The hands hovering over Xanatos, touching him with firm assurance, were the hands of someone who dispensed comfort and calm as easily as he breathed.

The hands hovering over Xanatos, touching him with firm assurance, were the hands of someone who dispensed comfort and calm as easily as he breathed. Instinct told him it must be Qui-Gon, healing him. Xan released his anxiety as he floated in the gentle grasp of unspoken persuasion. His body offered token resistance, which was easily overcome. Jinn was as skilled a healer as he was a warrior and the pain was subsiding, one tiny agony at a time.

He could hear his former Master speaking faintly, as if very far away. "Don't struggle. Let me help you." There was something oddly desperate and rushed in the expression of the words, something fearful.

Xan remembered suddenly; surreal fragments of his ordeal crashed together as the previous night's events came into sharp focus. Pain first, and then a face so cruel that its image and actions would be forever burned into his memory. He knew he had crawled, and was not ashamed. He had not begged, but if he had been told to do so, he would have obliged gladly, prostrate on the floor, a perfectly obedient plaything. He had allowed humiliation to wash over him, leaving him free of guilt, and had told himself he would do anything he must to ease Obi-Wan's anguish. He would have done anything to survive the night, to remain alive so that he might return to Obi-Wan, so that they all might live.

Xan opened his eyes with great effort. Qui-Gon's expression was a study in composure, still with concentration as he touched Xan's body. Xan's gaze shifted to the grim face of the Chancellor, and a thought entered his consciousness slowly, gaining clarity with awareness. He might die before he had achieved his destiny.

The scene before Xan's eyes faded as his thoughts traveled back in time. Strange that when he was so close to becoming one with the Force, he should find it so tempting to drift into the images and sensations of his youth. The marketplace beckoned, with its mix of barking auctioneers, its baying crowds and the pervasive scent of fear overlaid by heavy perfume. He saw the block where he stood, nearly naked and still as a statue, waiting to be sold into the seraglio of the man he had grown to love.

When had he learned to love Obi-Wan? When had it become less important to serve, and more important to believe?

Heat spread across his belly, a different kind of fire than the deep pain he had grown accustomed to, and Xan was drawn back into the present. He hovered near the in-between for a moment, listening to the low speech of men in the throes of crisis. Their urgency made his pulse quicken. They spoke of Obi-Wan, gone to...avenge? Destroy?

The first time he had seen Obi-Wan, he had understood. All that had gone before was but a prelude to what he would know in this man's world. It had been slow to come, and he had doubted that it would ever be what he had hoped, but everything found its purpose. He had been delivered into hell, or so he thought; the clutches of the seraglio-master were no better than those of the auctioneer. He had disembarked warily, hunched and shivering beneath an old cloak. The Regent had seen him there in the line of new acquisitions, and their eyes met for a fraction of a moment before Xan lowered his own gaze.

Such a short connection, but it was enough. There had been no words, only the strong clasp of fingers on his shoulder as he was covered, made warm, led away from brutality and into a place unlike any he had ever imagined.

Words of comfort still echoed in memory. "Tonight, the cold will not bother you any longer," Obi-Wan had whispered, lips against his ear. "You will shiver in ecstasy this night."

Xanatos lifted his head from the pillow. His hand closed around Qui-Gon's wrist in a grasp hard enough to break bones less sturdy. "Where is he?"

"He has gone to eliminate the Sith," Valorum said, his disembodied voice rising from somewhere near the doors.

Xan immediately rejected even the possibility that Obi-Wan would have gone to avenge the injuries done to him, but the silence of the others made brought doubt into the vacuum of information. "He cannot be...so foolish..." Speech failed him. "Not because...of me...or you..."

"He will do what must be done," Qui-Gon said, and the calm of it radiated into Xanatos, a Jedi mind trick of the highest order. As his padawan, Xan had heard him use it many times - on others. "This was only the catalyst for the inevitable."

Xanatos mustered his remaining strength to rise from the bed, but the simple exchange of a look between the two men ended his struggle. Jinn's hand pressed gently against his chest and a powerful sensation of lethargy began to permeate his body.

"Sleep," the Jedi ordered.

Xan fought against it. His thoughts fled once again, lighting at the single point in the darkness where he had felt most useful, where his destiny had been revealed to him. Words he could not have remembered skittered against his consciousness, setting a rhythm in code, like a message all but forgotten. And he saw the eyes that dispatched him to his fate, wide and blue as the oceans of his youth, sad as a mourner's cry.

Darkness overcame him.

*****

The hallways of the immense fortress were as familiar to the ruler of Taganor as the long-forsaken corridors of his childhood home. Obi-Wan Kenobi traversed the path by rote, undeterred by the scattered Sith who fell across his path like so many playthings, easily disposed of and ignored.

He strode at a constant pace through his palace, dropping every soldier who emerged with barely a turn of his face in their direction. He had long known it could be easy to kill without mercy, but the power was harnessed and controlled without effort, and it made him afraid on an elemental level.

It also gave him fuel for his anger, and he pulled it in, allowed the rage to suffuse his being.

Beyond the edges of the boundaries he had erected, he could feel the Jedi pushing insistently at his heart. Obi-Wan pushed back, locking Jinn out, reluctantly cutting him off from everything that was to transpire. He could not afford recriminations, not when so much was at stake. He had made mistakes for which many would pay. This would compound his errors, magnify them beyond repair.

But he would not bear the burden of Jinn's disapproval.

So many things had begun to crumble. His world, his people, his obligations as the overlord of a world he had not chosen to rule - all these things would be sacrificed now, because he had failed. Anakin, the child whose inclinations to lead or to destroy might determine the fate of the galaxy...his young student would have to choose, would have to understand that sometimes, a man could choose, and sometimes, his path was chosen for him.

Obi-Wan had been chosen to be one thing only, and now he was so much to so many. Protector of worlds, of men, of lovers, of children. Defender of the old ways, leader of those who were now enemies of the man he had called master. The thought of that allegiance raised a bilious taste in his mouth. So many choices denied to him...so many freedoms he had, in turn, denied others, out of duty or obligation, and so many paths closed to them all forever.

The image of his favorite, bloody and broken, leapt into his mind. On its heels came the thought of Qui-Gon, executed as an example, the object of public sport, but tortured first for the locations of the remaining Jedi. Obi-Wan's jaw hardened into a set, determined line. His many roles could not be reconciled. He had only one duty, one path entrusted to him from the beginning, and it was time to end the charade.

He could feel the Sith welcoming him, waiting for him, just beyond the doors of the spacious quarters where Chun had set up residence, where he had brutalized Xan. Obi-Wan turned the hilt of the saber in his hand, spinning it swiftly. The metal warmed against his skin as it skimmed his palm, and over the back of his hand; the smooth edges of the power switch lured his thumb closer. He forced his hands to still and dropped the saber to his side without igniting it.

Two guards were slumped in the hallway on either side of the entrance to Chun's quarters; they stirred groggily as they struggled to wake. It was a simple thing to send them back into oblivion, and he did so without thought. The doors to Bruck's quarters opened for him, parting slowly, like the tides of a monstrous, dark sea.

"What took you so long, Kenobi?" The taunt seemed to come from nowhere, and from everywhere. The words dripped with malicious evil. "Was your pet able to warn you? He was so pliant for me. So...accommodating. He loved having my cock up his ass almost as much as I did." Long, low laughter; then, admiringly, "You trained him well. My compliments."

Obi-Wan scanned the shadows inside the room with a practiced eye while his body remained motionless. He slowed his heartbeat and willed the rage in him to simmer, and the tide of emotion receded. "Did you really think you could ever have beaten me, Bruck?" He tilted his head, listening for a response, for the shimmer of auditory motion that would betray Chun's position. "Did you think for a moment that I would not have been the one to sit at the right hand of our master, had I not been called to other duties?"

"You were never my equal." Sharp, and snarled, the denial was hurled like a challenge.

"True. We were not equal. You weren't fit to fight in the same training ring," Obi-Wan scoffed. "Show yourself. Or are you too cowardly even now?"

Something came hurtling out of the darkness, too fast to be anything but a blur; Obi-Wan deciphered its shape as he deflected the small chair to the side. He moved back two paces to take a defensive posture and ignited his lightsaber. Swift and silent, Chun emerged from his quarters, the glow of his saber blade crimson against the white of his hair, and charged.

One strike, two, and ions exploded in the air between them as the blades locked, released, and sought each other again hungrily. Chun's first few strikes hit heavy against Obi-Wan's saber as his defense was tested as it had not been in a very long time. The Regent stepped back and executed a neat maneuver, slicing cleanly down Chun's side, opening flesh and exposing bone. Chun hissed between his teeth and pressed forward, kicking out his front foot and leaping toward his enemy.

"You haven't learned much, have you?" Obi-Wan mocked him. A feral smile lit Chun's face in response, and Obi-Wan could feel his own teeth bared in an answering grin. This was what he had once craved: the life of a warrior, in service to his own conscience and a code of behavior that could not be violated; the constant, delicious taste of power in his hands, ready to be unleashed with a single cut of the saber.

He slashed sideways, tracking Chun's movements and mirroring them in reverse, and in the pleasure he felt, his path seemed clear. He had become a hybrid of his desires and his duties, of the worlds he inhabited; half of each, but wholly neither.

Chun's red blade rose, then fell, always countered quickly by the cool green of Obi-Wan's blade. Time seemed to slow for Obi-Wan as they circled each other, two alphas grappling for leadership of their pack, both incapable of surrender and willing to die before accepting defeat.

"You are clumsy, Oafy-Wan," Chun said, as though the past could still be alive in the moment. With graceful counterpoint to his words, he rose in an arcing leap and kicked Obi-Wan square in the chest. Obi-Wan fell light against the ground and rose again, rolling easily to his feet. "You are awkward," Chun added, and landed two blows - first his fist, against Obi-Wan's jaw; then the blade of his saber, slashing across Obi-Wan's stomach.

Obi-Wan arched back like a fellinoid. His quick movement was all that saved him from evisceration. The dark fabric of his tunic opened under the saber blade as the tip of the blade scorched his skin but he did not betray his pain. His saber moved into the space vacated by his body, sweeping down and across the Sith's chest, cutting more deeply that Chun's saber had cut. "I *was* clumsy," he said, and raised the hilt of his weapon to smash it into Chun's jaw. He waited for Chun to stagger upright again as he sought and met Chun's eyes. "But I am not that boy any longer."

They stood and stared at one another for a fraction of a moment before rejoining the battle. With quick, long strides, Obi-Wan stepped into the fray, cutting and taking ground, earning territory with each offensive strike. He whirled into the air over Chun's head, saber spinning in emerald circles, and dropped behind Chun to cut deeply across his back.

Chun shouted and turned, suddenly less graceful as pain and desperation began to destroy his sure technique. Obi-Wan saw his chance to strike a killing blow, but he had decided the course of things before the fight had even begun, and stepped away. He dodged Chun's determined lunge and cut cleanly down the length of Chun's primary fighting arm. A deep, horrible burn opened, bubbling with blisters and cauterized at the source. Chun clutched his weapon with weakened fingers and backed away, looking for another weapon to hurl.

Obi-Wan raised his hand and flicked his fingers in the direction of the closed chamber doors. They opened for him, and the contents of the room spewed forth, hailing down on Chun. With haphazard control of the Force, Chun deflected the rain of luxurious debris, but he was brought to his knees by the effort of it, and Obi-Wan made his move. One quick thrust of the saber, straight through the shoulder, severing muscle and tendons, making it impossible for Chun to continue fighting.

With a gasp, Chun dropped his saber. Obi-Wan kicked it away and dropped to one knee. He extinguished his own blade. "You are not my equal," he said softly, smiling into Chun's apprehension. With a snap of his wrist, he tossed his saber away. "You are nothing."

His first blow landed square on the point of Chun's jaw. His enemy fell, eyes rolling to the back of his head. Obi-Wan allowed him no respite. His fists rained down over Chun's body, across his enemy's chest, face, arms, sides. Blood spattered Obi-Wan's bare arms and patterned the floor beneath; still, the Regent did not stop.

Obi-Wan remembered every bit of the pain he had suffered among the Sith, and he brought it all to the surface, a tidal wave of horrors just waiting to be avenged. He could remember crawling on the floor, groveling at the feet of the drill master, being beaten for his transgression - for refusing to maim Chun after besting him in a sparring match - and the echo of Chun's laughter seared his heart.

He raised Chun in the air with one hand, bringing him closer, and began breaking bones with deliberation. The collarbone first, and then a pull to the injured shoulder, dislocating it.

Chun howled his outrage and pain, and Obi-Wan smiled as the thrill of satisfaction spread through his heart.

He remembered hours upon days of living in darkness, without food, without warmth, as punishment for failing to complete a training drill, a drill in which Chun had sent him sprawling after offering his hand. The memory begged satisfaction, and Obi-Wan delivered four hard, swift punches to the torso, breaking ribs beneath every blow.

Chun gasped for air; Obi-Wan pulled him upright. "Did you think you would ever possess what is mine?" he asked gently, drawing a finger down a blooded cheek. "What a fool you were to underestimate me. Look what it has cost you."

With a sharp twist, Obi-Wan snapped the bones of Chun's upper arms, first the left, then the right. Tears of rage leaked from the Sith's eyes. "Hate has no compassion," Obi-Wan mocked him, evoking words spoken in the distant past, the taunts of others who were never kind, who would tolerate no weakness. He flicked the watery plea away with his bare fingers. "Hate is our ally. Hate is power. Hate is...your undoing."

Chun butted his head weakly at Obi-Wan's chest, a futile effort without strength, an agonized final appeal.

"No, no," Obi-Wan said tenderly. He pressed a kiss to Chun's forehead and dropped Chun to the floor like a sack of rubbish. He turned away from the strangled sounds emerging from the bruised throat. "Don't beg. A Sith Lord should never beg. He should meet his fate with dignity, as he has been taught. *Be silent*." With a small smile, he raised his hand and pressed his fingers together.

Noises rose behind him, the scrabbling sounds of death. Obi-Wan closed his hand, slowly, in tiny increments. There was choking, the horrible bubbling of a last breath, and then finally, nothing more.

Obi-Wan opened his hand and stood without moving for a long moment. Slowly, like an old man, he squatted down next to the body, looking at the grotesque mask of death, and buried his face in his hands. Heel of hand to tired eyes, he ground his exhaustion into temporary submission, and quietly waited for rational thought to reassert itself.

Tiny lights blinking on the comm console drew Obi-Wan's attention. He stared at them for a moment, then closed his eyes. He drew his focus down into the center of his being and listened to the sound of his own heartbeat, steady and sure, strong and regular. The tension in his arms and hands dwindled away. His body began to release the stored anger, to discard the reserves of rage he had bottled up for this confrontation. His mind cleared.

Focus restored, emotion banished, he rose to his feet and reached down for the body. He towed the corpse behind him into Chun's quarters, then threw it squarely in the center of the floor and left it without another look.

He turned his attention to the console. A message waited, stored in the communications queue. Without retrieving it, he keyed in his personal code and traced its origins to a ship 8.8 light years distant. The ship was still too far away for identification, but there was an Imperial communications tag trailing the end of the message.

Obi-Wan drew a deep breath and skimmed back through all communications logs stored in the local database. He played back the content of Chun's conversation with the Emperor in its entirety, pausing long enough to pull up the confidential records Chun had examined so carefully. Faces of Imperial enemies flashed by on the screen - men and women from dozens of worlds across the galaxy, from every walk of life.

Special enemies were flagged in a separate file. Here Obi-Wan found the Jedi, those who were presumed dead or who were known to have been killed by the Empire, and those who remained alive to spread their messages of discontent throughout the Empire. All information had been obtained from the files of the destroyed Temple on Coruscant, which were badly damaged and incomplete; the database made clear that there were others alive, but unidentified or completely unknown. Entire units had been dispatched with the sole purpose of rooting out and destroying the Jedi wherever they were known to exist.

Obi-Wan's finger tapped down on the controls several times, and his eyes lingered on every file. He read none of the details, but merely looked at the faces, and counted the survivors.

In yet another file, he found evidence carefully accumulated by the Imperial Inquisitors and sifted through it. There was a budding rebellion in progress, complete with local leaders and cells of activity. Details were unclear. Imperial spies had been caught and killed on a number of worlds by civilians who had then vanished into thin air, never to be seen again. There had been attacks on ammunition dumps, on ports and stations where Imperial ships and supplies were stored, on trade routes and supply lines. All information regarding these activities had been suppressed by the Empire, for fear a rebellion might begin in earnest if hope for freedom should begin to spread among the conquered.

One face jumped out at him from the short list of known leaders. Bail Organa. Obi-Wan scanned back through the files of Jedi, and found him there. Jedi Knight. Rogue. Traitor to the Code.

He entered his personal code and secured an internal channel. "Valorum."

"Here," came the immediate response.

"Come to Chun's quarters. Be discreet, but hurry. There are useful files in the database we must copy and purge." He hesitated for a moment. "Prepare my personal guard. Arm them as we discussed. Make my ship ready for travel, but be very careful, Valorum. No one is to know we are planning a departure."

"Your councilors?"

Obi-Wan chuckled. "Most especially not my councilors. I'll handle Anakin myself when the time is right. Disarm all surveillance devices in the palace and prepare to disable the comm system. Make certain Maul does not get wind of this. We can trust no one here."

"Understood."

Continue to Part Two



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