Chapter 63

"I thought a revolution would be more…errrm… exciting." Opal said as she sat in the Speedy Vagabond's pilot's seat, watching the battle on the planet bellow on the bridge's viewscreen.

"I don't know Renn and Shae seem like they are enjoying themselves." Seela said from the co-pilot's seat, supporting her head with one hand as she leant on the console in front of her.

Seela watched Shae throw a thermal detonator into a crowd of pirates, via the camera feed from Alpha's optical sensors courtesy of Sapphire. Despite the helmet obscuring Shae's face Seela could practically see the grin on her friend's face.

"Besides you were the one most exited about this 'revolution' before," Seela said looking across at Opal.

"That's 'cause I thought it would be way more epic firebally." Opal muttered.

"Firebally isn't a word" Seela helpfully told her.

"Shut up, it's cool so I'm making it a word." Opal said indignantly.

"That isn't how words work," Sapphire cut into the conversation as she appeared in a blue flash next to Seela.

"I don't care, I'll choose what words I consider words and if the constrains of galactic standard disagree with me, I'll just create my own language. And who's gonna stop me?" Opal said a smug grin on her face.

"I think you might be one of the weirdest people in the galaxy" Seela said looking at Opal with a smile.

"Thank you," Opal said happily. "Now what was I saying… Oh, yeah revolution!

I was expecting to be dodging blaster bolts, starting fires, planting explosives, inspiring the huddled masses, causing general chaos!

But instead, I'm just sat here watching the others massacring some pathetic excuses for pirates."

"Well, you're the one who wanted to be a doctor, so you get to sit here and watch the others fight" Seela said while grinning at Opal.

"Humph," Opal let out an snort before looking away as though deep in thought. "Well maybe I need to do something about that then." She mumbled.

The video feeds changed, and the girls watched as Renn split off from Alpha and Shae to chase after Anakin.

Moments later they saw Krayn run out of his headquarters towards a landing pad with a ship waiting on it, Anakin sprinting after him.

"Hey look that guys getting away," Seela said as she pointed towards Krayn.

"Oooh yeah, this is my moment," Opal's face lit up as she started running her fingers over the console in front of her.

"Sapphire! Fire missiles, destroy that ship. Your captain commands you!" Opal rose to her fight and raised her hand to point at the waiting pirate ship, posing like some ancient war hero.

"You're not the captain. And I was going to do that anyway." Sapphire muttered, "Firing concussion missiles."

"Yes, because your captain commanded it!" Opal said, still holding her pose.

"Whatever. Impact in ten… nine… eight… wait is that Renn?" Sapphire began counted down but stopped as she noticed Renn exit the pirate headquarters after Anakin and Krayn.

They were about to contact Renn to warn him of the small swarm of ship killer missiles heading in the same general direction he was travelling. When they noticed a large trandoshan pirate drop down from an overlooking walkway near Renn and begin charging towards him.

The trandoshan was fast and before Sapphire, Opal or Seela could warn Renn the pirate had already reached him.

""RENN!"" Both Opal and Seela screamed as they watched the trandoshan smash into Renn before they gazed helplessly at the monitor as Renn and the trandoshan both fell from over the railing of the walkway they were on, seconds before the pirate ship exploded into a giant pillar of fire.

-

Pain exploded across Renn's back as he struck the ground. His vision blurred as the world seemed to become unfocused.

Luckily, he hadn't fallen far. He could see the walkway he had fallen from above him.

He could make out what appeared to be a huge fire above on the landing pad above him and despite his confused brain he connected that to the ship he had seen on the pad earlier.

Someone, probably Opal and Sapphire, had blown the ship up to stop Krayn from escaping.

It was probably a good idea Renn mused as he watched a pillar of smoke raise into the sky. He lay there watching the smoke for a moment, admiring the way it swirled and shifted in the breeze when a shadow suddenly loomed over him, and he remembered he wasn't the only one who fell from the walkway above.

A pair of clawed, scaled hands reached towards Renn's helmet as the trandoshan pirate loomed over him.

The pirate grabbed Renn, raised him up and slammed him down into the ground. Trying to smash him into a bloody paste.

Renn gasped in pain as he felt the air rush out of him from the impact. His whole body hurt, and he could feel himself being lifted again.

He threw a punch into the side of the pirate's head. The pirate let out a reptilian hiss of pain but that didn't stop it from slamming Renn into the ground once more.

Renn kneed the trandoshan in the chest and tried to use his legs to create some space between himself and the massive pirate on top of him.

The trandoshan let out another hiss of pain before opening its jaws, displaying rows of large, jagged teeth, and attempting to rip out Renn's throat with a savage bite.

It would have succeeded, as Renn's armour was weakest around his neck as that area needed the maximum amount of mobility. But Renn managed to raise a forearm to hold the snapping jaws at bay.

Curling his body, one arm keeping the trandoshian's biting mouth away, his legs trying to create space between the crush of bodies. Renn unsheathed his vibro-knife and stabbed it deep into the pirate's side.

Renn withdrew the knife and stabbed again, then repeated. Twice, three times, four, five…eight…twelve… over and over and over.

Blood poured from the numerous wounds across the Trandoshan's torso, but the savage pirate refused to die and raised one clawed hand. Intending to swing it down into Renn's head in a vicious strike.

But Renn saw it coming. He raised his Vibro-knife, and when the pirate brought its arm back to begin the swing, he stabbed his vibro-knife into its armpit.

The trandoshan let out a howl of pain as Renn twisted his knife, severing tendons and blood vessels as the razor-sharp blade ripped through muscle.

The pirate's arm then fell, limp and useless, as Renn withdrew his knife. Its strength was rapidly being drained, as its blood was similarly drained from its body.

It was only still conscious through pure hatred as it glared at Renn and it brought its head back once more, intending to put the last of its strength into one last bite. Hoping to bring Renn with it when it died.

Renn saw the Trandoshan raise its head and open its mouth, its teeth flecked with its own blood, and brought his own head up in a brutal headbutt.

Renn's helmet struck the trandoshan on its bared fangs and a loud crack was heard followed by a yelp of pain and an explosion of blood and fragmented teeth.

Renn followed through with the momentum of his headbutt and used it to flip himself and the wounded trandoshan over. Now Renn was on top of the pirate instead of it being the other way around.

He looked down at the wounded pirate and saw that it was finished. Blood pooled beneath it and its breaths came in shallow gurgles, as it began slowly drowning in the blood coming from its ruined jaws.

Renn decided not to give the pirate the chance to get in one last attack and buried the tip of his vibro-blade in the lizard-man's throat. The blade cut up through the pirate's neck and into its skull, before Renn twisted it, severing its brain stem and its spine in one vicious motion.

Renn withdrew the knife and the trandoshan let out on more gurled breath, blood now frothing from its mouth, before it went silent.

After staring at the corpse for a moment and catching his breath, Renn slowly rose to his feet. He wiped the residual blood of his vibro-knife on a clean-ish patch on the pirate's clothes before sheathing it.

He stood and looked around. His whole body ached, and he could almost feel the bruises forming on his flesh under his armour.

All Renn wanted to do was to relax and go to sleep. But he could still hear the sounds of fighting in the distance.

Shae, Alpha, Spark, Crow, Scythe and Earl were all still fighting in Krayn's fortress. And Anakin was doing something… probably fighting Krayn on his own.

So, Renn sighed. Banished the thoughts of sleep from his mind and looked around. First for the blaster that he lost in the fall, next for the quickest way back up to the landing pad.

Before trudging off. Leaving a dead trandoshan behind him.

-

Obi-wan sprinted down corridors of Krayn's headquarters, killing any pirate he encountered with a swing of his lightsabre.

He had given up any pretence of sneaking around as soon as the explosions had started, and now he was heading straight for where the force was telling him a pitched battle was being fought.

He was guessing that his wayward apprentice would be at the centre of the fiercest fighting. So, the easiest way to find him would be to head there too.

Obi-wan heard blaster fire from behind a set of doors and cautiously approached them, his lightsabre at the ready.

The sounds of blasters stopped suddenly just as Obi-wan charged through the door.

He found himself in a corridor that had been utterly destroyed. The bodies of pirates littered the ground, and the walls were covered in blood and blaster scorch marks.

Obi-wan barley had any time to take in the carnage before he sensed the force warning him of incoming danger.

He moved his head to the side just in time to avoid a blaster bolt, that instead impacted the corridor wall just behind him.

The blaster bolt was then followed by a small figure in Mandalorian armour rapidly charging towards him. The figure was assisted by a quick bust of her jetpack so that she reached him in seconds, not giving him any time to react.

Pain exploded across the right side of his face as his cheek was struck by an armoured boot.

The burst of speed from the Mandalorian's jetpack had propelled her into the air. which she had used to her advantage to send a vicious kick into his head.

The power behind the kick sent Obi-wan to the ground, his pirate armour disguise clattering noisily as he hit the ground.

Obi-wan barely had a moment to process what had just happened when he felt a knee press down on his solar plexus and found himself staring up into the muzzle of a blaster pistol.

He looked bast the blaster at the helmeted Mandalorian. Their T-shaped visor left no clues as to their identity but judging by their size they seemed to be a child, maybe fourteen?

He remembered when he first saw warriors wearing that kind of helmet.

He had been a padawan, and both him and his master had been sent to Mandalore to protect the leader of the New Mandalorians during the Mandalorian civil war.

The new Mandalorians were a peaceful faction that wanted to leave their warrior culture behind and so despite claiming that they didn't involve themselves in the local politics, or wars, of planets, the jedi decided to back the New Mandalorians during the conflict.

Obi-wan had seen brutal fighting during the civil war. Mainly between the blood firstly Death Watch, who wanted Mandalorians to return to the ways of the Neo-crusaders and plunder the galaxy, and the more honourable True mandalorians, who followed an updated version of the super-commando codex.

The war had ended with the New mandalorians coming out on top. Mainly as the true mandalorians had been wiped out by count dooku and a jedi task force on Galidraan, after Death Watch had tricked the jedi into attacking their enemies, and then Death Watch had been nearly destroyed when the sole survivor of the True Mandalorians, Jango Fett, had gone on a one-man rampage across the galaxy.

Fett had killed enough of Death Watch's members that it had been relatively easy for the new mandalorians to force its remaining members, those who hadn't gone into hiding, into exile on concordia.

The New Mandalorians had then taken control of Mandalore and its leader, Duchess Satine of house Kryze, became the ruler of Mandalore, ushering in a new age of peace and neutrality for the planet.

Those memories flashed through Obi-wan's mind as he stared what he assumed was his death in the face.

Memories of fearsome warriors, epic battles, but mainly memories of a certain faction leader. A faction leader that he had been pretending since he met, he had been pretending he didn't feel a very un-Jedi-like sense of attachment to.

He thought of her as he saw the Mandalorian pointing the blaster at his head move their finger towards their blaster's trigger.

"NOOO! STOP!" a shout rang through the corridor and almost in the same instant the Mandalorian on-top of him was sent flying as a force push hit them in the side.

Obi-wan's head snapped to the side and was shocked to see a jedi he had known since his time as a youngling in the jedi temple charging towards him a familiar looking HK-51 assassin droid running next to her.

He looked at the jedi's, Siri Tachi's, outstretched arm and realised she was the one to deliver the force push that saved his life.

This realisation came moments before the assassin droid pivoted, grabbed Siri by the throat with one of its fearsome looking metal hands and slammed her hard into the wall of the corridor.