even though Feral was over sixteen now. Cody didn’t think that was anything against Feral’s ability, since he didn’t really want to be a warrior. He preferred politics and helping Maul run his “extra-lawful” business enterprises, as Obi-Wan called his criminal activities.

Over the years, Cody had learned that his buir had a particular way of speaking about certain things that were utterly truthful without being honest. “From a certain point of view”, he called it. Cody wasn’t as good at picking up that talent as he had been about most other things Obi’bu was teaching him, but he’d get there.

He was just seven after all, he had some time.

Or well, actually he didn’t really. Cody didn’t think his father realized that he knows, but Cody did the math when he’d first come to Manda’yaim, after Obi’bu had officially adopted him. All the clones had accelerated aging, twice the rate as a baseline Human. If he didn’t die on a hunt or in battle, Cody would die of old age decades before his buir would.

While the thought of marching on before his father saddened him, made his stomach clench and his heart sink, Cody couldn’t spend time thinking about it, dwelling on it. If he did it would stain everything in his life. And he wouldn’t sully his time with his aliit and his buir for anything. Obi-Wan didn’t let the knowledge that his son would march ahead of him take over his life.

Obi-Wan spent every moment with Cody that he could, fully present and in the moment with him. Cody knew that wouldn’t be any different even if he aged like a normal Human. He’d meditated on it once. If Obi-Wan would treat him different if he was a normal kid.

The Force never lied, Cody knew that, had known that on Kamino before he really knew what the Force was. When the Force whispered to him, in that ephemeral wordless way, that Obi-Wan would treat him the exact same no matter what he was or wasn’t, Cody knew it was the absolute honest truth.

And Cody loved his father all the more for it.

Being his dad’s apprentice was hard work. Obi-Wan was an exacting and strict teacher, he demanded 100% of Cody’s effort and attention in his lessons. He was teaching him both the Light and the Dark sides of the Force, the Jedi and Sith teachings, along with the Mando’ad traditions, and everything else he’d picked up from the many other traditions throughout the galaxy. Cody thought that his training in the Force was probably the most unique and diverse training of any Force-user ever.

Perhaps the only other Force-users that could claim the same were Feral and Savage, though they concentrated more on the Dark side. They were Maul’s apprentices and Maul was a true dark-sider, a Sith Lord in practice as well as name.

Cody knew Obi-Wan was technically a Sith Lord as well, that he’d done the training and received the acknowledgment from his master and even the acceptance of the Force and the Sith of long past. He’d also been trained by the Jedi, however, and so Obi-Wan preferred to straddle the line, to keep the balance between the Light and Dark.

That’s what Cody wanted to strive toward as well. He saw his father as the epitome of a Force wielding Mando’ad warrior and he wanted to be just like him. Well, not just like him, he could never be just like Obi-Wan. He wanted to himself, but a great Ka’ra’ad verd as well.

And he was well on his way to being just that. He’d sworn the Resol’nare on his seventh birthday – the anniversary of the first day he stepped foot on Manda’yaim – when he was the Human equivalent of about fourteen years old. He’d wanted to go on his verd’goten then as well, like Obi’bu had, but Obi-Wan said he should wait until he finally built his lightsaber.

He may have pouted a little but he didn't protest. The Force seemed to agree with Obi-Wan’s stipulation and Cody had been taught to listen to the Force in most everything so he would wait. Luckily he hadn’t thought he’d be waiting long. The delay on his lightsaber was his kyber crystal.

Obi-Wan had given him a Bleeding kyber to rehabilitate and hopefully convert to being a Mando’ad kyber. Cody had taken his father’s suggestion of recording and documenting his attempts to rehabilitate the crystal to heart. He’d since filled three data-sticks with data, progress entries, pictures, and hypothesis and experiments.

It had taken over four years but finally his kyber crystal was completely rehabilitated. He had worried that it was taking too long since it had only taken his father two years to convert his crystal. Obi-Wan had to remind him that he’d had the crystal for about three years as well. He’d just kept it in his pocket for two. Cody wondered though, if the delay was something to do with the fact that he was weaker in the Force than his dad.

Obi-Wan was very strong, honestly a little intimidating as a powerhouse of Force strength. And Cody was not. It didn’t… It didn’t really bother him all that much, that he wasn’t as strong as his buir in the Force. He didn’t need to be. His father often told him that all the power in the galaxy was nothing without the brains to know how to wield it.

Take the Mando’ade of old, for example, Obi-Wan would say. They waged whole wars on the Jedi and were more often than not capable of killing them in one on one confrontations. The Mando’ade were not more powerful than the Jedi, they were just really clever about how they fought.

And Cody didn’t have to be really powerful to be a great Ka’ra’ad verd either. He was intelligent, and clever, and analytical. What he lacked in brawn he made up for in brains, so to speak.

So, he was ready to finally build his lightsaber, but he didn’t want to do it without his buir, so he’d been forced to wait. Obi-Wan had been invited to some symposium or something held by some fancy Core politicians so he’d been stuck on Chandrilla for a month smiling charmingly and lying through his teeth. Or at least that’s how he described it when he had to go to the Republic social events.

Cody knew that his buir was laying the groundwork to eventually be Mandalore’s inside man in the Senate. He understood that the Republic may not know it but Mandalore was at war with them. Or well, with the Sith manipulating them. It was important that Obi-Wan go to these events, so Cody did not complain. He eagerly attended his holocalls with his father while he was off planet and greeted him warmly when he came home.

Which he was more than ready to do now as he watched his father’s ship lower itself into its hangar bay and complete the landing procedures.

The ship’s ramp lowered and his father tiredly made his way down it with his duffle slung over one shoulder and his mask-cowl clipped to his belt.

Unable to wait any longer Cody darted forward with a shout.

“Buir!”

Obi-Wan’s head shot up at the sound of his son’s call and barely had enough time to drop his bag and brace himself before he had a teenager colliding with him almost at full speed. The breath whooshed from his lungs and they both would have toppled over had he not hurriedly braced himself with the Force.

Not that Obi-Wan minded as he finally relaxed for what seemed like the first time in a month. Wrapping his arms around his son, he squeezed him tight and cradled the back of his head with a gloved hand.

Pressing his nose into Cody’s hairline, Obi-Wan breathed in the spicy-herbal smell of his soap and the baked sunshine scent that was completely his son’s.

“I guess you’re glad I’m home, huh,” Obi-Wan commented wryly then kissed the boy on the temple. “I missed you, Cody.”

“Missed you too, Buir.” Cody lifted his face from where it was squished against his father’s armored chest and looked up into his golden ringed blue-green eyes. “I hope your trip wasn’t too boring without me.”

“Well, I didn’t feel a particular urge to kill anyone so there was that.” Obi-Wan smirked down at Cody’s rolling eyes and loosened up their embrace so he could grab his duffle again and start toward the palace. “You are extra excited today and I don’t think it’s entirely because your dear old dad has returned home.”

“You’re not old,” Cody protested, and it was the truth, Obi-Wan was only thirty-two, that was not old. “And yeah, okay I’m a little excited,” he admitted a sheepish smile on his lips and a pleased flush on his tanned cheeks.

Guiding them through the hangar and into the palace, Obi-Wan kept an arm around Cody’s shoulders, his son still had one arm wrapped around his waist. “Why don’t you tell me what’s got you so energized. Your presence feels almost electrified.”

Cody couldn’t deny it, he was practically vibrating with anticipation and eagerness. “It’s my crystal!” he burst out and Obi-Wan’s eyebrows raised as he tipped his face down to look at him. “It’s finally completely Mando’ad now!”

The kyber crystal was indeed Mando’ad now, Obi-Wan thought after he’d had a chance to go to his room, get cleaned up and changed into his causal clothes. Now he and Cody were in the boy’s room and Obi-Wan was holding his son’s rehabilitated crystal in his hand.

The crystal was of average size, with sharp ends and unevenly faceted sides. Where it had once been a bright blood red it was now mostly black. Beneath the black color, was a hot orange glow. Every edge on the crystal glinted orange, and as he turned it over in his palm it reminded him of a cooling ember in a fire pit. Obi-Wan half expected it to be hot to the touch, and it did feel warm in the Force. Not a calming or gentle warmth, but warm like holding your hand over an open flame. A warmth that warned if you pressed too close you’d get burned.

It was a beautiful color and the song it sang in the Force was no less so. It sounded, as his own Mando’ad crystal did, like war drums though faster and a little more energetic. There was a ring to it like brothers in arms chanting a war cry before the charge into battle. It was a song of camaraderie and bloody violence and fighting for your vode as much as your cause.

Obi-Wan looked at his son watching him excited and anxious. The crystal fit his Cody perfectly.

“You’ve done well, ad’ika,” he praised and Cody both rolled his eyes at the endearment and flushed with happiness.

“Can I make my saber now, Buir?” His warm brown eyes were bright with eagerness and Obi-Wan smiled.

“Let’s head to the Goran and see what we can dig out of the storeroom.”

Cody’s excursion into the storeroom was much like Obi-Wan’s own when he made the saber now hanging at his side. The boy opened himself up to the Force and let it guide him to the pieces and parts he needed. When he was done they showed the haul to the Goran who would bill the Aliit be Mand’alor for the parts. Then they retreated back to Obi-Wan’s study so Cody could begin making his saber.

“Now remember, Cody, let the Force guide you,” Obi-Wan said as he sat in front of his son on the floor. “It’s good to have designs for your saber in mind, but be ready to diverge from them. The Force may direct you to a different style.”

Cody nodded seriously and moved into a comfortable meditation pose. Then he lowered his shields like Obi-Wan had showed him and let the Force flow into him.

Not as practiced as his father at letting both the Light and the Dark into him at once, Cody struggled for a moment to find balance and not get swept away. He reached out for his buir’s presence in the Force and used it as a focal point until he could gain his baring. When he did, when he felt the calm soothing Light and eager hungry Dark in equal measure he took a couple deep breaths and turned his attention toward his lightsaber.

He wasn’t sure how long he was immersed in the Force by the time he finally rose to the surface, but he had sweat beading at his hairline and he was breathing heavier with exertion. He felt the weight of his lightsaber hilt drop into his hands as he raised his shields and the Force slowly left him again. Opening his eyes Cody looked at his lightsaber in wonder.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Obi-Wan commented as he watched his son examine his new weapon.

It wasn’t quite as strange as his own lightsaber with its spiked mace pommel and sharped four bladed guard, but it was certainly not a common lightsaber design.

Cody’s saber was the standard length for either two handed or single handed wielding. Like Obi-Wan’s, his saber had beskar rings along the hilt for a hand grip and the blade power and length dials and the ignition switch were of Mandalorian design. The pommel was a single lethal conical beskar spike, the end sharped to a needle point. It would be able to seriously injure if not kill someone stabbed with it.

The blade end was just as interesting. Cross-guard lightsabers were not rare exactly, just uncommon, even collapsible cross-guards like Cody’s had been seen before among the Jedi. However, Cody’s cross-guard arms was two beskar spikes longer and thinner than his pommel, but also sharped to a lethal points. This design turned the deactivated lightsaber into a two pronged stabbing weapon in its dormant position.

What caught Obi-Wan’s eye most was the blade emitter. It was wide and narrow, shaped somewhat like a kar’ta be beskar’gam.

Obi-Wan looked from the weapon in his son’s hands to his son. Cody was still looking his saber hilt over with a discerning eye and a satisfied air.

“Go ahead and put your crystal in,” Obi-Wan suggested with a slight smile. “Activate it so we can see your blade.”

Cody floated his black-orange crystal from the floor next to him and settled it easily into the open crystal mount. His hilt closed, hiding it from view and he lifted it up, butterflies in his stomach. Buir had a proud gleam in his eyes though so Cody pressed the ignition button confidently.

The cross-guard arms dropped perpendicular to the hilt and the blade activated. The first thing Obi-Wan thought as he saw the blade was that it was very like the Darksaber. It had a similar sound, a higher, more ringing tone. And it was not shaped like a standard lightsaber blade. Obviously in mirror to the emitter, the blade was wide and narrow, like a broadsword. Which was curious considering broadsabers were very rare and most Jedi considered them inferior weapons. Then again, Cody was not a Jedi.

The lightsaber blade was also black, the edges glowing a hot orange giving off an aura aournd the blade. As if a fire burned underneath the black. It brought to mind a solar eclipse. Fitting, Obi-Wan thought, because Cody’s presence in the Force often seemed to him like a sun either rising or setting with his mood.

All in all it was a unique weapon for a unique Force-user. Obi-Wan was not overstating his fatherly pride when he thought that Cody was going to be a very talented, unique Ka’ra’ad verd.

Cody’s cheeks were tinted pink and he grinned. “How will we train with it though? It will wield different from most lightsabers.”

He wasn’t wrong. “We’ll speak with the beskad master,” Obi-Wan said thinking of Helio, the older Mirialan Mando’ad who had assisted Yoda in training him with dual wielding a beskad and lightsaber. “Your saber will cut like a normal lightsaber on its edges, but like the Darksaber it will only burn and melt on the flats. Its weight looks like it’ll be similar to mine so that’ll take some adjustment from wielding the training sabers Maul and I built for you all.”

When Maul had taken Savage and Feral to search for their crystals he’d returned with a number of kyber crystals that he and Obi-Wan fashioned into training sabers for Cody and any other Ka’ra’ade that wanted to learn to wield a kad’au. So far it was only younglings that had shown an interest, but Obi-Wan expected that to change with time as more Mando’ade become more open about their Force-use and as the Mandalorian Force traditions evolved with his inadvertent influence.

“I might give Master Yoda a call,” Obi-Wan thought aloud. “There might be some documentation on other lightsaber forms the Jedi would use when broadsabers were more prevalent.”

Cody had only spoken to Master Yoda over holocall a couple of times when he was younger. Then he’d grown too fast and his resemblance to Jango became more pronounced. Obi-Wan wanted to keep Cody’s true origins a secret for as long as possible from any of those on Coruscant and therefore from the Sith Master.

Deactivating his lightsaber, the blade retracted and the cross-guard folded forward. Cody met his father’s gaze with his warm brown eyes still with a little orange-yellow ring around the pupils, the Dark side just barely lingering inside him.

“Thank you, Buir,” he said, projecting love down the their bond and into the air between them. “For being here with me for this. You’re the best teacher and the best father I could have ever asked for. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”

Heart clenching with love and pride, Obi-Wan reached forward and grabbed Cody, pulling him into a tight hug.

“N’entye, ner kote’la verd’ika,” Obi-Wan murmured as he held his son against his chest. “You are amazing all on your own with very little help from me. I cannot tell you how proud I am of the young man you’re becoming. Regardless, you are my son and there is not anything I would not do for you.”

The Force, Dark and Light, whispered truth in Cody’s ears and he smiled, his face buried his his father’s chest. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for his father either.

*

Cody trained with his new lightsaber for six months before Obi-Wan deemed him ready to finally go on his verd’goten, his coming of age hunt. By the time he was ready to board his small True Mandalorian Bounty Hunter Company ship, Cody was the Human equivalent of fifteen or sixteen.

He’d only been out of the Mandalore sector twice since leaving Kamino. Both of those times were on bounty hunts with his father, mostly to give him experience with the wider galaxy before his verd’goten. He like all the clones had stricter protocols to follow than other Mando’ade when leaving Mandalorian territory. They had to wear their helmets when out in public or around aruetiise regardless of whether they were on a hunt or not. Now that they were all teenage equivalents their resemblance to Prime’Alor- to Jango was more obvious and they could not afford to have questions asked.

Though he knew some of his vode found the restrictions frustrating, particularly the New Mandalorians, Cody didn’t mind it. Especially since like his father he had a cortosis-beskar alloy helmet that didn’t muffle the Force for him. Well, a mask-cowl really.

He didn’t use as much Force assisted acrobatics as his father did when he fought, so he didn’t need a whole suit of articulated plates. But after some experimentation it was apparent that though he mostly fought more like a Mando’ad than a Jedi, he still moved similar enough to Obi-Wan to be uncomfortable in strictly traditional beskar’gam.

A compromise was made and his upper chest and back plates were the solid traditional design, including the collar plates that evolved from the gorget. Over his belly and his mid to lower back his armor was articulated, the thin plates attached to the bottom of the solid upper chest plates. Also articulated were his pauldrons, his elbow pieces, and his gauntlets. He needed dexterity in his wrists to wield his lightsaber like his father so his vambraces were slim and minimalist as well, only carrying the controls for his heads-up-display and a comlink.

He’d demonstrated a penchant for devastating kicks while sparring and was just as flexible in the hips and legs as Obi-Wan so he followed his example with a durasteel weave tabard to protect the organs and arteries in his groin as well. He’d chosen a dark brown color for his kute- his under suit, so his tabard was dark brown to match. And of course in deference to his Force-sensitivity, his helmet was actually a mask and chain mail cowl that fastened to his collar plates.

Because he hadn’t completed his verd’goten yet, his armor remained unpainted. Only a bronze shield and a red Mythosaur skull on his right pauldron to mark his loyalties and his place in the Aliit be Mand’alor. Cody had an idea of what he wanted to paint already, so he’ll use the time in hyperspace to create the design.

Standing in the hangar bay with Ba’buir Jaster, Ba’vodu Jango, young – no longer quite so little – Boba, and his buir, Cody had a flutter of nerves in his belly and a burning excitement in his chest.

“You have all your weapons, right?” Obi’bu asked rhetorically, a furrow at his brow. “And you checked the supplies on the ship? You have your True Mandalorian ID in case the Guild gives you trouble? Did you-”

“Leave the kid alone, Obi-Wan,” Jango cut in before he could continue to fret. “Kot’ika is more than prepared for this.”

Obi-Wan shot him a scowl then he sighed and Cody could feel him sharing a tangle of emotions with the Force. When his father looked at him again, his yellow ringed blue-green eyes were warm and calm.

“I’m sorry, Cody, I just worry, you know. Jango’s right though. You are more than ready for this.” He smiled and put a hand on his son’s armored shoulder. “Remember your training, trust the Force and your own instincts. You’ll have no problems.”

Cody felt the nerves swept away with his dad’s confident reassurance. He threw his arms around Obi-Wan’s shoulders and squeezed him tight. They were almost the same height he realized as he buried his face in his dad’s shoulder and inhaled his familiar comforting scent.

In the Force Obi-Wan’s storm cloud and bright sky presence wrapped around Cody’s sun rise, soothing and warm.

“I love you, ner kote’la verd’ika,” Obi-Wan murmured and pressed a kiss to Cody’s temple.

“Love you too, Buir.” Cody felt his father’s fingers card through the back of his short curly hair and his other hand pat his solid upper back plate.

Pulling out of their embrace, Obi-Wan had his hands on Cody’s shoulders as he looked into his son’s warm yellow-orange ringed brown eyes. “Be careful and if you get into trouble don’t hesitate to comm me.”

Cody then in a display of teenage attitude rolled his eyes at his father’s fretting. “I will, Obi’bu, promise.”

“I want my hug before you leave too,” Jaster cut in with a smile and embraced his bu’ad warmly. “When you return you will be a warrior in title, but remember, Kote, you already have the heart and soul of warrior.”

“Thank you, Ba’buir,” Cody smiled at the Mand’alor and moved away to say his goodbyes to Jango and Boba.

Of course there was a delay because Boba wanted to go with him and it took some convincing to get the boy to unwrap himself from his bigger cousin’s waist and let him leave. Finally though, Cody was walking up his ship’s ramp.

Obi-Wan stood in the hangar staring after his son’s ship as he breached atmosphere and disappeared into hyperspace.

He felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and he finally looked away to find Jaster watching him with a knowing expression. “You’ve raised him well, Tracyn’ika. He’ll be fine.”

Sighing, Obi-Wan replied, “I know. Cody’s strong and smart. He’s already a glorious Mando’ad and Force-user. But, Buir,” his voice cracked, “he’s only eight years old.”

His breath hitched on his next inhale. “He’s only eight years old. He should still be learning basic saber forms and elementary math and science. He-he’s supposed to still be a child not almost an adult.”

Jaster felt his heart ache for his son. He tugged Obi-Wan closer until he dropped his head on Jaster’s shoulder, struggling to keep his tears from falling.

“Cody is healthy and happy and that is all we can ask for our children,” he said, his arm wrapped around Obi-Wan’s shoulders and his chin lightly resting on top of his head. He saw Jango a ways from them keeping Boba distracted and watching with an expression mixed of sadness and protective anger.

“You are a wonderful father to your son and you will continue to be so until the day you march on.” Even if Cody marches before him, Jaster thought with an ache in his chest. “And we have time, Obi-Wan. Our geneticists and doctors are working on a cure for our eyayahe. They won’t stop working on a cure, I promise you that.”

Obi-Wan let his father’s words comfort him as he shared and released his emotions into the Force. He ruthlessly boxed away the timer counting down in the back of his mind.

“Vor entye, Buir,” he said as he raised his head and stepped away, clearing his throat.

Jaster squeezed his shoulder one last time before releasing him again.

Jango seeing their moment was over walked to them. “Let’s head back into the palace. I need to drop Boba off at his lessons and I think we have things we should discuss.”

The Aliit be Mand’alor congregated in the Mand’alor’s office now completely sans children. Jaster poured his sons each a couple fingers of tihaar forgoing shig for this conversation.

“Now that the Cody is on his verd’goten, when do you think you will contact the Republic?” He looked to Obi-Wan grimly.

Obi-Wan downed his two fingers worth of Mandalorian alcohol and poured himself another before answering. “When Cody returns I’ll start making preparations.”

“You’ve got a handle on the dirty dealing of the politicians,” Jango asserted more than asked as he sipped at his own glass.

Nodding, “It’s been five years,” he said. “If I haven’t figured out how the seedy underbelly of the Republic Senate works by now I never will.”

“I have complete and utter faith in your ability to navigate and assimilate with corrupt politicians,” Jaster assured him with dry humor.

Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if he should be insulted or not. “I’ve also cultivated quite a few allies and friends in the small contingent of honest Senators.”

“It’s the dirty Senators we should be most worried about,” Jango commented wryly.

Shooting his brother a wry look of his own, he tipped his head in concession. “I’ve made some of those kinds of friends as well. I’m as prepared and in as optimal a position politically as I’m gonna be. If we want to accept that ambassadorial seat the Chancellor offered all those years ago, now is the time.”

Jaster was quiet for a moment then he nodded, his expression determined and yet still grim. “When Cody gets back, we’ll announced it to our councils, the Clan Leaders, and Duke Kryze and the other Governors. I don’t think we’ll have a problem justifying this decision, but we should be prepared for opposition anyway.”

Swallowing another drink of tihaar, Obi-Wan’s brow furrowed, concerned. “What do you think the public’s reaction to my essentially joining the Republic’s Senate will be?”

Surprisingly, Jango had a satisfied curl to his mouth as he assured him, “I wouldn't worry about the Mando’ad citizens.” At his brother and father’s questioning looks his smirk grew predatory. “You two did a good job of waging a bloodless war while I was gone. The entirety of the Mandalorian Sector knows that we’re essentially at war with elements connected to the Republic.”

He nodded to Obi-Wan, “Your excursions into enemy territory haven’t gone unnoticed by the people either. You’ve even popped up on the holonet a few times attending the more high profile events. Everyone knows that our Ad’Alor is the Mand’alor’s voice when dealing with foreign entities. That you are a powerful Force-user. That you had a vision of my captivity that kick-started our war.”

Jango reached out and rapped a knuckle over the gold barbed circular symbol painted on Obi-Wan’s black pauldron fastened over his jacket. “Add in your armor outright declaring war, it’s an open secret among the people that the Ad’Alor is socializing with the enemy because you are waging a much more subtle kind of war.”

Normally, the knowledge that the entire populace knows of their infiltration and spying plans would be concerning. They were Mandalorians, though. Proud, strong, and united. Not to mention that the current Aliit be Mand’alor was looked upon with great respect and loyalty. The Republic will not hear of Obi-Wan’s true motivations from Mandalorian lips.

Jaster had a pleased curl on his mouth as he sipped at his tihaar. “It’s decided then. After Cody returns, we move forward with our plans and Obi-Wan petitions for an ambassadorial seat in the Senate.” He looked to his son as a thought occurred to him. “Will you be contacting the Chancellor for his support?”

Obi-Wan opened his mouth about to answer when he felt a discontented rumble in the Force. He paused, thought that over and found he agreed with the warning. “I’ll contact some of our Republic allies. Going to the Chancellor gives me the feeling that it would put us in debt to him.”

“Let’s try and get out of this clusterkark being indebted to as few galactic leaders as possible,” Jango added wryly.

The other two men hummed and muttered their agreement. Jaster then refilled their glasses and raised his in a toast of sorts.

“The Sith and their allies will soon greatly regret misusing the Mando’ade.” He tapped his glass against Obi-Wan and Jango’s. “Oya.”

“Oya,” Obi-Wan and Jango replied and all three men downed their tihaar at once.

Let’s hunt.

*
TBC… Epilogue...

Chapter Text

Cody returned from his verd’goten with a sizable bounty reward and his armor painted. Obi-Wan thought the design he’d chosen was very apt.

His kar’ta be beskar’gam set in his solid upper chest pieces over his sternum was painted lust for life orange. He chose to paint the heart of his armor with the color of a lust for life because he knew that his would be shorter than most. And he was determined to make the most of the time he had with his aliit, especially his buir.

Spreading from his kar’ta were three thick orange lines trailing down and across his torso like a sun burst. The knuckles on his gauntlets were also orange, along with the diagonal stripes on his thigh pieces. His T-visor on his mask was also outlined in orange.

Everything orange was outlined in new beginnings white. His vambraces and greaves were painted reliability blue outlined in duty green. His pauldrons were justice black and like on his buir’s armor there was the barbed circle of a march to war in vengeance gold on his left shoulder. On his right he had the bronze shield and red Mythosaur skull signifying his nobility, his loyalty to Mandalore, and his respect for his father and family.

On the left side of his chest over his heart there was another symbol. One only seen painted on the clones’ armor. Three black concentric circles with a gray Human skull at the center. The crest of the Eyayahe, as the Mando’ade affectionately called their Ven’Alor’s clones. The colors of the circles sometimes varied but always the skull is gray, to show their mourning for the vode sent marching on ahead of them while they were still captive on Kamino.

When Cody stepped off his ship with the Guild receipt for his bounty and his armor painted so vibrant and true to himself, Obi-Wan had been bursting with pride and love.

Their celebration hadn’t lasted long however. The next day after his return, Obi-Wan told Cody that he was going to begin preparing for the next move in their war against the Sith. He was not particularly happy that his father was going to be mostly based out of the Core, Coruscant to be specific, but he’d known it was coming since Obi-Wan started attending Republic social events.

The major hitch came when Obi-Wan tired to tell Cody that he wasn’t coming with him.

“No,” Cody said slow and even in the face of his father’s stern expression. “I’m coming with you.”

“No,” Obi-Wan repeated just as evenly. “You are staying in Mandalore.”

A scowl broke over the teenager’s face. “I’m an adult now, Buir. It is my right to make my own decisions like this.”

Undaunted by his son’s fierce look, Obi-Wan retorted, “And as your father and it is my right to tell you that, no, you are not coming with me into the krayt dragon’s den.”

Huffing indignantly, Cody shot back, “You can’t stop me from coming to Coruscant, Buir. If you leave without me, I’ll follow you on my own.”

Jerking his eyes up from the documents he’d been reviewing when this discussion had begun, Obi-Wan raised an unimpressed eyebrow at his son. “You follow me to Coruscant and I swear on the Manda I will drag you back to Mandalore by the ear, Kot’ika, don’t think I won’t.”

A hot surge of anger rose in his chest and Cody had to hurriedly share it with the Force before the Dark side used it for fuel and he truly lost his temper. He wasn’t quite as good at controlling the Dark as his buir yet.

“I’m a fully recognized warrior by the laws and traditions of our people. I’m very advanced in my Force training. I can take care of myself. What are you so afraid of?” he demanded.

Obi-Wan was silent for a long moment, just looking at his son, before he answered. “Coruscant is where the Sith Master is. The Senate is his playground. I will literally be walking into the Sith’s domain and I cannot afford to expose any vulnerabilities.”

“Vulnerabilities, what?” Cody frowned confused. “What do you mean by that?”

Sighing heavily, Obi-Wan’s expression gained a shadow of sadness and an edge of fear. “I will not expose you, my dear son, to the Sith Master or the Senate for that matter. I cannot have our enemies knowing that if they wanted to hurt or manipulate me they can do it through you.”

Cody wanted to protest that he wouldn’t let anyone use him against his buir like that, but realistically he knew he couldn’t make that promise. He was only eight almost nine years old, approximately the Human equivalence of seventeen. He may already be a formidable warrior among the Mando’ade, but he was nowhere near strong enough to truly protect himself from the Sith Master if it came to it. And he knew that his father would do anything to protect him. Anything.

Despite these realities though, Cody refused to willingly let his father walk into such danger without him for backup.

“Then I don’t come as your son,” he said with certainty. “I won’t be removing my helmet anyway so no one will know how young I am. I can fold into your entourage as part of your protection squad. None of the aruetiise will know that I’m anything other than one of your advisors and guards.”

Obi-Wan opened his mouth surely with another argument, but Cody rushed to add, “And I know how to shield my presence in the Force. Not even the Sith Master will know I’m anything other than a mildly more Force-sensitive Mandalorian.”

There was silence again as Obi-Wan thought his son’s suggestion over. Finally he had to admit he couldn’t think of another solid protest. And truthfully he didn’t want to leave his son behind on Mandalore even though he knew that Cody was planning on taking bounty hunts and beginning to apprentice under Jango in command of the Supercommandos. He could still do that, it wasn’t like they didn’t already have a rotation roster for his guard detail as well as his council members. Cody could still take his own hunts and go on campaign with the Supercommandos when he needed.

Sighing again, Obi-Wan finally conceded. “Alright. I’ll allow you to come with me, but-” he cut Cody off when the boy looked to start celebrating, “you have to rotate out with the other verde. I don’t want you on Corscant for that long at a time.”

Cody nose wrinkled in displeasure, but he agreed nonetheless. “Deal.”

Obi-Wan shot his son a knowing look and waved him toward the door out of his study. “Get going, you trouble child. You have a lot of packing to get done.”

A month after Cody returned successful from his verd’goten, Obi-Wan, Cody, and ten verde – five members of his Not-an-Empire Council and five Supercommandos - were boarding a Mandalorian starship to take them to Coruscant.

When they leave Manda’yaim, they do so with the Mand’alor seeing them off. He traded words of care and caution with his ad and his bu’ad, expression grim, but confident. Then he turned to his verde assembled and ready to wade into enemy territory with their Ad’Alor to protect their people and battle their adversaries.

“K’oyacyi,” the Mand’alor ordered his son, his grandson, and his warriors.

“Oya manda,” he reminded them, because alone a Mando’ad is strong, but united they can bring the galaxy to its knees.

“Oya!” Mand’alor Mereel called, his voice echoing in the large starship hangar.

“Oya!” they called back then turned and boarded their ship bound for war in enemy lands without the blood or the glory.

*

In preparation for his eventual move to Coruscant, Obi-Wan commissioned an agent to purchase a town house large enough for him and his retinue of battle hardened warriors. Said agent had done a very good job of finding accommodations with his specifications.

The town house was located in the upper levels in the same sector as 500 Republica where all the Senators lived. It was also the size of a mansion with more than enough rooms for him, Cody, and the Mando’ade with them. There was a formal dining room, a large kitchen, a couple of office-studies, and a number of sitting and living rooms. It was not as large as the palace in Keldabe obviously, but it was an impressively sized abode for a densely populated city planet.

Of course it was almost obscenely expensive, at least by Outer Rim and Mandalorian standards, but needs must. If he was going to move in the same circles as the other politicians and socialites on Coruscant he needed to live on their level.

After dropping his bags off in the master suite, Obi-Wan went around to his verde and made sure everyone was settling in and happy with their accommodations. Then he grabbed Cody and dragged him to the front door.

“It’s time I teach you how to shield a building or place with the Force.”

Intrigued and always eager to learn, Cody listened intently as his father explained.

“When Maul and I were on Moraband, we discovered that the Sith Lord tombs had shielding that kept their Dark presences contained and dormant.” Obi-Wan set a small tool kit on the side table near the front door, pulling out a marker and an etching tool. “The shielding wasn’t completely solid and you could still feel the Darkness in the Force, but while researching it we found several texts that detailed different ways to shield a place to prevent observers from sensing what was going on inside.”

Cody took the datapad his father had been carrying and looked at the open file. It was a holo-copy of a text written in ancient Sith. He wasn’t as fluent as Obi-Wan yet, but Cody could read it well enough to understand it detailed how to do exactly what his father described. Shield a place in and with the Force.

“You’re going to shield this house,” Cody said and Obi-Wan nodded.

“I can maintain my mental shields to hide my Darkness indefinitely, but I’d rather not have to do that.” In evidence of that claim, Obi-Wan eyes were at that moment a pure blue-green. It was a strange sight to Cody who had only known his father to have at least a ring of golden yellow around his pupils. “Not to mention that you are not as practiced at it. I don’t want you to exhaust yourself. If I can shield this house so we don’t have to mentally shield while inside it’ll give us both a reprieve.”

Feeling relieved, Cody smiled at his buir. “So, we’re doing that right now, right?”

“That’s the plan,” Obi-Wan shot his son a smirk and pointed to the datapad in his hand as he grabbed the marker. “Scroll down, there should be diagrams and charts of the runes we need to use.”

They spent the next couple of hours first drawing out and then carving in the runes around the front door’s synth-wood frame and then going room to room repeating the process along the base-boards on the outer walls of the town house’s footprint. At the end of it they were back at the front entrance and Obi-Wan instructed Cody on how they were going to activate the runes.

“Despite this being a Sith shielding technique, while performing the ritual it actually appears more Gray in the Force, which is fortunate for us because a great show of Dark power on Coruscant would draw the eyes of the Jedi and the Sith Master.” Obi-Wan placed his palm on the largest rune carved at shoulder height on either side of the doorway. “Put your palm on the other one.”

Cody did as instructed on the other side of the door frame and waited with anticipation.

“Now, did you practice the words to the ritual, like I told you?” Obi-Wan waited until his son nodded before continuing. “Good, now when we start chanting I want you begin channeling the Force into the rune you’re touching. Once it accepts the Force the other runes will draw the Force through them on their own, but you must not take your hand away until we are done. Understand?”

“Yes, Buir,” Cody answered, a frown of concentration on his brow as he waited for the go ahead.

Obi-Wan smiled encouragingly at him then his expression smoothed out. With the first Sith words of the chant out of his mouth, he began pulling at the Force feeling it flow through him and into rune. Across from him he could feel Cody doing the same.

My secrets are my own. I do not suffer prying eyes. Any who spy will find naught but futility. My secrets are my own.

Obi-Wan monitored the progress of the Force through the runes all around the house as he and Cody repeated the Sith shielding ritual words. After about the fifth repeat, the stream of the Force finally came full circle back to Obi-Wan and Cody at the door.

He stopped his chanting at the same moment he drew back the Force, Cody promptly followed his lead.

With the completion of the ritual, there was a heavy, thick feeling in the air that slowly dissipated. A sign of “big magics” as many of the Mando’ade liked to joke when their Ad’Alor did amazing Force things.

“Did it work?” Cody asked curiously.

Obi-Wan stretched out his senses and examined the now near impenetrable smokescreen laid over the entirety of their town house. He smirked satisfied. “It did indeed.” Then he dropped his mental shields and felt the familiar rush of the Dark side as it swept into him then ebbed to a small pool of ready power.

Feeling the change from his father and seeing that golden ring reappear in his eyes, Cody dropped his shields as well and welcomed the Dark as yellow-orange circled his pupils once again.

Blowing out a breath Cody hadn’t even realized he’d been tense until it had all relaxed with his shield. “That’s better.”

Humming in agreement, Obi-Wan threw an arm around his son and started pulling him away toward the kitchen. “Let’s go see what our furnishing team left in the kitchen. I always get hungry after practicing powerful Force rituals.”

Cody had to agree, especially since he was developmentally a teenager and adolescents of every race had hollow legs when it came to food. Not to mention the clones all had increased metabolism and needed to consume more calories than normal anyway.

Food seemed to be the magic words because their ten companions filtered into the kitchen looking for dinner. Turned out there wasn’t much of anything in the kitchen so they ended up ordering from a little diner Obi-Wan frequented when he visited Coruscant. Even better, Dex’s delivered.

*

Mandalore’s petition to the Republic for an ambassadorial seat was approved before Obi-Wan even left Manda’yaim. So when he and his squad were settled in he spent a couple days scouting out the situation around Coruscant and checking in on some of his interests on planet. This included he and Cody visiting Little Keldabe to speak with the Goran.

Obi-Wan didn’t tell her exactly what was going on, just that he would be on Coruscant for the foreseeable future to act as an ambassador. True to what he knew of her however, the Goran didn’t seem in the least bit surprised or confused. She just flicked her eyes to his armor and the statement it made, a knowing sound in the back of her throat and told him:

“Your people in Little Keldabe will support you in any endeavor, Ad’Alor. You or our Mand’alor need only call upon us.”

It amused him that having the symbol of marching to war on his shoulder would literally excuse any amount of questionable enemy fraternization to the Mando’ade. Since they all seemed to rightly assume that everything he did was in pursuit of justice for Mandalore and vengeance for the Ven’Alor.

When all his business was concluded, he prepared to go to the Senate Rotunda to accept his ambassadorial seat and sign a number of documents cementing Mandalore and the Republic’s new relationship. However tentative and thin it may be.

He debated on who in his squad he should bring with him to the Senate. He didn’t want to show up on the steps of the building with what looked like a small invasion force, but he couldn’t go alone despite the fact that having a bodyguard was superfluous. Seeing as he was absolutely able to kill everyone in the building by himself in a matter minutes.

Not a single Senator or politician in the Senate went anywhere without a small entourage of hangers-on or aides, and walking among them alone would detract from his image of importance and authority. Finally he decided on only bringing two verde along. It would be enough visible accompaniment to still appear as if he conformed to the Republic norms. To a certain extent.

Then he had another argument with Cody on whether he was coming or not. Obi-Wan didn’t want his son walking into an unknown environment like the Rotunda, but he also couldn’t deny that Cody was more than capable of taking care of himself as well as keeping up the ruse of just being another bodyguard.

In the end Obi-Wan walked up to the Senate Rotunda with his son behind his right shoulder and one of the Supercommandos behind his left, a female Twi’lek named Ruusaan.

Pausing on the sidewalk outside Obi-Wan looked up at the massive domed building and felt a creeping sense of danger in his belly. Opening himself up to the Force, he observed the currents and impressions moving around and leaking from the building.

There was a gossamer shroud of the Dark side blanketing the entirety of Coruscant effecting perception and communication with the Force itself. Obi-Wan was not so affected by this impediment as the Jedi would be since he was a Dark side user and knew how to see through the shadows. But the corrupt and twisted nature of the Dark side emanating from the Senate building disturbed even his perception.

“What’s wrong with the Force around the Rotunda, Bu-Ad’Alor?” At his side Cody’s question sounded confused and even a little afraid.

“I suspect that’s what happens when a Sith Lord makes a place his chosen playground,” Obi-Wan murmured quietly to his son. “It won’t effect you and I with our shielding, but even Force-nulls would be influenced at least a small degree by the corruption in the Force.”

“Is this what Moraband felt like?” Obi-Wan had told his son about the ancient abandoned Sith home planet, but he hadn’t decided yet if he wanted to take Cody there or not.

“No. Moraband was much more powerful, obviously. The Force presence of the planet was twisted to be sure but it was almost semi-sentient, much like the Force is growing to be on Manda’yaim.” Obi-Wan eyed the almost miasmic eddies in the Force around the building. “The Rotunda is not a nexus so the Force here is ambient, but it appears tainted, almost… ill,” he finally concluded.

He knew that the Sith of old were known for corrupting the Force, contorting and bending it to their will in a way almost like slavery. The Dark side wasn’t inherently corrupted unless the wielder actively caused it. Even the Light side could be twisted in such a despicable way if used for depraved, malicious acts. The state of the Force around the Senate was not an active result, however, it was a byproduct.

“This must be the consequence of close proximity to the wholly malignant presence of the Sith Master.” Obi-Wan felt a spark of fear from Cody and he observed in the Force as his son deliberately shared the emotion and centered himself.

He brushed his presence against Cody’s in a gesture of comfort and affection, then it was back to business.

“Come along. We shouldn’t leave the Chancellor waiting.” And he lead his son into the den of an evil Sith Master.

The Force inside the Rotunda was much like the Force outside and once Obi-Wan got used to the unpleasant sickly nature of it, he was able to ignore it. He could tell Cody was having a harder time, even if no sign of his struggle was outwardly apparent.

Obi-Wan and his escort garnered many alarmed and wary looks as they made their way through the building. He was unsurprised. They were three fully armed and armored Mandalorians after all. Security at the front door didn’t stop them when the weapons detectors went off, which was a wise thing for the Chancellor to instruct them.

Their intimidating presence wasn’t made any less so by Obi-Wan being the only one without his face and head covered. No one had been happy, including him, when he’d decided that he wouldn’t wear his mask-cowl while in the Senate. He needed to keep being approachable, familiar, nonthreatening and perpetually covering his face would not do that. So bare faced he walked through enemy territory.

The secretary stationed before the Chancellor’s office gave them a cautious look but ushered them in without pause.

As they passed two red garbed guards posted at the door, Obi-Wan took note of their weapons and postures. They were trained, well trained, but he didn’t think he or any of his verde would have much of a problem with them. He filed that away for future reference.

The Chancellor was standing with half a dozen other beings Obi-Wan assumed were part of the Ambassadorial Committee. At their entrance all eyes were on them, Obi-Wan specifically.

“Ah, Ad’Alor Kenobi,” Chancellor Palpatine had his arms opened in a welcoming gesture. “Welcome to Coruscant as well as the Senate.”

Obi-Wan gave the man a polite smiled and nodded his head. “Thank you, Chancellor. I hope I didn’t leave you waiting long.”

“Nonsense.” Palpatine waved it away with a genial expression. “We were just looking over the documentation one last time. I trust you received the holo-copy my Ambassadorial Committee sent you?”

“I did,” Obi-Wan confirmed, then said something he was sure annoyed the Chancellor and his committee to no end. “I would like to look over the version I’m to sign, however, just to make sure there hasn’t been any miscommunication or accidental document switching. Working with contracts on a regular basis we Mandalorians have a particular way of doing things. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course, of course.” Obi-Wan will give the man this, he did a good job keeping his expression open and pleasant. “You’re welcome to look the documents over once my committee has done the same.”

“It’s appreciated, Chancellor.” Obi-Wan had perfected his own pleasantly open and wholly insincere smile over the years socializing with the Republic elite. His mask was impenetrable.

“I must say, Ad’Alor, I was surprised that you didn’t take me up on my offer of sponsorship for your ambassador seat.” Palpatine’s expression was the picture of amiable curiosity and friendly inquiry.

“Being the Chancellor of the Republic must be a taxing, if rewarding job,” Obi-Wan replied, just as genially. “We didn’t want to take up your valuable time and attention if we didn’t have to.”

They didn’t want to be indebted to the man, was what he meant. And it was definitely the right call. Palpatine practically embodied the picture of a man that would smile while stabbing someone in the back. That and over his years walking in the same circles with the man and his allies in the Senate, Obi-Wan was absolutely sure his persona of a kindly old man with good intentions was a facade. A very, very good one since there was no evidence or definitive proof of him being corrupt. Looking at the laws created and the bills passed under his leadership however painted a very different picture.

“I would have been happy to do it, Ad’Alor, but I’m honored by your kind consideration, nonetheless.” The expression on Palpatine’s face hadn’t shifted at all, but Obi-Wan wondered if the man was secretly grinding his teeth.

Then the Chancellor’s gaze drifted from Obi-Wan to the verd acting as his bodyguard on his left, Ruusaan the Twi’lek. The man summarily dismissed her, before his eyes slid to Cody and lingered.

Obi-Wan saw a glint of interest sharpen the Chancellor’s gaze as the most powerful man in the Republic stared at his son and he felt an almost sluggish warning spike through the Force. The protective fury of the Dark side rose up inside him so fast and strong it almost blew out his shields. Thankfully he was able to maintain his composure, nothing but bland pleasantry on his face. Even as his vision narrowed and his fingers tingled for a weapon in his hand.

“Perhaps you can introduce me to your companions, Ad’Alor,” the Chancellor suggested seemingly kindly. “I fear I’ve been rude not having greeted them yet.”

Obi-Wan didn’t need the discontented writhing of the Force to decided, no. “Unfortunately, they are on duty as my bodyguards. Mandalorian’s keep strict codes of conduct while performing their duties and engaging in casual conversation, even with an important ally such as yourself, would interfere with said duties.”

Palpatine gave Cody and, as an after thought, Ruusaan an understanding, regretful smile. “That’s most unfortunate. Another time then, when we all are free of such restricting obligations.”

Absolutely not, Obi-Wan thought even as he smiled politely and nodded his head seemingly agreeable. “Perhaps,” he replied aloud, as he felt Ruusaan’s curiosity at his lie and Cody’s worry at the sharp ice cold turn his emotions had taken during the exchange. “I’m sure they would be honored should the opportunity arise.”

Thankfully, one of the committee members finally broke away from his colleagues announcing that everything in the documents was satisfactory. Before Palpatine could rush the proceedings along, Obi-Wan reasserted his request to look them over himself.

Obi-Wan found it very interesting that the issues he found in the documents - because of course he found issues, they were politicians for kriffs sake, he would have been more surprised if they hadn’t attempted something underhanded - were all buried deep into the twenty page document so far removed from the main articles as to almost be considered fine print.

Either way, Obi-Wan had to have them correct the line stating that Mandalore would not be granted extraterritoriality, under the excuse of not having a freestanding embassy. Which meant no diplomatic immunity for him and his retinue or a space exempt from the jurisdiction of local law-enforcement. Obi-Wan had them amend that so his town house acted both as an ambassadorial residence as well as an embassy. This had the added benefit of making the town house the sovereign territory of Mandalore therefore it and all within its wall were subject only to Mandalorian law.

Also that any attack on his town house would be considered an attack on Mandalore.

Obi-Wan took great pleasure in the uneasy, nervous trembling the committee leaked into the Force.

There were two or three more things that needed to be fixed, none quite so detrimental as the omission of extraterritoriality, but still, he had to be thorough.

Finally it was time for all parties to sign the documentation of Mandalore creating an Ambassadorial presence in the Republic.

The Chancellor took the stylus and scrawled in florid, rather pretentious script his full name and title.

Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic Sheev Palpatine

Obi-Wan was passed the stylus and the documents with a pleased smile from the man. He made his signature with elegant, if understated handwriting.

Ad’Alor Obi-Wan Kenobi be Mandalore, Ad be Mand’alor Jaster Mereel

They were long titles, but this was a very serious official document and so needs must.

Once everything was signed, sealed, delivered to the Senate archives, and uploaded to the Mandalorian servers Palpatine smiled jovially at Obi-Wan.

“Well, congratulations, Ambassador Kenobi. I look forward to working with you in the on-going effort to bridge the gap between the Republic and Mandalore.”

Somehow Obi-Wan doubted the sincerity of the statement, but he just smiled with feigned thankfulness. “I’m certainly looking forward to working here among all the honorable and steadfast members of the Senate.”

He kept his smile charming and pleasant as a trickle of humor from Cody rippled into the Force.

Palpatine grinned as he stood up and their group dispersed. Obi-Wan and his verde to exit the office and the ambassadorial committee left grumbling in the Chancellor’s conference room.

“No doubt the Senate shares your anticipation of a closer working relationship.”

They paused at the door and suddenly, Obi-Wan felt a hand on his shoulder gripping it through his armor, keeping him in place with a disconcerting lack of exertion. He turned his head meeting Palpatine’s still smiling, sharply intelligent eyes.

Obi-Wan felt oddly exposed under the gaze and it was a struggle to keep his own pleasant expression from wavering.

“We will watch your new career with great interest.”

His response and the exchanged goodbye was steady and polite, the smile on his face a bold faced lie, but Obi-Wan couldn’t give it much attention. Not when the feeling of the Chancellor’s eyes on his back didn't fade until they were outside the building walking down the steps of the Rotunda.

Jango had once made the commented of Palpatine, Draar ruusaanyc nuhunar aru’e. Never trust a laughing enemy.

The uneasy churning in his belly and the glimpse of a calculating glint in the man’s eye lent great credence to this warning. Chancellor Palpatine may be very, very good at playing the kindly, honorable politician, but he was very, very dangerous.

“Ad’Alor,” Cody called cautiously at his shoulder, having moved up next to him when Obi-Wan had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to take a few deep breaths. “Me’vaar ti gar?”

Opening his eyes he turned and met his son’s visor with a grim smile. “Naas.” Well, nothing that couldn’t wait till they were out of public at least.

Cody hesitated in his response, concerned for his father and trying to decide whether he wanted to wait until they returned to the town house to press the issue. Obi-Wan put a hand on his shoulder and his smile turned more genuine.

“Haat, ner kote’la ad’ika¹.” When Cody finally nodded in acceptance of his answer, Obi-Wan dropped his hand and started walking again. Cody didn’t immediately fall back into formation though, feeling the need to be closer to his father after having to suffer the sickliness of the Force in the Senate.

“So what’s next on the agenda for the great Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ambassador of Mandalore.”

Obi-Wan scoffed at his son’s dramatization of his brand new title. “Next on the agenda is lunch,” he announced drawing a swell of excited interest from Cody and muffled amusement from Ruusaan.

“Oh! Can we get Dex’s?” his perpetually starving teenage son asked. “A bantha t-bone steak and tubers sounds really good right now.”

Smiling, Obi-Wan agreed. “We’ll get it to-go and bring back lunch for the rest of the squad.”

Satisfied that he was going to be fed soon, Cody dropped back into formation as Obi-Wan lead the way back to their speeder to fly to Dex’s. When they were finally out of visual from the Rotunda, Cody resumed his enthusiasm and Ruusaan relaxed her stiffly vigilant demeanor.

Obi-Wan listened attentively to his son commenting on the sights and their soon to be had lunch. Though he couldn’t quite get that last interaction with Palpatine out of his head. Nor the slightly sluggish feel of the Force throughout the entirety of the Senate. He finally resolved to be very wary of the Chancellor.

They knew there was a Sith pulling strings in the Senate. It was very likely that the Sith was pulling Palpatine’s strings as well. He would have to be very careful going forward.

Honestly, though, Obi-Wan wasn’t much concerned with his ability to navigate the treacherous waters of the Galactic Senate. The Mando’ad saying, Never trust a laughing enemy, applies to him just as much as it applies to every one of the politicians in the Rotunda. In the face of those that have threatened Obi-Wan’s loved ones, his smile could be as sharp as his sword and his laugh as deceptive as a landmine.

The Banite Sith threatened and harmed his family, his people, and used the Republic to do it. Neither one may realize it yet, but he was their enemy and he was a child of three great cultures, the Jedi, the Mandalorians, and the Sith. Each of them feared and respected for the epic warriors they bred and the wars they raged in the name of their ideals and goals.

Every bit like his ancestors Obi-Wan would do everything he could to accomplish his goals of justice and vengeance. He was prepared to wage a war of politics and words, to smile and nod, to schmooze and compliment for years until the Sith finally made their move and brought the war out into the open.

And when that finally happens Obi-Wan will gladly discard his false smiles in exchange for the lethal honesty of his beskad and lightsaber. Though he walks a dark path now he knows that in the end, the blood he’ll spill will be just and vengeful. After all, the Sith brought this on themselves.

*
End.