A/N: Turns out I really have a very bad sense of timing and planning. I talked about starting the marathon but forgot that I have to do an 40 hours train travel to go back home first....
Below is the chapter, or atleast part of the full Thing is that before catching the train I had been rewriting the next chapter as I noticed some mistakes in it but couldn't complete the job. Thing is that the full chapter is onlh on my Patreon and my phone, which I am using to write rn doesn't have Patreon account.
So I made chapter of the part that I had already edited. Expect the next part tomorrow when I turn the laptop on (it's risky to use laptop in train so.I am trying to use it when people are asleep).
-:-
The last Tusken patrolman didn't even have time to lower his gaderffii. One second he was scanning the dunes like a discount stormtrooper who'd actually passed his marksmanship test, the next his head was tilting at an impossible angle with a wet crack before he crumpled to the sand. Obi-Wan's hand was already falling back to his side, his expression hidden behind the half-mask breather, but his eyes held that "I've killed people before and I'm not particularly impressed by it" look.
"That's the outer ring cleared," I muttered, checking the feed on my HUD. Arachnae's icons showed all six vials primed and in position. "No alarms raised. They're still roasting their mystery meat and having a grand old time."
"Your definition of 'grand' is deeply concerning," Obi-Wan said, his voice slightly muffled by the filter. He didn't even sound winded. Show-off. Probably using the Force to breathe efficiently or some other Jedi bullshit.
We moved forward, two shadows against the deeper dark of the dunes. My armor didn't creak, thanks to some very expensive lubricants and a prayer to whatever gods might be listening on this sandball of a planet. Obi-Wan's robes might as well have been smoke for all the sound they made. Freaky Jedi stuff. I bet he could sneak up on a Massiff and give it a wedgie without it noticing.
Another Massiff, this one tied to a stake near a low tent, lifted its head and sniffed. Its chain rattled. Great. Guard dog number one.
Obi-Wan didn't break stride. A flick of his wrist, so casual it looked like he was shooing a fly. An invisible Force shoved the beast's head sideways into the rocky stake post with a sickening thud. It went still.
"Damn," I breathed, stepping over the body. "You couldn't have just Force-suggested it to take a nap? Or made it think it saw a squirrel?"
"The Force is not a bedtime story, Ezra. And time is a factor." He gestured ahead with his chin. Two more Tuskens were coming around a bend in the canyon path, chatting in their gravelly tongue. Probably arguing about who got the bigger piece of roasted whatever-the-hell-they-were-eating.
Synergy. That's what this was supposed to be. I went low, vibro-blades snapping from my forearms with a shink-shink. He went high. Like some kind of deadly Jedi-Padawan dance routine.
I shot forward, Force-resonance making the world blur. My left blade took the first raider in the thigh, severing the femoral artery before he could grunt. A hot, coppery spray hit my visor. As he fell, Obi-Wan was already past me. His blue blade ignited just long enough to pierce the second Tusken's chest, then extinguished before the body hit the ground. It was clean, quiet, and brutally efficient. Like watching a surgeon operate, but with more fatal outcomes.
We paused in the lee of the canyon wall, the distant sounds of the settlement a low rumble. The metallic taste of blood was in my mouth. I hadn't even bitten my tongue. Huh. Maybe I was developing a taste for this. Nah, probably just splatter-back.
"You know," I said, wiping my visor with the back of my gauntlet, "watching you do that just makes me want one more."
"One more kill is not a goal to aspire to, Padawan."
"Not a kill, Master Grumpy. A lightsaber." I nodded to his belt. "That's the good stuff. My vibro-blades are cool and all, very 'scrappy underdog,' but they lack... pizazz. Also, they need sharpening. And charging. And they don't cut through blast doors. Very inconvenient when you're in a hurry."
Obi-Wan let out a long-suffering sigh, the one he reserved for my most 'trying' moments. "A lightsaber is not a tool for 'pizazz.' It is a Jedi's life. A ceremony. The crystal calls to its wielder."
"Yeah, yeah, the Force ghost of a kyber dragon sings you a song or whatever," I said, peeking around the corner. Clear. "But come on. You've been around. You've gotta have a spare lying around. In a box somewhere. 'Obi-Wan's Old Lightsabers, Do Not Open.' Maybe one with a fun color. Yellow? I could rock yellow. It would match my eyes."
"I do not have a 'box of spares,'" he said, his tone drier than the air. "And the color is irrelevant. Constructing your own lightsaber is a rite of passage. It forges a bond between you and the crystal. Using another's... it would always be a stranger's weapon."
"Stranger's weapon, shmanger's weapon. It still cuts." I gestured vaguely. "Anakin had, like, three."
"Anakin was a special case," Obi-Wan said, and the weariness was back, layered over the grim focus. "Prone to... losing them. The point stands. When you are ready, you will find your crystal. Not before."
"Ugh. Fine." I switched tracks. My HUD was blinking. "Arachnae's in position. Outer vials are aerosolizing now. The fog'll be thin at the edges, but it'll drop the lookouts. We've got maybe ninety seconds before the central camp notices their perimeter's gone quiet. That's about as long as it takes me to find a good holodrama to watch."
"Then we should not keep them waiting."
We broke into a jog, eating up the distance. The canyon opened up ahead, firelight painting the rocks orange. I could see the shapes of tents now, the movement of figures. Looked like a particularly grim music festival where the main act was suffering.
A Tusken stumbled out from behind a supply sled, rubbing his goggles. He saw us. He fumbled for his cycler rifle. Rookie mistake.
I didn't break stride. My right arm came up, the miniaturized repulsor in my gauntlet whining. A focused blast of kinetic energy hit him square in the chest, not to kill, but to stun. It threw him back against the sled, the air knocked out of him. Before he could slide down, Obi-Wan's lightsaber hilt spun through the air in a neat arc, smacking the Tusken's temple with a nasty crack. He slumped.
"Hey, that's my move!" I hissed, recalling the hilt to him with a flick of his wrist.
"Improvisation is a Jedi virtue," he said, and I swear I heard a smirk in his voice. Bastard. Probably learned that from Qui-Gon, who sounded like the kind of guy who'd steal your lunch money and make you thank him for it.
Meanwhile as we worked our way deeper into the settlement, the toxin was starting to work.
Tuskens were slumping over. One dropped his cup, the liquid darkening the sand. Another just sat down hard, his gaderffii clattering from limp fingers. They weren't dead, yet. The paralytic drifted on the still night air, spreading farther every second. Like a gentle, deadly fart of justice.
"Clock's ticking," I muttered. "The ones near the big fires have more air circulation. They'll be the last to go down. Probably too busy roasting whatever poor creature they caught today to notice their buddies are taking unscheduled naps."
---
We finally reached the edge of the main clearing, perched on a rock overlooking the area like we'd scored front-row seats to the galaxy's worst music festival.
"Karabast," I breathed, the word slipping out as I got the real look at the scene and felt the torrent of dark emotions flooding the Force. It was like sticking my head in a microwave set to "pure evil."
The central clearing was worse than Arachnae's feed had shown. The stench of blood and fear hit me even through my helmet's filters. Tuskens were systematically torturing their captives, not just killing them but breaking them slowly. One was using a heated gaderffii to brand symbols on a Twi'lek's back while others laughed.
That tusken was the same I had seen in the video feed but the Twilek was different. This one looked ...more alive and her lekku wasn't brutalized as with the one before.
Another was forcing make prisoners to fight each other with blunt weapons for scraps of food while raping an human female.
Scenes like that were common through the clearing, and seemed so normal that for a moment it felt like a dream..but an dream it was not...
Animals, fucking animals these raiders are.
It was like a twisted version of those reality competition shows, but with more dismemberment and fewer commercial breaks.
The urge to go hitler on these fuckers was something I barely controlled lest I fuck up the plan.
Obi-Wan stood beside me, his face a hard mask behind the breather. His gaze swept across the horror, then suddenly snapped toward a cluster of larger tents on the far side of the clearing.
"I feel... a presence of the dark side," he said, his voice low and dangerous. Like he'd just tasted something particularly unpleasant. Which, given the circumstances, wasn't surprising.
"Think you can handle him?" I asked, checking Arachnae's status on my HUD.
The little drone was still doing great, by the way. Best investment I'd made since that lifetime subscription of spicy snacks that definitely did not ruin my digestive system for a week.
By now the paralytic vials Arachnae planted were primed. Once they popped, the weak would drop fast, and the strong would feel like their joints were filled with wet cement.
Phase two of the plan was basically lining up the pins.
Obi-Wan didn't comment on my earlier quip. Still staring at those main tents like he and Hett were having a silent Force-measuring contest. Probably were. Jedi were weird about ego, just in a "pretend we don't have one" way.
"Arachnae's planted the toxin vials around the central pit," I reported, eyes flicking over the HUD readouts. "Too many bodies to send her deeper without someone tripping on her. We go smoke first."
Obi-Wan gave a short nod. Okay. Moving on from his dramatic tent-staring moment.
I unclipped two cylindrical canisters from my belt. Pressed their triggers. Lights blinked red. Good to go.
"Smoke first," I muttered, mostly to myself. "Mask the visuals, stir the air… start the festival."
I lobbed one canister right, one left.
Obi-Wan, because he couldn't resist being Extra, guided them down with the Force so gently they might as well have been fragile eggs instead of glorified crowd-control grenades.
The canisters touched down.
A muffled whump.
Then thick gray smoke erupted outward, rolling across the clearing like a blanket unfolding itself.
A few Tuskens turned toward the sound, confused. One shouted something guttural that probably translated to "who the hell did that."
Too late.
I tapped a command on my vambrace.
Beep.
Then six tiny icons flashed green.
Arachnae detonated all planted toxin vials at once.
No giant fog cloud or cartoonish green gas. Just a series of sharp bursts under tents, behind crates, inside clusters of bodies—pockets of fine aerosol spreading shock-fast through the smoke that was already churning the air like a mixer.
Perfect cover. Perfect distribution.
Tuskens coughed.
Then staggered.
Some tried to rally or shout warnings, but the smoke around them kept thickening, smearing their vision and pushing the toxin deeper into their lungs.
Weapons dropped. Limbs shook. Movements slowed.
"Remember," Obi-Wan said, voice low and steady behind the breather, "do not engage Hett. Not even briefly. You are not prepared for him."
"Relax," I whispered. "I'm not looking to duel your desert warlord. I just want the undercard fights."
He gave me a look that said he didn't buy that for a second.
"And i dare be a little presumptuous, but It's not that bad, Master," I replied with a confidence I totally felt. "I've been sparring with you for months, after all. If I can survive your 'training sessions' without crying, I can handle a rogue Jedi who's probably gone a bit soft living out here in the desert."
I mean, come on. Hett wasn't the Sith Lord he'd become in Legends - just a rogue Jedi who'd spent too much time getting sand in places sand shouldn't be. How tough could he be?
"Let's move," Obi-Wan commanded, and we both jumped down into the chaos. Time to join the party. I hoped they had snacks.
---
The fog swallowed us mid-air, thick enough to feel along the seams of my armor. I landed in a crouch, sand shifting under my boots. My visor flickered once, recalibrating, and then Hyper-Perception kicked open like someone flipped a breaker.
Not sight.
More like instinct on steroids.
Pressure shifts. Footfall echoes through sand. Air currents bending around bodies. Every stagger, every twitch mapped in my head.
A Tusken lurched out of the haze ahead of me. He tried raising his weapon, slow as molasses.
I slid under the swing, blade coming up. He folded over before he even realized he'd missed.
Something moved at my left. My HUD flagged it yellow and sluggish.
A quick, automatic backhand and the problem stopped existing.
I kept going, threading through the fog the way you'd move through a childhood home at night. Every motion fell into place without thinking. The paralytic drug was babysitting half the camp, and my Hyper-Perception was spoon-feeding me everyone else's intentions.
A blaster bolt sliced past the space my head used to be. My body dipped before I consciously reacted. I pivoted, flicked my wrist, and sent a blade spinning into the shooter's chest. He dropped like a sack.
Behind me, flashes of blue flickered in the haze. Obi-Wan's strikes were neat and quiet. Mine were… less neat. But who cared. Dead was dead.
A Tusken crawled past me, clutching at the sand. I hesitated a half-second.
Then I saw the flayed corpse strapped to a stake a few meters away.
Hesitation gone.
Another down.
This was working.
Smooth. Efficient. Almost comfortable.
Four more shapes approached, trying to regroup. One lifted a blaster that wobbled in his grip. I leaned back, the bolt scraping past my visor. I stepped in before he could blink and took him out. The rest followed quickly.
The blue glow behind me dimmed. I'd drifted farther from Obi-Wan than planned.
Should I go back?
Probably.
Did it feel urgent?
Not really. These Tuskens couldn't land a hit on a dying bantha.
My pulse stayed steady. Muscles loose. Movements clean.
This was easier than some sparring drills.
Obi-Wan punished every tiny mistake. These guys practically announced theirs with a parade float.
I parried another clumsy strike, cut the raider down, and—
I felt death.
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