Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I’m going to murder you,” Obi-Wan said. “I’m going to murder you and not a single soul will blame me.”

In front of him, Quinlan looked entirely too proud of himself. Murder, Obi-Wan decided, might be letting Quinlan off too easily.

“Nice to see you too, Obi-Wan.” He sauntered down from his ship. “I have bought you both recruits and hostages. You’re welcome.”

Recruits? Hostages? Even in Obi-Wan’s head the words had the squeak of hyperventilation.

“You did what?”

Behind Quinlan, Aayla came sauntering down the ramp, looking like she was having the time of her life. 90 percent of the time Aayla was a picture of serenity and composure—a miracle given who raised her—but then that other 10 percent… well, she proved that she truly was Quinlan’s padawan.

“I’m one of the recruits,” she informed him, sending a blinding smile towards him and then towards the clones behind him. Obi-Wan thought he felt one or two of them blush in the Force.

“Yoda turned himself into a hostage,” Obi-Wan tried. “I didn’t do that. I don’t want any hostages. Only willing people.”

“I knew it,” came the triumphant voice of Mace Windu of all people as he poked his head out of the ship. He came down the landing ramp, followed by Shaak Ti and Plo Koon. All three had rope ‘tied’ around their hands, though Mace’s nearly fell off when he pointed at Obi-Wan not-quite threateningly. “You have given me a migraine the size of a sun. I want the VIP hostage treatment.”

“What?” Obi-Wan asked, desperate for things to make sense again.

The Force was laughing. Again.

Cody—good, solid General Cody—stepped forward. “You’ll need to turn over your weapons, sirs.”

All three councillors turned over their lightsabers without even a moment hesitation. Obi-Wan narrowed his eyes at them, but Mace just gave him an almost evil smile.

“You get to deal with all of this,” he said, sounding self-satisfied. “I’m taking a vacation.” He turned, eyes narrowed in the direction Yoda’s Force presence was shining. “Now where is that troll, we need to have words.” Several of the clones led Mace and Plo away, both Jedi Councillors containing a manic energy about them that meant that Yoda had better be watching out.

Obi-Wan suspected that he wouldn’t see the three of them for a while. Yoda was undoubtedly going to be leading them on a merry chase in an attempt to avoid the lecture he obviously deserved.

Obi-Wan would take more pleasure at the idea if he hadn’t just been given three more Jedi Hostages.

Shaak gave him an almost sympathetic smile, though there was a little too much teeth in the expression. “I would have volunteered to join your alliance, but we decided that wasn’t the best optics for the rest of the order. So hostage it was.” She glanced at her chrono. “The ship with the younglings will be here soon. I’ll help get them to wherever you need.”

“Younglings?”

“Of course,” Shaak shook her head. “We couldn’t leave them behind, after all.” She looked around, before frowning slightly at him. “Where’s Jocasta?”

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t see her get off the ship.”

Shaak laughed, Quinlan sniggering behind her as though he knew something Obi-Wan didn’t. “Of course she didn’t. She left before us.”

Obi-Wan paled. Jocasta Nu. Was already here. That was the most terrifying thing he’d heard since he’d been trapped behind a ray shield listening to Dooku.

Jocasta Nu was a force of nature and someone had set her loose on Melida/Daan.

Quinlan sniggered again, as though he wasn’t terrified out of his wits when it came to the head archivist.

Murder was definitely too good for Quinlan. Obi-Wan was going to put him in charge of paperwork for this.

He sent a glare at his friend, but it didn’t phase Quinlan in the slightest, who had his arms crossed over his chest and was leaning against his ship. He winked and gave Obi-Wan a roguish grin.

“I hate you,” Obi-Wan informed him, voice steady despite the way his mind was racing. “I’m not a Jedi anymore, so I’m allowed to do that now.”

Quinlan scoffed. “You’ll always be a Jedi and you’ve never hated me a day in your life.”

“Hate,” Obi-Wan repeated.

He glanced at the ship warily. “Is there anyone else in there?”

Quinlan just grinned. “One or two more.”

“About three dozen,” Aayla said at the same time. “The younglings are on another ship with some of the masters, and I know a couple of master-padawan pairs are going to be returning here.”

Obi-Wan glared at Quinlan again.

Quinlan just smirked.

“We figured that SAFE would need their own Jedi Order,” Aayla added as though that would make things better. “We only took volunteers.”

“And here I thought there were hostages.”

Quinlan shrugged. “They volunteered to be hostages. Honestly, I thought Windu was going to handcuff himself to the ship before I handed him some rope.”

This was Yoda’s fault, Obi-Wan decided. The Force had been laughing at him ever since Yoda had spoken those fateful words—it had started laughing earlier, really, but it’d gotten distinctly noticeable with Yoda—and it hadn’t stopped since.

“You’re still on my murder list,” Obi-Wan told Quinlan.

Next to him, Cody made a note on his datapad.

“Figuratively,” Obi-Wan added, just in case.

Cody didn’t write anything else on the datapad, but hopefully things were fine.

“Kenobi!” Someone called, and Obi-Wan turned. Fett was striding towards him, Boba and R2 tagging along, the two were arguing with each other about something Obi-Wan decided he didn’t want to know the details of.

Fett currently was in charge of those two. If anything exploded it was his fault.

“What?”

Fett stopped, eyeing Quinlan and Aayla skeptically. “What’s this?”

“Recruits,” Quinlan said, still way too smug. “I’m Obi-Wan’s best friend and I’m absolutely his left-hand man.”

Cody muttered something under his breath at that, that Obi-Wan couldn’t quite pick up from beneath the helmet.

That was fine.

“Left hand?” Fett asked. 

Quinlan’s smile went feral. “That’s right. Right hands have to be respectable. Left hands actually get things done.”

“Quin,” Obi-Wan interrupted. “Help the rest of your… recruits go get settled.” He narrowed his eyes and waited until Quinlan decided to go along with his order—it wasn’t obedience, Quinlan didn’t obey anyone, he just decided that his decisions lined up with what someone else wanted.

“All right, all right. I’ll be there for our next planning meeting!” he called as he got back on the ship.

Obi-Wan sighed, turning back to Fett who was still glaring at Quinlan. “What did you need?”

Fett turned back towards him and tilted his head. “We’ve got some delegates who’d like to swear their allegiance.”

Obi-Wan stared at Fett for a long moment as he tried to make sense of that. “I’m sorry, what?”

Fett raised a brow, clearly judging him—Obi-Wan wished the man was wearing his helmet to hide what he was coming to realize was an annoyingly attractive, and always too smug, face—but he still answered. “Delegates. From several planets. Here to join SAFE.”

How was his fake movement turning into this? 

“Right,” he said. And he really, really wanted to do anything other than go see these delegates. “Are you handling that?”

Fett’s eyebrow somehow arched even higher. “Mandalore isn’t in charge of SAFE, we’re just the first to join it. You’re still in charge of everything.”

If only.

If Obi-Wan were really in charge people would stop making everything harder than it had to be.

“Fine,” Obi-Wan muttered. He sent another glare back at Quinlan who was escorting a few Jedi out of his ship under Aayla’s direction.

Oh Quinlan was going to have to do so much paperwork. He would be begging for forgiveness before this was through.

He followed Fett back towards the center of Zehava. “Who do we have?” he asked.

Fett pulled out a datapad, reading off a few planets. Many he already knew, having been there on missions, though there were a few he’d need to research some more. “…Naboo, and…” Fett continued.

“Wait,” Obi-Wan interrupted, head jerking to stare at Fett. “Naboo?”

Fett gave him a look. “Yes, Naboo.”

“The Chancellor of the Republic is literally from Naboo,” he protested. “They can’t be seriously thinking of joining SAFE. It would throw Republic politics into a tizzy.”

Not that he would mind anything that shook Palpatine’s support system. That man had always made Obi-Wan uneasy, his term should have ended two years ago, but he was still in power and didn’t seem to have any inclination to change that.

Fett shrugged. “Well, they’re here.”

Obi-Wan increased his pace slightly. Force, this whole thing was turning into a mess.

He used to think he was good at this sort of thing, figuring out just how people would react in any given situation. But so far he was proving very, very wrong. He’d thought that perhaps eventually they’d have people want to join. But not so early, not when he’d done literally nothing to prove himself.

Force, he’d been through years of galactic history and this was not what history had told him would happen.

Had something infected the water in literally half of the galaxy to cause these reactions?

They reached the ‘palace’, a term that had been chosen more ironically than anything else. The building had the distinction of having survived the war stable enough to not need to be pulled down in the years of reconstruction that had followed.

Nield had commented a few days ago that they’d hoped their new government could have the same distinction. To stand strong amidst chaos.

It was a beautiful thought.

He stepped into the ‘throne room’—another ironic title rather than an accurate one—to find it milling with politicians. It took a great deal of effort not to grimace at the sheer overwhelming sense of politics that flooded the room.

It was almost a physical sensation, as though by sheer power of existing they had turned them room into an ostentatious, pompous gala.

Beside him R2 beeped happily.

Obi-Wan sent him a betrayed look, then saw where R2 was facing.

“Sabe!” he called out, relief filling him.

Sabe’s eyes narrowed and she strode over to him in a way that meant business. “Buying the Republic time,” she hissed, and it took Obi-Wan a moment to realize she was quoting his earlier message to Padme and Anakin. Force, that felt as though it’d been years ago. Things had… changed, since then. “Is this what you call that?”

Obi-Wan opened his mouth, then shut it. “I suppose things got a little out of hand.” He frowned. “I’m surprised Padme isn’t here to give me a lecture herself.”

Sabe crossed her arms, foot tapping like a countdown indicating he had moments to save himself from her ire.

“I don’t know where she is. No one does.”

Obi-Wan sighed, rubbing at his forehead. He turned to R2. “Do you want to explain yourself to Sabe, R2?”

R2 let out a hesitant beep which gained him a giggle from Boba. R2 whirled on him, beeping something that Obi-Wan translated as ‘watch me’. R2 turned back towards Sabe and let out a long string of beeps and whistles, occasionally rolling back and forth.

By the end of it Sabe looked exasperated. “Why is absolutely none of this a surprise?”

“I don’t know about that,” Obi-Wan mused. “The fact that Padme is sending ‘stupid human faces’ at Anakin is rather shocking. He’s my padawan and I love him, but I wouldn’t call him particularly good at flirting.”

Sabe paused, then tilted her head. “You’ve got a point. I would never have pegged the two of them.” Her gaze shifted to the side where R2, and Boba were all standing, before her gaze flicked to Fett, then to Obi-Wan, then back to Fett. “But I wouldn’t have guessed a few things.”

Obi-Wan frowned and Fett coughed. 

R2 and Boba both let out gleeful sounds and Obi-Wan decided that anything that made those two so gleeful needed to be ignored.

“We’ll retrieve them from Tatooine,” Obi-Wan promised. “But we have two important matters to discuss before then.”

Sabe raised an eyebrow at that. “Two. I see one. Naboo is joining SAFE. The Queen sent me as her ambassador. Well, she’ll be making Padme her Senator for SAFE, so I’m really here in her place.”

Obi-Wan made a face. “Your Chancellor is from Naboo.”

Sabe snorted, face twisting in disgust. “Look, Padme might still trust that man, but if you ask me…” she trailed off meaningfully. “I’ve never liked the man.”

For some reason the response filled him with relief. She really would be perfect for this new position he was thinking of. “Now, I know your loyalty is to Naboo, to Padme.”

“Good to know you’re intelligent,” she remarked wryly.

He was wondering, these days, whether that was true. “I have no desire to subvert that loyalty, but I’d like to hire you. Temporarily.”

Everyone seemed to be surprised, and then R2 let out an encouraging whistle, wiggling back and forth.

Well, good to know he had some support. “Look, you’ve been wrangling Padme Amidala for ten years.” He waved to the room and the politicians waiting for him to deal with them. “You can handle them. And you have a talent for spotting… well, let’s say I agree with your assessment of the Chancellor. I don’t want that in SAFE.” Even if SAFE was a fake, temporary alliance. He couldn’t stomach the idea of allowing corruption in before it even began.

“It’ll be dangerous to just dismiss a politician,” she said slowly. 

“If they won’t truly support our manifesto, then we have no desire to have them here.”

Something in Sabe’s eyes softened; then her eyes turned to kyber. “It is a tempting offer.” She turned towards the room. “This would be fun,” she mused, as though clearly genuinely considering the offer.

Obi-Wan let out a breath of relief. At least someone thought so. But then Sabe seemed the sort who liked to bully politicians into submission. That was more than fine with him.

She turned and gave him a look, and then her gaze drifted up and down. “We have a deal on one condition.”

Obi-Wan felt a chill of unease run through him. “Just one condition?”

“You let me and Padme’s other handmaidens take care of the travesty that is your wardrobe.” 

Obi-Wan felt himself pale. He stared down at his clothes, they were the fanciest ones he had and they’d had to scavenge for them from a mix of Nield’s clothes, who had been in politics too long to not have a few high quality pieces.

It had looked fairly respectable, he’d thought.

In fact, he’d been told he’d looked ‘rather striking’ in the manifesto. 

“You want to… take care of my wardrobe.” She eyed his hair and Obi-Wan felt a twinge of nervousness. “Let’s say we’ll take care of your public appearance until you can find your own team. Trust me, Padme will understand. And she at least can dress herself appropriately.”

“My own team,” he repeated. He was starting to feel mildly offended. Around him R2, Fett, and Boba seemed unfairly amused. Of course, he hadn’t expected either Fett or Boba to be helpful, but R2 could have at least taken his side.

“Appearance is important,” she said simply, as though that explained everything.

Still….

He weighed the benefit of Sabe taking over the inducting delegates and politicians into SAFE versus giving over control of his appearance for a short while.

“Deal.”

Anything to avoid the politicians.

Sabe’s eyes sparked with excitement as she looked at the room full of delegates. “Wonderful.” Without another word she strode forward, voice already ringing out as she called the room into order.

It was perhaps the first thing that had gone right since this whole mess had started.

“They’re going to chop your hair off,” Fett informed him, sounding gleeful.

Obi-Wan turned to him, raising an eyebrow even as he resisted raising a hand to touch his hair. “You can’t know that.”

Fett just smirked, and Obi-Wan was shocked still as Fett actually reached out and touched the end of Obi-Wan’s hair, his fingers brushing against Obi-Wan’s skin. “Please, even I know you’d look even better with your hair a touch less… that.”

He couldn’t help the offended huff that escaped him, though it came out strangely as though he wasn’t breathing quite right. Before he could retort his comm beeped. The comm code indicated it was General Cody and he immediately answered it.

“Supreme Commander—“ again with the titles. What was he going to have to do to get those to stop? ”—There are a dozen battle cruisers coming towards Melida/Daan.”

Obi-Wan froze, his emotions plummeting. So soon? Where had the Republic or the Separatists found another army so quickly?

Surely there couldn’t have been three secret armies.

Right?

“I’m on my way,” he said. “Meet in the peace hall.”

It felt sacrilege to turn the peace hall into a war room again. But there was nothing for it.

R2-D2 let out a nervous beep and Obi-Wan shook his head. “I don’t know yet. But we’ll figure something out.”

Peace talks would be their best bet. He’d have to turn himself over.

He hadn’t gotten far enough. He hadn’t gained enough influence to keep those who’d followed him safe. Would he be able to fulfill his promise to never let them be forced into war if they didn’t want to fight?

He had to. He could feel it deep down that he had to keep these armies safe.

General Cody and several other clone and droid officers were already gathered by the time Obi-Wan arrived with his entourage in tow.

“What information do we have?”

“Republic insignia,” Cody answered promptly. The Republic. Force, that felt like the worse option. “We’ve started gathering the troops, they’ll be ready if they attack.”

“That’s assuming they don’t proceed with orbital bombardment,” Fett muttered. “The Republic has a history of that.”

“That’s a war crime,” Obi-Wan protested.

Fett just raised an eyebrow.

A cold pit was beginning to form in his stomach.

The room comm beeped, and Obi-Wan moved to answer it immediately. It was a young man he didn’t recognize, though the pin on his shirt noted him as a communication worker. “Sir,” he said, voice trembling. “There’s a hail from the battle cruisers. Should I patch it through?”

Obi-Wan took a deep breath. He was a trained negotiator. He could keep his people safe.

“Yes, send them through.”

For a moment it was silent and then a blue image blinked into form.

Obi-Wan didn’t know what he’d expected but it was not what he saw.

A Weequay wearing a thick pair of goggles and a rather roguish hat was beaming at him.

Obi-Wan didn’t have a chance to speak before the Weequay was speaking. “It is I, the great and honorable Hondo Ohnaka,” he declared. “Pirate, and if you play your cards right, Privateer for your lovely little alliance.”

The whole room was stunned speechless.

“Ohnaka,” Fett snarled. “What are you playing at.”

Hondo Ohnaka seemed to peer at Fett. “My friend!” he cried out after a moment. “Tell your lovely supreme commander how fine a pirate I am.”

“Fine a pirate?” Fett snorted. “You’re a nuisance and a petty thief.”

That was, in Obi-Wan’s opinion, what a good majority of pirates were.

Hondo put a hand to his chest, making a sound of deep offense. “A petty thief. A petty thief you say? This petty thief has retrieved thirteen battle cruisers for your alliance.”

Thirteen battle cruisers. Obi-Wan couldn’t help but feel impressed. Oh, it was a drop in the bucket when one thought about how many battle cruisers one would need to take over the galaxy. Not that that was what they were doing. But it was a show of force nonetheless.

It would certainly help scare the slavers on Tatooine.

“It’s a good idea,” Fett murmured. He sounded distinctly displeased to be admitting it. “Ohnaka’s a pest, but he’s brilliant in his own way.”

It was enough of a recommendation for Obi-Wan.

“Once the freed slaves have been recompensed, you will split the remaining profit with the government they establish.” The slaves had to come first, though the idea of this Hondo Ohnaka taking these ships elsewhere weighed on his mind. “That is presuming that we succeed on Tatooine,” he added. “Should that be satisfactory we can discuss further payment before we look at Hutt Space.” He didn’t think he was imagining the way Hondo’s eyes brightened, even through the holo, at the mention of taking Hutt Space.

Hondo’s eyes sparkled with glee. “You will not regret this. The Great and Honorable Hondo Ohnaka is the finest partner a man as esteemed as yourself could have.” Hondo winked.

Obi-Wan resisted a snort. He wouldn’t exactly call himself ‘esteemed’. And he certainly doubted that Hondo was going to be ‘the finest partner’. 

There was something twisting in his gut. He was doing this. Force help him, but he was actually doing this.

Just Tatooine, he thought. They’d free the slaves, work to set up a democracy while making loud statements about expansion they wouldn’t do anything to follow through on.

The Republic and the Separatist would see reason.

Then things would resolve themselves.

Just Tatooine, he reassured himself.

He and Hondo agreed to meet to finalize their deal, and Hondo signed off with a gleeful, “I’ll bring the alcohol!”

That was sure to be interesting. Maybe Obi-Wan could send Sabe to make that deal too.

But as capable as Hondo potentially was… Obi-Wan didn’t want to risk Sabe scaring him away.

“You’ll have to watch out, that swill will knock a Trandoshan out cold,” Fett commented. “You’ll need back up.”

Obi-Wan would keep that in mind. He eyed R2 who was literally shaking back in forth, apparently too exhilarated to so much as beep his joy.

He might very well want to be knocked out cold. R2 was clearly up to something. “R2 and General Cody will likely be there,” he said absently. Even if R2 was up to something. He was Obi-Wan’s Droid General.

Fett seemed mildly peeved at that.

Given how little the man seemed to like Ohnaka, Obi-Wan found that strange.

The comm beeped again and Obi-Wan frowned. The same young man as before was there. “Sir, we’re receiving a hail from Tatooine.”

Obi-Wan frowned. “Tatooine?” That seemed… ominous. “Put them through.”

Someone was talking even before the holo had fully formed and Obi-Wan found himself staring at an excited Anakin. “—you’ve got to come, Master Obi-Wan. We’re holding Tatooine for now. But we’ll need some of your armies if we’re going to keep it before the gangs re-establish themselves.”

“Pardon?” Obi-Wan asked, voice far fainter than he’d planned.

Anakin beamed. “I helped start the slave rebellion for you,” he said cheerfully. His gaze turned almost wistful. “I knew I’d free all the slaves here someday.”

“You started the slave rebellion,” Obi-Wan repeated, the words running on repeat through his mind. 

Anakin nodded. “I couldn’t let you do this without me! Mom’s in charge for now. Padme’s helping her. But you need to get here.” There was the faint sound of a call from Anakin’s side of the holo and he turned towards it. “Gotta go! Mom needs me!” He sent Obi-Wan another bright, excited beam. Obi-Wan hadn’t seen him this happy since… well, it’d been a few years.

Obi-Wan didn’t have time to respond before the holo was shutting off.

For a moment the room was silent before it burst into noise.

Fett seemed to crack into laughter, leaning against the wall to support himself. “Yes, that’s clearly your padawan.” His eyes were glittering with glee, not unlike the glee he’d seen from the pirate, and he was staring at Obi-Wan with a look he couldn’t quite decipher.

Boba let out a massively offended yelp at that, “his padawan?” He whirled toward where the holo had been, glaring at it. Obi-Wan wasn’t sure how Anakin had already offended Boba, but it might be a new record.

Beside him R2 was somehow vibrating even harder, making a high-pitched noise that sounded genuinely concerning.

General Cody was already ordering the other officers around in preparation for heading to Tatooine, giving Obi-Wan a nod as though to ensure him he had everything under control.

Obi-Wan glared at all of them.