ℝ𝔼ℂ𝕂𝕃𝔼𝕊𝕊 ➵ o. kenobi {my only hope; book 2}

【 TWENTY-FIVE 】

     ɪ ꜰᴏᴜɴᴅ ᴅᴏᴏᴋᴜ ꜰɪʀꜱᴛ. Not that it was hard. After borrowing a speeder from one of the clone troops, I made my way away from the battle and back toward the arena, where I'd last seen Dooku. It had taken me less than a minute of flying before I came across three speeders--one of which had a person on it. Even from a distance, I recognized the silver hair and swishing dark cape.

I quickly adjusted my flight path and began chasing after the speeders. I had no idea where Dooku was going, but he couldn't run forever. I only hoped that wherever he ended up, Jobal would be there as well. I knew I couldn't take the two of them alone, but hopefully when I found them, I could distract them long enough to call for backup and give away their location.

Unfortunately, it didn't seem I would make it that long. The two speeders that were flanking Count Dooku were apparently destroyers. As soon as Dooku turned his head and noticed me following, he made a quick little hand gesture, and the two speeders fell behind so that they were behind me, and immediately began to fire. It took all I had in me to keep my senses focused on both sides of me--the front, so I could follow Dooku, and behind, so I could dodge all of the shots from Dooku's destroyer speeders.

I had several close calls. One shot came scarily close, whizzing right past my ear. Another hit my speeder in the back bumper, inches from hitting me straight in the back. I dodged several at the last second, one coming close to my left shoulder, where my gunshot wound from the battle on Naboo resided. That one hit close to home... I didn't want my left arm out of order while trying to battle a Sith Lord again, like last time. We all know how that ended.

Thankfully, after one too many close calls, one of our clone trooper's ships caught up to me from behind. That took a lot of the heat off of me from the destroyers, but as I glanced behind me and saw who was aboard that ship, my heart skipped a beat. Even from a distance I could see the familiar red-blonde hair glinting under the sun, and next to that, two figures with brown hair, one short and one long...

Obi-Wan, Anakin and Padmé were here.

I was so excited I nearly lost my grip on my speeder, until I watched Padmé take a tumble out of the ship as it hit some mild turbulence. My eyes widened, and the destroyer behind me took my distraction as an advantage. It shot one well-placed blast at the side of the speeder, causing it to flip. Then I really did fall off my speeder. I hit the sand below with incredible velocity, got the breath knocked out of me, rolled a few times, then looked up as my speeder soared into a dune hill and exploded.

"Kriff," I swore under my breath, before collapsing backward, my hair in the sand, trying to regain my breath.

I watched helplessly as Anakin and Obi-Wan's ship flew overhead, Obi-Wan's face peering down at me from above with concern. I gathered enough strength to make one movement--a little gesture to tell him to keep going. I wasn't going to be the reason that Dooku escaped. Besides, if I was down here, I might as well help out Padmé before trying to continue on.

As Obi-Wan's ship soared off, following Count Dooku and trying hard to evade the shots from both destroyers now, I pulled myself to my feet and shook the sand out of my robes and hair. I reached to my side to make sure I still had my lightsaber, and sighed in relief. It was hanging against my hip as usual, slightly sandy but otherwise unscathed.

I quickly made my way over to Padmé, clutching my left ribs, which I had fallen on after getting knocked off my speeder. My sister was lying on the ground at the bottom of one of the dune hills, a long trail of divots in the sand indicating where she'd fallen from. She was laying on her back, with her wound pressed against the sand below her, sprawled awkwardly. I quickly rolled her over, trying to shake her awake, and get a good look at the scratch on her back from the Nexu.