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In the end, it was a commando droid.
The battle for control of an insignificant but strategically placed moon had been over for long minutes already, and LAAT/i ships were inbound to pick up the ground assault clones and move on to the next target. Obi-Wan and Cody stood together a distance away from the men, talking quietly about what they could predict about the next engagement from what they’d experienced here.
No one saw where the droid had come from, or knew where it had hidden to escape being thoroughly scrapped like the rest of its kind. All they knew was that one minute all was still, and the next a droid had punched its sword-sharp arm clean through Obi-Wan’s back.
Cody reacted instantaneously — two well-placed blaster shots and the droid was all dead photoreceptor eyes and a clatter of matte-finished limbs. That didn’t change the way Obi-Wan had staggered forward, though, or the way he collapsed to the ground, a slow-motion fall that took him to his knees and then to his side, curled in on himself.
“General!” Cody dropped everything he held, helmet and blaster and comm, and hit his knees next to Obi-Wan. Gently turning him over onto his back, he inspected the messy puncture wound with a professional calm that belied the sinking feeling in his gut.
It was broad, and had gone through nearly the middle of Obi-Wan’s chest, perhaps a half inch to the right, but had likely destroyed a lung and several ribs. Massive internal bleeding, then, and if Cody was right, the pained breaths Obi-Wan was taking right now would be among his last.
Just a droid, Cody thought. He had seen Obi-Wan dance with certain death a hundred times. He had watched the general duel more powerful opponents at speeds nearly impossible to see, part flames as easily as curtains, hells, all but fly— Surely it should take more than just a droid .
“It doesn’t look good, General,” he said. Even immediate bacta immersion wouldn’t be a sure fix, and it would be at least a half an hour until they could get him to a tank.
“You don’t say,” Obi-Wan rasped. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut, involuntary tears leaking from under the lids and running in dusty tracks down his face. “I can’t feel... Cody, I can’t move my legs.”
Spinal cord, then. You won’t have to worry about it for long , Cody didn’t say, but he pulled off his armored glove and took his general’s hand, squeezing it.
“Can feel that, can’t you?” he asked, and Obi-Wan blinked, nodding.
“Help me... Cody, get me a comm. Help me sit up.” Speaking sounded painful. Not as painful as sitting up was going to be, though.
It was an order, so Cody didn’t ask why. He looped his arm under Obi-Wan’s shoulders and gripped the general’s arm with his free one. He lifted, shifting Obi-Wan until his back was propped against one of the rocks they had been standing in front of, before. Wincing in sympathy with the agonized, wracking gasps Obi-Wan hadn’t been able to hold in, Cody scrambled for where he’d dropped his comm. When he found it, he pressed it into the general’s hand, curling his fingers around it for him.
“Thank you.” Obi-Wan had leaned his head back against the rock, one arm curling automatically over his chest. His eyes closed again as he lifted the comm and clicked it on. “Anakin?”
“Hey, Master! You guys finally done screwing around down there?” Skywalker sounded upbeat, high on the dash and danger of space battle the way he often seemed to get. “Cause we are squeaky-clean up here. We took ‘em out like the trash. Right, Oddball?”
“Affirmative, General.”
“So... do think you’re gonna finish up anytime in the next cycle, or should I resign myself to getting my first gray hair up here?”
“Oh, I think I have enough gray hair for both of us, Padawan.” Some of the lines of pain on Obi-Wan’s face had begun to ease as Anakin talked. “We’re waiting for the lartys right now. Should be in the air in minutes.”
“Not your padawan,” Anakin replied cheerfully, and the way Obi-Wan smiled made Cody suspect he’d been waiting for just that response.
“Apologies, General Skywalker,” he said, unable this time to keep the strain out of his voice. With that lung, Cody was a little amazed he was managing to talk at all. Jedi pain tolerance, he guessed. “I— Anakin? Do you remember what you told me the first night we were on Coruscant, after Naboo? After Qui-Gon—”
“Yeah, of course I remember.” He sounded bemused. “Why?”
“Just... remember that, promise me you’ll remember.”
“Yeah, okay. Are we really talking about this on the open comm? Usually we wait until we’re both dead tired and mildly smashed. I’m a fan of that. Let’s do that.”
Obi-Wan snorted, amused, and then bit back a pained groan. “Oh, I don’t know... You know me, I like to hear the sound of my own voice.”
“‘Course, how could I forget.”
Obi-Wan’s breathing was coming harder now, his face clenching in agony with every rise and fall of his chest. “Anakin, you should...” He hissed in helpless frustration, his hand trembling and falling even as he strained to hold the comm up to his mouth. “Cody...”
He didn’t even have to finish. Cody was right there, and he covered the general’s hand with his own, lending Obi-Wan the strength he no longer had. “I’ve got you, General.”
“Obi-Wan? I should what? Obi-Wan?”
“Anakin, you should know that I love you.”
Cody winced at the total deafening silence from the other end of the comm line. This wasn’t going to be good. Obi-Wan had suddenly relaxed after saying the words, as if he had let go of something he’d been carrying for a long time, but Cody would bet all the gear in his tack that the exact opposite was happening on the other end of the line.
“Master, are you okay.”
It wasn’t a question. Anakin’s voice was utterly flat.
“Fine, Anakin,” answered Obi-Wan, lying probably the worst lie Cody had ever heard. The general’s skin was gray, his eyes closed, his hand damp and clammy, trembling uncontrollably as he held it. “But you should... you should know. I love you, and I am so proud of you.”
“Master, you’re scaring me.” Cody had never heard Anakin’s voice sound so small, so childlike.
“I’m sorry. Anakin, I’m sorry, I’m— so proud of you. You’re strong and brave and kind and unselfish and good , you’re so good. I’m sorry, I— I wasn’t the master I should have been, I’m sorry.”
Obi-Wan sounded absolutely exhausted, but the pain lines had almost completely faded from his face and he was relaxed. That wasn’t a good sign. It meant he was almost gone. His breath came in horrible, wet gasps that had to be audible through the comm.
“Obi-Wan! I’m coming. Master, you are freaking me out and if I get down there and this is for no reason I am going to kick your ass . Are you okay? You’re okay, right? Please, Master. Talk to me!”
“Anakin, I’m sorry... Anakin, I love you.”
“I love you too, Master, just keep talking. It’s gonna be okay, I’m almost there. Just keep talking, okay?”
There was no answer. Cody watched as Obi-Wan struggled shallowly for breath once, twice, and then his head dropped, slipping to the side, and his hand was limp in Cody’s grip.
“Master.” Anakin sounded like he was almost sobbing now. “Master, answer me! Obi-Wan, please, don’t go anywhere. Don’t leave me, if you leave me alone I’ll kriffing kill you. Obi-Wan, I love you too, Master, I love you. Master .”
Cody took a deep breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth, and gently laid Obi-Wan’s hand down on his chest. Then, he lifted the comm. “He’s gone, General Skywalker.”
There was no answer, but then perhaps there was, because a few seconds later a spit-shiny yellow Delta 7B came whistling in and practically crash-landed in front of the first LAAT/i that had set down to pick up the clones.
Cody didn’t move.
He could have. He watched as the cockpit popped open and a streak of distraught Jedi rolled out, and knew he had time to stand up and take two quick steps back and blend into the group of his men that had gathered a respectful distance away. Cody stayed crouched where he was, though, clutching the comm, inches from Obi-Wan, inches from the droid whose spear hand was still streaked with his blood. He only stood when Anakin was there, flight goggles pushed up into his hair, tear-streaked and wild, flinging himself onto the ground beside his master’s body.
“Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan, Master,” he chanted, reaching out, tracing frantic hands over Obi-Wan’s still form, glancing touches over his shoulders, hair, arms, chest, as if he couldn’t believe what his eyes were telling him. Anakin’s fingers came back tacky with blood, and for a second he lifted his hand and just stared at it, breath hiccuping in his chest. Then he let out a long, low animal moan and crumpled. He sank down over Obi-Wan, doubling over on himself, fingers snagging in his master’s tunic and face pressing into Obi-Wan’s shoulder.
Cody silently gave his troops the ‘scatter’ sign. They used it in battle when they needed to break formation and move randomly, harder to hit for droid targeting mechanisms, and it wasn’t inappropriate here. He wanted them all loaded on the lartys and in the air by the time Anakin stood up. Barlex hesitated, giving him a questioning look and jerking his head towards the transport, but Cody shook his head.
He’d wait here. It had been his duty and his privilege to watch General Kenobi’s back, and it was his duty to look General Skywalker in the eye as the one who had failed to do just that.
Whatever came next would only be his due.