Kenobi Chronicles

Episode 9 (part 2)

"I refuse to believe that you so openly disobeyed me, Reva!"

Reva barely heard the words. She was leaning back in a rather ornate chair watching the pale figure of the Grand Inquisitor lose his very tiny mind. She had eliminated him from an equation. And his small world was burning before him.

"So I should have withheld the information from him?" She asked, glancing at a few weequay pirates she had bound and gagged in a corner. She did not meet the Grand Inquisitor's glare, nor did she feel any fear for such arrogance.

"You have made a grave mistake in summoning him, my child." He said low and measured. Reva abruptly turned to the flickering form.

"I'm not your child!"

The Grand Inquisitor leaned back and brought his hands thoughtfully to his mouth. In silence, they both glared at each other. The pirates in the corner huddled closer together—and the guard at the door uncomfortably shifted from one foot to the other.

"If you fail—Reva—" there was a hint of compassion, if you could call it that when he said 'Reva.' He continued. "He will not show you mercy—remember Kashyyk."

"I'm not afraid of him." That was a lie. Even as she said it, she felt her chin tremble. The Grand Inquisitor knew it. He leaned forward in urgency.

"Trust me, my dear Reva—you will be."

"You have gone mad, Kenobi!" Dex's voice roared over the other pirates' protesting. "Florrum is guarded space—even the Old Republic couldn't infiltrate it!"

"I don't know how she's taken the base, but I do know she has done it—you must trust me, my friend." Kenobi argued, exhaustedly.

"I think you've got something up your sleeve, is what!" A pirate said from the side. Others voiced their agreement.

"I knew you was trouble when he brought you on board!" Another pirate lifted his rusty blade high over his head, causing others to grasp at their weapons as well.

"Bad luck! That's what you reek of!" Another cried. Then all at once, the tensions rose higher as the pirates clutched their weapons and began to center around Kenobi and Dex, threatening with their rusted blades.

Kenobi drew his lightsaber, bathing the cabin in blue. The pirates were startled for a moment and drew back. But they reassured each other with sneers and continued to close in around them.

"Wait!" Leia's voice pierced the air. Kenobi held his breath.

"Not now, Leia." Kenobi muttered. This was not the time for her to meddle. He attempted to shoot her a glare. But she disregarded his warning and strode in between the hostiles and Kenobi.

"You can't kill him! He's a Jedi!"

Kenobi closed his eyes in frustration. For a second, he remembered how he had unwisely rejected Merrin's offer to make her sleep for the entire journey to Alderaan.

"The Jedi have done nothing for the likes of us, child!" One of the pirates laughed. "We've been fighting their kind since before the rise of the Empire!"

"No! Not Jedi like him!" She protested. The pirates looked at her in confusion—then at each other as if someone knew what she was talking about.

"The Jedi you fought before were pawns—used to strike down any who stood in the Senate's way—that's the Jedi you remember."

"You forget he's from the old times, little girl—" a voice jeered from behind her. She whirled around and met the pirate with a glare that disappeared his sneer in a second.