The Kenobi Saga Book One:The Clone Wars

14. Stuck

Lore-Val rolled her shoulders, doing what she could to stretch her arms. Having her wrists bound in front of her was making her arms start to cramp. As the hours ticked by, her fear was slowly turning to frustration. She sat up from where she had been laying on the bed and looked over at the single Mandalorian who had been left to watch her while the others went to see about finding a new way off world.

"Excuse me."

Aul didn't look up from the holofilm he was watching, "What could you possibly want kid?"

"I need to use the ladies room."

Aul pointed over his shoulder, "Go ahead."

Lore-Val got up and went to the small refresher. There was no window, and the door didn't have a functioning locking mechanism. Not that she was surprised, Aul wouldn't have let her go alone otherwise. She shuddered slightly at the refresher's state, it was even dirtier than the main room. Lore-Val thought about just holding it to avoid touching anything, but eventually gave in, struggling against the binders to do what she needed.

"Took long enough," Aul sneered when Lore-Val came back to sit on the bed.

The girl didn't respond, sitting on the bed again, leaning against the headboard. She rolled her eyes up to look at a water damage stain.

Her thoughts wandered to her mother. Satine had always been vigilant about Lore-Val's safety. Being the Duchess' daughter was dangerous. Being the daughter of a Jedi, the ancient enemy of Mandalore brought even more opportunities for danger. She'd been assigned a personal guard the day she was born, and he had never left her side until putting her on the shuttle to wait for Obi-Wan to take her to Coruscant.

Lore-Val had always thought her mother was overreacting, imagining danger that wasn't there. She remembered a fight she'd had with her mother a few years back when her cousin Korkie had started at the academy. She'd been so disappointed she couldn't go with him. While he was preparing to move into his dorm, Lore-Val was arguing with her mother, shouting that she was a prisoner, being held hostage in the palace.

It was just so stupid to talk Obi-Wan into letting her go to a real school. What would her mother say if she could see this? If she could see where Lore-Val was right now, she'd be so disappointed.

She'd be so worried.

Lore-Val swallowed hard, squeezing her eyes tight. I'm sorry buir (mother) I should have listened.

. . .

"What did I tell you about the datapad?" Kix glared at Solitaire, snatching the datapad away from him, "Concussion," he said the word slowly, like he was talking to a child, "lights are bad for your brain."

"Give it back," Solitaire snapped, reaching to get the pad back, "I think I found something."

"No," Kix held the datapad out of his reach. He caught a look at the screen and frowned, "I'm not encouraging you to work until you're cleared for duty, but walk me through this."

"According to the general's interviews one of the teachers noticed a blonde man driving past her window wearing a green poncho. On the footage from, eighteen blocks over, twenty four levels down, you see a green poncho float past the camera," Solitaire waited so Kix could watch the video.

"That gives us a direction," Kix mumbled.

"Exactly! There's plenty of places in the lower levels they could've holed up in, but it seems like they were moving towards CoCo Town. Lower CoCo Town is where we should search first."

"I'll go tell the general," Kix told him, starting towards the door, "But you need to rest. Take a nap or I'm sedating you."

"Kix, my job is to protect her."

"You can't protect her if you don't heal," he said, pausing in the door. He pointed a warning finger at his patient, "I'm not joking about sedating you, so rest."

Solitaire leaned back against the pillow. He hated to admit it, but Kix was right, his eyes were filled with pressure from looking at the datapad for too long. Five minutes he told himself, closing his eyes, Five minutes so Kix will let you work.

When Kix came back thirty minutes later, Solitaire was still asleep.

AN: Sorry it's short. Next one will probably be longer depending on if chapters 15 and 16 get combined IDK yet, if they don't I'll probably post them the same day,, but tbh its a next week problem. thank you for reading!