Chapter 64

Shae groggily rose to her feet, holding the side of her helmet. That Jedi had stabbed her in the back, almost literally, and she had been thrown down the corridor to slam into a closed door.

She had just finished killing all the pirates in the corridor when another had entered through a side door.

This new pirate had been a bigger challenge than the others and he had dodged her first blaster bolt, through what Shae had initially classified as blind luck.

Shae had ultimately bested the final pirate though, after delivering a swift kick to his face, and was just about to kill the man when the jedi had screamed and attacked her.

The ungrateful space-witch obviously didn't want the pirate to die and had decided the best way to stop it had been to send Shae smashing into a metal door. Something that could have ended much worse if Shae hadn't of been wearing a helmet.

As Shae looked back up the corridor, she saw that Alpha had clearly responded poorly to the jedi attacking her and was now holding the jedi by the throat nearly two feet of the ground.

The jedi's face was going red as she grasped at Alpha's metal hand with both of her own, desperately trying to loosen his vice-like grip, as her feet kicked helplessly below her.

Shae saw the pirate she had been about to kill also rise to his feet and noticed the lightsabre clasped in one of his hands.

She remembered how he had dodged her blaster bolt and realised that that wasn't just due to luck, the man was a jedi. Probably disguised as a pirate to infiltrate Krayn's base.

She also remembered Renn's friend Anakin insisting that his master would be coming to rescue him and guessed that this must be that man.

Siri trying to stop his death then made sense. But still, Shae wasn't about to forgive her for attacking her.

She saw the new jedi, the man who was probably Anakin's master, prepare to fight Alpha to rescue Siri and decided she better stop things before Alpha killed both of the jedi.

It would probably upset Renn if they upset his friend by killing the jedi. She would get her revenge on Siri, but later.

"Alpha. You should probably let her go now" Shae called out to the droid, who only complied after looking over at her and checking her up and down to make sure she was okay.

"Alpha?" The new jedi said, "The droid who was with Anakin's friend Renn on Tatooine?"

Alpha looked over at the jedi and nodded slowly, still clearly angry. Ignoring the coughing jedi at his feet, who was taking rapid breaths now that she could once again breath.

Shae was now feeling pretty confident in her guess of this being Anakin's master after finding out he knew both Renn and Alpha.

"Uhmm, good to see you again. I guess?" The jedi said looking awkwardly between Shae, Alpha and the still coughing Siri, clearly unsure how he was supposed to proceed.

"I cannot say I am experiencing similar emotions, meat-bag." Alpha said in his cold robotic voice.

"I guess that's fair," the jedi said nodding before pausing after he seemed to notice one of the words Alpha used. "Meat-bag?"

"You are an organic who's classification is unknown. As such you have been designated as Meat-bag." Alpha said simply as he strode past the jedi towards Shae to check to see if she was alright.

"Classification? You mean Name?" The jedi looked confused, "Wait we've met before, you know my name."

"The relevant data could not be found," Alpha said doing his best droid impression, an impression that given his robotic nature wasn't very hard for him to pull off.

"What do you mean? I thought droids were supposed to have near perfect memories?" The jedi said still confused.

"Unnecessary information is routinely purged to preserve memory space," Alpha said matter of factly, ignoring the jedi while he checked to make sure Shae didn't have a concussion.

"But your memory banks would be massive… oh… you're messing with me, aren't you?" The jedi said, the realisation clear on his face.

"Affirmative. Meat-bag." Alpha's deep robotic voice rumbled out.

The jedi stood looking at Alpha's back for a minute before shrugging and walking off to check on Siri, who was still on the ground coughing and clutching her throat in pain.

"You do not appear to have sustained any major injuries, young one." Alpha told Shae after checking her over. His voice quieter and containing far more compassion than when he was talking to the jedi.

"I'm fine Alpha, don't worry. But we should probably try to catch up to Renn soon though." Shae said patting the droid on his metallic shoulder affectionately.

"Agreed. I think-" Alpha stopped mid-sentence and cocked his head to the side as though he was listening to something.

"SHAEE!!" Opal's voice screamed over the comm built into Shae's helmet, loud enough for her to wince in pain.

"SHAE!... BIG EXPLOSION!... PIRATE!... RENN!... FALL!" Opal continued yelling full volume and didn't appear to have paused for breath for several minutes, making it difficult for Shae to make out exactly what was going on. But she could tell by Opal's panic that something bad had happened.

Shae was alert and ready to go and find Renn, who she was guessing from Opal's rant was the one in trouble. And looking at Alpha, who she had realised must be having his own loud internal conversation with Sapphire, the droid also seemed ready to run off any moment.

A small yelp was heard over the comm, followed by the sounds of a small scuffle. Before Seela's voice took over explaining things.

"Shae! Renn's in trouble, you need to go help him." Seela's voice was quieter and more understandable than Opal's, but it was still full of urgency and worry.

Shae was already up and running as soon she heard the way that Seela said Renn's name.

Alpha seemed to have got his own warning from Sapphire and was up and moving moments before Shae.

They both rushed through the door that they had seen Renn and Anakin disappear through earlier in the fight and began sprinting down the corridor behind it.

"What Happened?!" Shae asked, barely noticing the corridor she was running down was littered with dead and dismembered pirates.

"Some massive Trandoshan pirate got the drop on Renn and tackled him. They then both ended up falling over the railing of a walkway. We didn't see where they ended up falling too, but Sapphire says that Renn's armour is saying he's alive but injured." Seela explained over what seemed like muffled yells of rage, and Shae realised Seela was explaining while also covering Opal's mouth to stop her shouting.

Shae and Alpha were now approaching the final set of doors at the end of the hallway but neither of them seemed to want to slow down.

Alpha reached the doors first and, not even giving them a chance to open for him, smashed right through the steel alloy doors, as easily as if they were made of paper.

Shae dived through the ragged hole torn through the door and landed on a walkway overlooking a burning landing pad next to Alpha.

They both then turned to run towards the edge where Renn had last been seen before he fell.

-

Obi-wan nearly jumped when he saw Alpha the Assassin droid and the terrifying Mandalorian girl sprint out of the room.

Not that he was frightened by their sudden rapid movement. Definitely not. He was too powerful a jedi to be intimidated by such things.

Still though, with the Assassin droid and the Mandolorian's skills their evident worry did seem concerning.

"Are you okay Siri?" Obi-Wan asked his fellow jedi while looking at the door that Alpha and the girl had disappeared through with worry. His padawan was still missing and he had a feeling that he would end up being wherever it was that was most dangerous.

Siri grimaced while holding her throat in pain. She then nodded slowly while smiling weakly and offering a shacky thumbs up.

"Good," Obi-wan said smiling and patting Siri comfortingly on the shoulder before asking, "Siri have you seen Anakin?"

Siri, still in too much pain to talk, nodded and pointed towards the door the concerned Alpha and the Mandalorian girl had disappeared through.

"Uuuuh, why am I not surprised." Obi-Wan sighed in exasperation. "Come on let's go make sure he's not in too much trouble."

Obi-wan dragged Siri to her feet and began leader her down the corridor she had pointed out earlier.

They both sprinted down the corridor, passing the ruined bodies of pirates as they ran. They then reached a destroyed exterior door and exited the corridor onto a walkway overlooking pure chaos.

Alpha and the Mandalorian girl were nowhere to be seen. Obi-Wan looked around curiously before jumping in surprise when a window several floors above them exploded outwards and Two HK-50 assassin droids leapt out.

The assassin droids fell past the two stunned jedi before disappearing past them, heading towards the walkways lower down.

Obi-Wan was about to look to see where the droids went when his attention became focused on the landing pad in front of him.

A massive pillar of smoke and flames reached into the air, originating from the burning wreckage of a star ship.

Infront of the burning ship were two figures engaged in a fight to the death. Obi-Wan instantly recognised on of the figures as his padawan Anakin, and the other as the pirate overlord Krayn.

Krayn was lying on his back, covered in burns from whatever explosion destroyed his ship, and waving a wicked looking metal halberd in front of him. Desperately trying to keep Anakin away from him.

Anakin was walking slowly towards the pirate overlord his lightsabre ignited, its tip dragging across the floor, burning a long furrow into the landing pad. Anakin's face was a mask of cold fury as he made his way towards Krayn and Obi-Wan could sense his rage and hatred through the force, even though he was far away.

Anakin parried Krayn's swinging halberd with lazy swipe of his own lightsabre, and once the pirate's guard was open, he brought his lightsabre down to sever his arm.

Krayn screamed in pain while gazing at the bloody stump that was all that remained of his arm. His Halberd clattered to the ground; his severed hand still clutched tightly around its handle.

Anakin stared at the pirate, radiating pure malice, before silencing his screams by beheading Krayn with a savage swipe of his lightsabre.

Obi-Wan watched his padawan execute the pirate in cold blood with an uncomfortable feeling in his chest.

There was no denying Krayn was an evil being and a scourge of the galaxy, so Obi-Wan didn't exactly care about his death. But killing in anger, especially killing 'unarmed' opponents, wasn't the jedi way.

Obi-Wan heard Siri cough from beside him and he turned to look at his fellow jedi knight.

"Ack, your padawan doesn't really follow the Jedi code. I sense much darkness in him." Siri said, her voice a pained croak as she was still recovering from the damage caused by Alpha's choke hold.

Obi-Wan shrugged, "He'll be fine", he said before in a barely audible voice adding, "Probably."

-

Anakin watched as Krayn's head rolled across the landing pad before coming to a stop at his feet.

He took a deep breath and tried to calm his emotions. Krayn was dead, he had killed him himself, but the feeling of triumph wasn't there.

Anakin had expected to feel joy or maybe a sense of accomplishment when he killed the monster once known as Krayn. But instead, as he stared at the decapitated corpse of the pirate, he just felt… empty.

As the rage flowed out of him, he remembered he had ditched his friend in a corridor full of pirates and his mind began to flood with worry, and a bit of embarrassment.

He knew his friend was a capable fighter, but he still felt bad about leaving him behind to face a horde of enemies on his own, especially as he was only there as he had rushed to help Anakin.

Anakin turned to look around and finally noticed the destruction around him. He had been so focused on killing Krayn that he didn't notice the sounds of fighting all around.

He could hear the distant sounds of blaster fire echoing from down below and see smoke filling the air from multiple burning buildings from around Krayn's headquarters.

"Alright there Ani?" A voice called out from behind Anakin, and he jumped in surprise.

Anakin stared in shock as he turned to look at the voices origin and saw his friend, Renn, standing there covered head to toe in blood.