A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far Away

Chapter 155

"General Kenobi," Grievous said with a cackle as he turned around to face the Jedi, "you are a bold one."

"General Grievous, you are under arrest," Obi-Wan told him as the bio-droid general stalked towards him, walking straight through his screen of MagnaGuards that had formed half a ring between the two of them.

"Don't tell me, let me guess: this is the part where you give me the chance to surrender."

"It can be," the Jedi allowed. "Or, if you like, it can be the part where I dismantle your exoskeleton and ship you back to Coruscant in a cargo hopper."

"I'll take option three," Grievous said as he made a hand gesture signaling the bodyguards to box Obi-Wan between them. "That's the one where I watch you die."

Another hand signal, and the deactivated droids on the ceiling began to uncoil. Clicks, buzzing, and whirring echoed throughout the cavern, becoming so loud that had Obi-Wan not known better, he would have thought he'd stumbled into a colony of Corellian raptor-wasps. The droids began to drop down to ground level, at first only a few as if a spring rainstorm was just beginning before the downpour came, so many that the durasteel deck shook and so loud that it left Obi-Wan's ears ringing. Some of the droids didn't even bother dropping down, preferring to hang upside down on the ceiling and add to the dome of blasters trained on him.

"I'm sorry, was I not clear?" Obi-Wan asked after the ruckus had died down, not sounding even the least bit concerned. "There is no option three."

Grievous shook his head in disbelief. "Do you never tired of this pathetic banter?"

"I rarely tire at all, and I have no better way to pass the time while I wait for you to either decide to surrender or chose to die."

"That choice was made long before I ever met you," Grievous responded, turning away. "Kill him."

Instantly the box the bodyguards had created filled with the crackling electrostaffs whipping faster than a human eye could track—which was less troublesome than it could have been otherwise since the box had already been emptied of Jedi.

Obi-Wan had fallen to the floor, turning that fall into a roll at the last second which then carried his lightsaber through an arc that severed one of the MangaGuard's legs, and as he regained his feet, the droid topled to the side, right into the path of the saber, cutting the guard in half.

One down.

The remaining three MagnaGuards pressed the attack, but far more cautiously than before, using the long reach of their electrostaffs to their advantage, staying out of the reach of Obi-Wan's lightsaber.

MagnaGuards were made for killing Jedi. They had double ended weapons impervious to lightsabers, operated near lightspeed, contained algorithms that let them learn from any experience allowing them to take on any challenge. Three, therefore, were rather difficult for one Jedi to deal with. It went without saying that Obi-Wan wasn't even bothering to go on the offensive, far too busy keeping the blades at bay with the help of the Force.

But he could sense that he wouldn't need to keep it up for long.

Obi-Wan backflipped in a leap, landing in an empty droid socket in the ceiling. The droids were following him instantly, but Obi-Wan was already gone, leaping higher into the maze of girders, cables, and room-sized cargo containers that was the superstructure of the control center.

He paused on a girder, sensing that the destruction of the MagnaGuards was near. He looked down at the three killer droids that were steadily climbing up towards him before looking around and spotting a support beam within reach of his blade that the Force was rather insistent on him cutting.

Obi-Wan's saber flicked out, the durasteel beam parted, and a great hulk of ship sized cargo container that the beam had been supporting tore free with shrieks of metal, crashing down onto all three of the MagnaGuards.

And there went two, three, and four.

Oh, Obi-Wan thought with detached approval. That worked out rather well.

Only ten thousand to go. Give or take.

An instant later, Obi-Wan was once again in motion, dodging through the blasterfire of every combat droid in the control center. The lightsaber in Obi-Wan's hand practically turned into a deflector shield, ricocheting blasts back at the droids around him even as cannons fired at him, destroying equipment and shattering girders, unleashing a torrent of red-hot debris onto the droids bellow. By the time Obi-Wan found both of his feet on the ground, there was only a handful of droids between him and Grievous.

"Blast him!" Grievous roared at the two spider droids flanking him.

Obi-Wan sensed the massive cannon of one of the spider droids track him before firing. He jumped into a Force lead leap that carried him just far enough away for the blast radius so that instead of shattering his entire body, it just gave him rather strong and hot push that sent him over the rest of the droids to land directly in front of the bio-droid general. One slash of his lightsaber cut off the cannon of one of the power droids while a spinning Force assisted kick brought his heel into the other power droid's chin hard enough to for the snap back it cause to sever the droid's cervical sensor cables. Unable to receive any feedback from the outside world, it could only obey its last command. It stumbled around, firing at walls, droids, and anything else that was unfortunate enough to find itself in the line of fire until Obi-Wan trust his lightsaber through it's thoracic brain case, deactivating it.

"General," Obi-Wan said with an all too polite smile, as if he had just accidently ran into someone that he personally disliked during a public outing, "my offer is still open."

The cavern became dead silent. Obi-Wan was now too close to Grievous himself for any droid to fire without the risk of hitting the their own general.

"Do you you believe I would surrender to you now?" Grievous asked as he shrugged away his cloak. "Back away," he ordered the droids. "I will deal with this Jedi slime myself."

"I'm still willing to take you alive," Obi-Wan said, nodding to the wreckage that was surrounding them. "So far, no one has been hurt."

"I have thousands of troops. You cannot defeat them all."

"I don't have to."

"This is your last chance to surrender, General Kenobi. Pau City is in my grip; lay down your weapon, or I will squeeze....until this entire sinkhole brims over with innocent blood. You must realize you are doomed."

"I don't think so. That's not about what it's about to brim with," Obi-Wan told him. "You should pay more attention to the weather."

Grievous narrowed his eyes. "What?"

"Have a look outside." The Jedi pointed his lightsaber toward the archway. "It's about to start raining clones."

"What?" the bio-droid repeated turning around to look.

I shadow had passed over the sun as though one of the thunder heads on the horizon had caught a stray current in the hyperwinds and settled above Pau City. But it wasn't a cloud.

It was a ship.

It was the Vigilance.

Hailfire droids rolled out and fired for exactly 2.5 seconds apiece, which was precisely how long it took for the Vigilance's sensor operators to transfer data to its turbolaser batteries and return fire. Not long after, the first cables were fired from Jadthu-class armored landers, and the first round of clones began streaming in.

"Your move," Obi-Wan told Grievous as the general turned back towards him.

"To the death, then," Grievous stated, turning back to the Jedi.

"If you insist."

"You fool. I have been trained in your Jedi arts by Count Dooku." With that, Grievous's arms split in half, so that instead of having two arms, he now had four with a lightsaber in each.

"What a curious coincidence," Obi-Wan said with a deceptively pleasant smile. "I trained the man who killed him."

Grievous snarled as two of his hands began to spin faster than the eye could track as he marched towards the Jedi.