DISCLAIMER: Star Wars and all publicly recognisable characters, names and references, etc are the sole property of George Lucas, Lucasfilm Ltd, Lucasarts Inc and 20th Century Fox. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.
Note: Thoughts are in * and Italics.
*.....Sidious grinned sadistically, closing his grip on the Jedi's windpipe.
"Did you think you had found her through your own talents?" Sidious asked, laughing. "No, boy. It was I who sent you this location. You are here now, dying, because I chose it to be."
The was a sudden hum, and the Sidious' body jerked, his eyes wide with surprise. His hold on Obi-Wan was broken and he dropped him. Obi-wan fell down, clutching his throat. He looked up to see the edge of a lightsaber peeking through the stomach of Darth Sidious.
"Thanks for giving him directions," Callisto said, standing behind Sidious, holding Obi-Wan's weapon in her hand.
Sidious only let out a guttural moan and slid forward off the blade and onto the ground, motionless....
...Maul was sent flying backwards towards the falling rubble. Qui-Gon released him and angled himself to roll away from the cascading destruction. He rolled over a number of times before stopping. the Sith, however, kept going, until he was in the heart of his own handiwork. A large portion of what used to be a balcony came falling from the sky. Maul looked up, seeing the danger, and began to run. He was too late, and it fell in front of him, blocking his escape. Before he could find another route, more debris fell. Qui-Gon could see nothing of him, but he did hear a terror filled scream...*
Obi-Wan Kenobi woke suddenly, startled by the dream. This had been the third night in a row that he had been awoken by the flashbacks of that battle, of the things he had seen and others that had happened elsewhere. The first few times he had thought it just to be idle thoughts returning, but now he was beginning to wonder.
Slowly, he sat up in bed, stretching his arms above his head, and as he lowered his arms, he wiped the beads of sweat away that had risen. He uttered a quiet, moaning sigh, then felt back onto the mattress. He looked over to the side to the time piece. There was still four more hours until he had to officially wake up.
He sighed, frustrated. Whenever he would wake in the night like this, he could never fall back asleep again.
Obi-Wan pulled himself off of the bed and got up. He walked lazily over to the door where his rob hung. Perhaps a small walk would help him and if he was to do that, he couldn't very well go out half dressed. Not that anyone else in the area would be awake at this hour, unless insomnia had become contagious.
He stepped out into the brisk night air. That only woke him up more, he realized, and silently cursed. However, he kept moving out into the open hall.
Corsucant never slept. Past him, ships whizzed by in a steady, endless parade. Time didn't matter on a city that never really had night. It was morning, afternoon and evening elsewhere and that was where those ships were going. Off to secure some vital business deal or to begin some new government amendment. It never ended.
He had been glad that he never really had spent much time on the industrial planet, even though he tended to think of it as home. In his apprenticeship with Qui-Gon, the Jedi Master had taken him with on many a diplomatic mission, whether it be to settle a trade dispute or to help out some locals on a jungle planet. He had been very fortunate to have such an upbringing. He suspected Anakin would have many of those things, and had already as a matter of fact.
If he had been there, Obi-Wan would have gone to see Qui-Gon, but he was off on Naboo with Anakin on a mission of no particular importance. Some parts of the planet were still being rebuilt in the aftermath of the Trade Federation invasion. Relations with the Gungans in the waters of Naboo were also beginning strengthened and Obi-Wan suspected that is why Qui-Gon choose to go. His connection to the living Force was his strongest asset, giving him a compassion that Obi-Wan saw in very few others. the fact that Shmi Skywalker now lived on Naboo probably played a large part in his going as well. As for Anakin, well, there was Amidala.
In the past five years, he had noticed that the pair of young people had grown closer. At first it had just been a warm sort of friendship, but he had noted the looks Anakin had sent after her when he thought she wasn't looking. The key word there being "thought". As she would walk away, she would smile an acknowledgment. It was rather cute, Obi-Wan thought. He remembered being that age. As far as first crushes went, Anakin had made a fine choice. After all, how many times did one meet a queen who seemed to feel the same way. Obi-Wan hoped the best for the two teenagers. He had strong faith in both. Amidala was a very wise young woman and Anakin was proving himself to be a fine Jedi. Neither would make any rash decisions and both would probably continue to drift close as the years went on.
Obi-Wan continued walking out farther until he reached the terrace, still absorbed in his own musings. It was technically morning, he noted as he looked up at the sky, but the stars still dotted the sky. He knew that on one of them, Qui-Gon was with his friends.
And on another, or somewhere in between, was Callisto.
He honestly wished he was with one of them right now. He wished he could talk to Qui-Gon right then and there about the dreams. He supposed he could send a transmission, even though he was expecting one from Qui-gon in another seven hours, but he loathed doing that. He preferred face to face contact. In Callisto's case, he would make the exception. He would give anything to hear the sound of the voice or to see her smile, but at that moment, he wasn't quite sure where she was. Three nights ago, she had left in the middle of the night without telling him anything, other than leaving a message behind saying that she had something important to attend to. This had not been the first time she had done that so it should not have disturbed him the way it had. But it had been after he had awoken for the first of that same awful series of dreams that he had turned not to see her there.
Perhaps that was why the dream followed him every night: simple worry for his beloved. Somehow, though, his instincts told him otherwise.
Callisto was woken up by the voice of the auto-pilot alerting her to some space debris. She had forgotten to set the preferences to avoid objects and then go back on course automatically. She had been very sleepy at the time and it had slipped her mind. she should have just set it to alert her for messages and incoming ships.
She shook her head, annoyed at herself for making such an idiotic mistake. five years ago, she would not have made such an error, but she had found her head rooted in places she never would have seen herself at.
"The future's rarely what you plan it to be," Callisto said aloud. The onboard computer of her ship, the Crusader, beeped at her. "No, you moron, it was a musing, not an order." The systems supplied to her by the Naboo had been quite excellent, better than anything she had ever stolen, bought, or had been altered by Odome. The flip side had been that it was overly sensitive to voice commands, so when she traveled she often did most everything manually. She tended to do that most of the time, having a liking for being in control of technology and not the other way around, but sometimes such things were a necessity, especially when one was lacking sleep.
She checked the time. Damned machine had woken her up too early. She could never sleep in hyperspace. Everything moved past her too fast and in such strange forms. If it had been in regular space, she would have no trouble, but this just felt too alien.
She shook her head again, trying to pull herself together. She had some very ugly dealings ahead of her and disorientation would not help.
She thought for a moment to contact Obi-Wan. His presence had a tendency to calm her down, no matter how riled she felt. In this case, she wasn't going to. She had left him in the middle of the night and he was no doubt worried. She had a good feeling he was probably pacing a hole in his rug like that last time she had disappeared. If she contacted him now, he would no doubt want to know where she was. He might even go so far as to make a trace and just make things more difficult. She liked to keep the darker parts of her life separate from the happier ones. when she had gone off like this back when she was a regular resident of Tattooine, she didn't even tell Anakin about them. Her excuse to him had been that her stories were not for children, which was true, but he didn't believe it anymore than she did.
"Incoming ship," the computer announced.
"Trajectory?" Callisto asked.
"Direct heading off port."
She looked over to see another ship coming at her at a blinding speed, gun ports blazing. She didn't even bother to send a message. She had a gut feeling whatever was coming at her was not friendly.
Immediately, she took herself out of hyperspace. The other did the same, mirroring her motions for a moment, and then closed, firing off three shots. Two that missed and one that his the left.
"Damn!" she cried out as she was thrown off half off her chair. She pulled herself back on and returned fire, hitting her assailants ship's engine, but with no effect.
Up ahead there was a pocket of gas. Scans showed it to be quite volatile. She grinned and changed course.
The computer beeped its protest.
"Shut up, I know what I'm doing."
She brought the ship through the top of the pocket. As expected, the other followed. She dipped the ships nose deeper into the pocket as if to go deeper. Instead, she fired a shot and quickly pulled out as to avoid the explosion.
Behind her, the other ship exploded and then went adrift, spewing gas from the inside. She expected to see smoke or fire, but then reminded herself that this was space. Fire needed oxygen to look like anything. If there was fir inside, all she could make out was seeping gas.
She began a maneuver to take a closer look, but then the ship rocketed off.
"Damn," Callisto said, shocked. Apparently it wasn't as dead as she had first suspected it was. Whoever was in there was still alive or had a great auto-pilot. Whatever it was, it was clearly banged up bad and in no shape yet for a rematch.
Callisto took off back on course at top speed. She had no plans to wait around that long.
"Now what the hell was all that about?"