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bedlamsbardOriginally posted here on Tumblr as a meme response.
1400 words, alternate POV of part of the last scene of Queen's Gambit 6, No Rest for the Wicked. Content warning for torture, but no worse than what you'd see in The Clone Wars TV series. (What, your kids cartoons don't include a whole lot of torture?)
The fact that Gunray hadn’t killed him on Boz Pity was Obi-Wan’s first hint that the Viceroy had something very, very bad planned, something worse than the ugly, vindictive pleasure he took in having Obi-Wan tortured while the Saak’ak was in hyperspace. Obi-Wan could deal with pain; there were Force techniques for that and he was more recently familiar with them than he would have preferred. The Trade Federation interrogators nailed him with question after question about Naboo’s system defenses and military capacity, which only made him more certain that wherever the Saak’ak and its escorts were going, it probably wasn’t going to be good for Naboo. He didn’t know the size of the flotilla the Federation dreadnaught was traveling with, since he had been unconscious when he’d been brought onboard, but general policy since the fighting had started in earnest was half a dozen light warships for every capital ship. Obi-Wan suspected that Nute Gunray wouldn’t venture into Confederate territory without at least twice that.
He was left alone except for a pair of MagnaGuards watching him from the corners of the room after a communication from the bridge let Gunray know that they were about to come out of hyperspace. Obi-Wan hung suspended in the containment field he was imprisoned in, rotating slowly and mildly nauseous from a combination of that and the head injury he had sustained on Boz Pity. He felt itchy and uncomfortable in his own skin, disoriented from the electrical impulses transmitted through the containment field, pain sparking across his body at irregular intervals.
The ship shivered around him as they dropped out of hyperspace and into realspace. Alarms sounded immediately, a mechanized voice declaring, “Action stations, action stations, all units prepare for immediate combat. Action stations, action stations –”
Obi-Wan would have stiffened if the containment field had allowed it. “Where are we?” he asked the MagnaGuards. “What system is this?”
Unsurprisingly, they didn’t answer him.
Obi-Wan sweated and rotated and tried not to be sick all over himself for the next hour or so, feeling the Saak’ak shudder from occasional laserfire. If he knew Nute Gunray, the flotilla’s flagship was staying well out of whatever fighting there was, no matter how much the ship’s commander probably wanted to drive them straight into the thick of it. More than once Obi-Wan tried to reach out with the Force to find out what was happening, but the containment field disrupted his ability to do so, keeping him from concentrating on anything beyond himself. He was starting to think that he would pass the whole engagement in ignorance when a barked order over the comms systems made the MagnaGuards move from their statue-like positions.
The containment field had disoriented Obi-Wan enough that even after he was released from it he couldn’t quite grasp what was happening as binders were snapped onto his wrists. The slave collar around his throat, deceptively light in the containment field, suddenly felt painfully tight and too heavy, reminding Obi-Wan in a way the field hadn’t that as long as he wore it, he wasn’t his own man.
He was escorted – closer to dragged, since he couldn’t walk on his own yet – through the narrow corridors of the ship up to the bridge. As the doors slid open, he couldn’t resist glancing at the viewport directly in front of him, seeing a scrum of Federation warships tangling with the too-familiar forms of Naboo warships, vulture droids and N-1 fighters screaming past.
There were Naboo ships in a dozen systems across the galaxy; they could have been in any of them. But there was only one system that Nute Gunray would have condescended to visit himself.
Obi-Wan tore his gaze away from the viewport as the MagnaGuards hauled him across the bridge to the communications station. Nute Gunray turned to watch his approach, smirking, and Obi-Wan caught a glimpse of scarlet and gold on the vidscreen before the MagnaGuards threw him down so hard that his head hit the deck and he saw stars briefly.
Oh, I have a bad feeling about this.
He pushed himself up to his knees with his cuffed hands, looking up into Padmé’s horrified eyes. “Your majesty, I’m so sorry.”
If they had been face to face, Padmé almost certainly would have gone for Gunray’s throat. Instead, over a distance of hundreds of thousands of kilometers, all she said was, “You have gone too far this time, Viceroy.”
“We also have Bail Organa of Alderaan in custody,” Gunray gloated. “A friend of yours, I believe?”
“I should have put a blaster bolt in your head thirteen years ago when I had the chance,” Padmé said, her voice deceptively casual. Obi-Wan could see her hands white-knuckled on the arms of her throne, her nails as scarlet as if they had been dipped in blood.
“You will sign my treaty, your highness,” Gunray said as though she hadn’t spoken. “Either I will have Naboo or your lover will die.”
I’ll kill the bastard myself –
He didn’t see the electrostaff coming. It jabbed against his ribs, pain making him convulse. Blood warmed his mouth as he bit through his lip to keep from crying out. He spat it aside as the MagnaGuard released him, shuddering from the shocks.
Padmé was trembling in her throne. “The Confederacy of Independent Systems does not negotiate with terrorists,” she managed to say. “You will release Captain Kenobi or you will die.”
“No, your highness. He will die.”
Durasteel feet clicked against the deck as a battle droid stepped up beside Obi-Wan, the cold metal of a blaster barrel settling against the side of his head. He didn’t even glance up, keeping his gaze fixed on Padmé as Gunray nattered on. If he was going to die, he wanted her face to be the last thing he ever saw, not the laser bolt that killed him or Gunray’s triumphant smirk.
There was rising panic in Padmé’s voice as she spat, “I will not be intimidated by your empty threats, Viceroy!”
“Padmé,” Obi-Wan said, pleading silently with her to listen to him. Her eyes were huge, her expression terrified beneath her facepaint, and he could tell from the way she was holding herself that it was all she could do not to launch herself at the vidscreen. As if that would help. “Don’t do it.”
This time he couldn’t hold back his scream as electricity shot through his body for what felt like an eternity before it finally ceased. Somewhere in it he heard Padmé cry out in alarm, felt her fear ratcheting through the Force.
Obi-Wan could feel tears running down his face, shuddering uncontrollably from the pain. He made himself look up anyway, seeing Padmé leaning forward in her throne, her hands fixed in fists on the arms.
“Viceroy Gunray,” she said, “I swear on the tombs of my ancestors and the head of my unborn child that if you harm him, I will burn your homeworld and its colonies to ash. By the time my fleet and my army have finished off your purse worlds there will not be so much as a Neimodian flea anywhere in this galaxy. And I will not sign your treaty!”
Force save me, but I love her.
“Then Kenobi will die,” Gunray smirked. “And my bombardment of your planet will continue until you come to your senses.”
Rage briefly overcame fear in Padmé’s eyes. “If my planet burns, then so does yours.”
Do it, part of Obi-Wan wanted to say. Burn it all to the ground. But even after twelve years he was still too much of a Jedi to let those be his last words, so he straightened his back and raised his head, feeling the battle droid’s blaster barrel dig into his skill. Padmé’s blistering gaze went from Gunray to him, her eyes widening as her lips shaped his name.
“Padmé, I love you,” he said.
A Jedi would have told her not to seek vengeance, that there was no such thing as death, that he was more than the crude shell of his body, but Obi-Wan hadn’t been a Jedi for twelve years. Instead he told her the only truth he could offer, the one truth that they both knew.
“I will not negotiate with terrorists,” she repeated.
Obi-Wan kept his gaze locked on her face, her beautiful face, and waited for someone to pull the trigger.
1400 words, alternate POV of part of the last scene of Queen's Gambit 6, No Rest for the Wicked. Content warning for torture, but no worse than what you'd see in The Clone Wars TV series. (What, your kids cartoons don't include a whole lot of torture?)
The fact that Gunray hadn’t killed him on Boz Pity was Obi-Wan’s first hint that the Viceroy had something very, very bad planned, something worse than the ugly, vindictive pleasure he took in having Obi-Wan tortured while the Saak’ak was in hyperspace. Obi-Wan could deal with pain; there were Force techniques for that and he was more recently familiar with them than he would have preferred. The Trade Federation interrogators nailed him with question after question about Naboo’s system defenses and military capacity, which only made him more certain that wherever the Saak’ak and its escorts were going, it probably wasn’t going to be good for Naboo. He didn’t know the size of the flotilla the Federation dreadnaught was traveling with, since he had been unconscious when he’d been brought onboard, but general policy since the fighting had started in earnest was half a dozen light warships for every capital ship. Obi-Wan suspected that Nute Gunray wouldn’t venture into Confederate territory without at least twice that.
He was left alone except for a pair of MagnaGuards watching him from the corners of the room after a communication from the bridge let Gunray know that they were about to come out of hyperspace. Obi-Wan hung suspended in the containment field he was imprisoned in, rotating slowly and mildly nauseous from a combination of that and the head injury he had sustained on Boz Pity. He felt itchy and uncomfortable in his own skin, disoriented from the electrical impulses transmitted through the containment field, pain sparking across his body at irregular intervals.
The ship shivered around him as they dropped out of hyperspace and into realspace. Alarms sounded immediately, a mechanized voice declaring, “Action stations, action stations, all units prepare for immediate combat. Action stations, action stations –”
Obi-Wan would have stiffened if the containment field had allowed it. “Where are we?” he asked the MagnaGuards. “What system is this?”
Unsurprisingly, they didn’t answer him.
Obi-Wan sweated and rotated and tried not to be sick all over himself for the next hour or so, feeling the Saak’ak shudder from occasional laserfire. If he knew Nute Gunray, the flotilla’s flagship was staying well out of whatever fighting there was, no matter how much the ship’s commander probably wanted to drive them straight into the thick of it. More than once Obi-Wan tried to reach out with the Force to find out what was happening, but the containment field disrupted his ability to do so, keeping him from concentrating on anything beyond himself. He was starting to think that he would pass the whole engagement in ignorance when a barked order over the comms systems made the MagnaGuards move from their statue-like positions.
The containment field had disoriented Obi-Wan enough that even after he was released from it he couldn’t quite grasp what was happening as binders were snapped onto his wrists. The slave collar around his throat, deceptively light in the containment field, suddenly felt painfully tight and too heavy, reminding Obi-Wan in a way the field hadn’t that as long as he wore it, he wasn’t his own man.
He was escorted – closer to dragged, since he couldn’t walk on his own yet – through the narrow corridors of the ship up to the bridge. As the doors slid open, he couldn’t resist glancing at the viewport directly in front of him, seeing a scrum of Federation warships tangling with the too-familiar forms of Naboo warships, vulture droids and N-1 fighters screaming past.
There were Naboo ships in a dozen systems across the galaxy; they could have been in any of them. But there was only one system that Nute Gunray would have condescended to visit himself.
Obi-Wan tore his gaze away from the viewport as the MagnaGuards hauled him across the bridge to the communications station. Nute Gunray turned to watch his approach, smirking, and Obi-Wan caught a glimpse of scarlet and gold on the vidscreen before the MagnaGuards threw him down so hard that his head hit the deck and he saw stars briefly.
Oh, I have a bad feeling about this.
He pushed himself up to his knees with his cuffed hands, looking up into Padmé’s horrified eyes. “Your majesty, I’m so sorry.”
If they had been face to face, Padmé almost certainly would have gone for Gunray’s throat. Instead, over a distance of hundreds of thousands of kilometers, all she said was, “You have gone too far this time, Viceroy.”
“We also have Bail Organa of Alderaan in custody,” Gunray gloated. “A friend of yours, I believe?”
“I should have put a blaster bolt in your head thirteen years ago when I had the chance,” Padmé said, her voice deceptively casual. Obi-Wan could see her hands white-knuckled on the arms of her throne, her nails as scarlet as if they had been dipped in blood.
“You will sign my treaty, your highness,” Gunray said as though she hadn’t spoken. “Either I will have Naboo or your lover will die.”
I’ll kill the bastard myself –
He didn’t see the electrostaff coming. It jabbed against his ribs, pain making him convulse. Blood warmed his mouth as he bit through his lip to keep from crying out. He spat it aside as the MagnaGuard released him, shuddering from the shocks.
Padmé was trembling in her throne. “The Confederacy of Independent Systems does not negotiate with terrorists,” she managed to say. “You will release Captain Kenobi or you will die.”
“No, your highness. He will die.”
Durasteel feet clicked against the deck as a battle droid stepped up beside Obi-Wan, the cold metal of a blaster barrel settling against the side of his head. He didn’t even glance up, keeping his gaze fixed on Padmé as Gunray nattered on. If he was going to die, he wanted her face to be the last thing he ever saw, not the laser bolt that killed him or Gunray’s triumphant smirk.
There was rising panic in Padmé’s voice as she spat, “I will not be intimidated by your empty threats, Viceroy!”
“Padmé,” Obi-Wan said, pleading silently with her to listen to him. Her eyes were huge, her expression terrified beneath her facepaint, and he could tell from the way she was holding herself that it was all she could do not to launch herself at the vidscreen. As if that would help. “Don’t do it.”
This time he couldn’t hold back his scream as electricity shot through his body for what felt like an eternity before it finally ceased. Somewhere in it he heard Padmé cry out in alarm, felt her fear ratcheting through the Force.
Obi-Wan could feel tears running down his face, shuddering uncontrollably from the pain. He made himself look up anyway, seeing Padmé leaning forward in her throne, her hands fixed in fists on the arms.
“Viceroy Gunray,” she said, “I swear on the tombs of my ancestors and the head of my unborn child that if you harm him, I will burn your homeworld and its colonies to ash. By the time my fleet and my army have finished off your purse worlds there will not be so much as a Neimodian flea anywhere in this galaxy. And I will not sign your treaty!”
Force save me, but I love her.
“Then Kenobi will die,” Gunray smirked. “And my bombardment of your planet will continue until you come to your senses.”
Rage briefly overcame fear in Padmé’s eyes. “If my planet burns, then so does yours.”
Do it, part of Obi-Wan wanted to say. Burn it all to the ground. But even after twelve years he was still too much of a Jedi to let those be his last words, so he straightened his back and raised his head, feeling the battle droid’s blaster barrel dig into his skill. Padmé’s blistering gaze went from Gunray to him, her eyes widening as her lips shaped his name.
“Padmé, I love you,” he said.
A Jedi would have told her not to seek vengeance, that there was no such thing as death, that he was more than the crude shell of his body, but Obi-Wan hadn’t been a Jedi for twelve years. Instead he told her the only truth he could offer, the one truth that they both knew.
“I will not negotiate with terrorists,” she repeated.
Obi-Wan kept his gaze locked on her face, her beautiful face, and waited for someone to pull the trigger.