Chereads / Star Wars : Arise In The Future / Chapter 58 - Star Wars : Chapter 58: Utapau and Mandalore I

Chapter 58 - Star Wars : Chapter 58: Utapau and Mandalore I

The four bodyguard droids spread out in a shallow arc between Obi-Wan and Grievous, raising their electrostaffs. Obi-Wan stopped a respectful distance away; he still carried bruises from one of those electrostaffs, and he felt no particular urge to add to his collection.

"General Kenobi!", Grievous greeted in a rather amused tone, laughing menacingly as he and his droids began to close in to the Jedi General. "You are a bold one!"

"Quite an entrance, Master Kenobi", Yoda complimented with an amused expression shared by some members of the Council.

"Probably has spent too much time with Skywalker, that's for sure", Master Fisto jokingly said.

"I assure you, I have my own ways to be unpredictable", Obi-Wan jokingly said.

"General Grievous," he said, "you're under arrest.".

The bio-droid general stalked toward him, passing through his screen of bodyguards without the slightest hint of reluctance. "Kenobi. Don't tell me, let me guess: this is the part where you give me the chance to surrender."

"It can be," Obi-Wan allowed equably. "Or, if you like, it can be the part where I dismantle your exoskeleton and ship you back to Coruscant in a cargo hopper."

"A bold one indeed, Master Kenobi" Luminara admitted.

"We can trust that Commander Cody and his men are waiting for his signal to attack at the right time", Mace stated as he observed the Stewjon Master's current predicament. "He would simply need time to stall Grievous"

"I'll take option three." Grievous lifted his hand, and the bodyguards moved to box Obi-Wan between them. "That's the one where I watch you die."

"Of course he has...", Mundi muttered, a little ominous from the memory at Hypori.

Another gesture, and the droids in the ceiling hive came to uncoiled from their sockets heads-downward, with a rising chorus of whirring and buzzing and clicking that thickened until Obi-Wan might as well have stumbled into a colony of Corellian raptor-wasps.

They began to drop free of the ceiling, first only a few, then many, like the opening drops of a summer cloudburst; finally they fell in a downpour that shook the stone-mounted durasteel of the deck and left Obi-Wan's ears ringing.

Hundreds of them landed and rolled to standing; as many more stayed attached to the overhead hive, hanging upside down by their magnapeds, weapons trained so that Obi-Wan now stood at the focus of a dome of blasters. Through it all, Obi-Wan never moved.

"Last thing we need here is Grievous retreating like a coward, like he always does...", Windy snarked.

However, Grievous had a varied war record from time to time to those who fought against him. Mundi and Shaak Ti remembered him as the one who slaughtered four out of seven Jedi back at Hypori and were needed to be rescued by Commander Fordo and his ARC Troopers.

While others such as Obi-Wan and Kit Fisto remembered him running away from battles whenever the General saw that he was failing. To which understandably caused confusion among the Jedi Council.

"I'm sorry, was I not clear?" he said. "There is no option three.'

"Grievous shook his head. "Do you never tire of this pathetic banter?"

"I find it unlikely with Master Kenobi...", Plo Koon stated, but inwardly admitted its effectiveness due to its use of psychological warfare from time to time.

"He was not called the Negotiator for nothing", Mundi added.

"I rarely tire at all," Obi-Wan said mildly, "and I have no better way to pass the time while I wait for you to either decide to surrender, or choose to die."

"That choice was made long before I ever met you.''

Grievous turned away. "Kill him."

"Of course, he would rather have his Magnaguards do his work", Obi-Wan mused.

Instantly the box of bodyguards around Obi-Wan filled with crackling electrostaffs whipping faster than the human eye could see—which was less troublesome than it might have been, for that box was already empty of Jedi.

The Force had let him collapse as though he'd suddenly fainted,then it brought his lightsaber from his belt to his hand and ignited it while he turned his fall into a roll; that roll carried his lightsaber through a crisp arc that severed the leg of one of the bodyguards,and as the Force brought Obi-Wan back to his feet, the Force also nudged the crippled bodyguard to topple sideways into the path of the blade and sent it clanging to the floor in two smoking, sparking pieces.

"That's one", Kit Fisto said. "And a few more to go"

The remaining three pressed the attack, but more cautiously; their weapons were longer than his, and they struck from beyond the reach of his blade.

He gave way before them, his defensive velocities barely keeping their crackling discharge blades at MagnaGuards, each with a double-ended weapon that generated an energy field impervious to lightsabers, each with reflexes that operated near lightspeed.

Each with hypersophisticated heuristic combat algorithms that enabled it to learn from experience and adapt its tactics instantly to any situation, were certainly beyond Obi-Wan's ability to defeat, but it was not him who would defeat them; Obi-Wan wasn't even fighting. He was only a vessel, emptied of self.

In the Force, he felt their destruction: it was somewhere above and behind him, and only seconds away. He went to meet it with a backflipping leap that the Force used to lift him neatly to an empty droid socket in the ceiling hive.

The MagnaGuards sprang after him but he was gone by the time they arrived, leaping higher into the maze of girders and cables and room-sized cargo containers that was the control center's superstructure.

Here, said the Force within him, and Obi-Wan stopped, balancing on a girder, frowning back at the oncoming killer droids that leapt from beam to beam below him like malevolent dura-steel primates.

Though he could feel its close approach, he had no idea from where their destruction might come... until the Force showed him a support beam within reach of his blade and whispered, Now.

His blade flicked out and the durasteel beam parted, fresh-cut edges glowing white hot, and a great hulk of ship-sized cargo container that the beam had been supporting tore free of its other supports with shrieks of anguished metal and crashed down upon all three MagnaGuards with the finality of a meteor strike.

Two, three, and four.

"Most impressive, Master Kenobi", Yoda praised the Jedi Master for his performance.

Oh, thought Obi-Wan with detached approval. That worked out rather well.

Only ten thousand to go. Give or take. An instant later the Force had him hurtling through a storm of blasterfire as every combat droid in the control center opened up on him at once.

Letting go of intention, letting go of desire, letting go of life, Obi-Wan fixed his entire attention on a thread of the Force that pulled him toward Grievous: not where Grievous was, but where Grievous would be when Obi-Wan got there...

"Anytime now, Cody...", Obi-Wan uttered to himself, knowing he wouldn't last long with that the total amount of blaster fire delivered to him.

"As Master Windu said earlier, he would have his droids do the work for him...", Saesee mused.

Leaping girder to girder, slashing cables on which to swing through swarms of ricocheting particle beams, blade flickering so fast it became a deflector shield that splattered blaster bolts in all directions, his presence alone became a weapon: as he spun and whirled through the control center's superstructure, the blasts of particle cannons from power droids destroyed equipment and shattered girders and unleashed a torrent of red-hot debris that crashed to the deck, crushing droids on all sides.

By the time he flipped down through the air to land catfooted on the deck once more, nearly half the droids between him and Grievous had been destroyed by their own not-so-friendly fire.

He cut his way into the mob of remaining troops as smoothly as if it were no more than a canebrake near some sunlit beach; his steady pace left behind a trail of smoking slices of droid.

"Keep firing!" Grievous roared to the spider droids that flanked him. "Blast him!"

"Is that fear I sense in you, Grievous?", Kit Fisto wondered.

"It is quite noticeable that Grievous knew that his situation was not to his advantage...", Depa observed.

"The Clones will come in to help, right?", Caleb asked, worried.

...

Hey guys I would really appreciate it if you could throw some power stones to help elevate the ranking.

...

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