“Master, do you think it’s true? If those Jedi Masters really tried to kill Skywalker then why wouldn’t he just say so? I don’t understand…”

  “There could be many reasons for it, Ahsoka. The most obvious being that he truly thinks that the Council were the ones that ordered that he be killed. I know that this case weighs on your mind, but we’re on a mission now.”

  “Why are we on another mission already? I thought even the last one was something rare for a new padawan.”

  “I’ve decided that some more practical experience would serve you better than training at the temple. Most Masters do wait until much later until taking their Padawans along them on missions. But there’s no rule on coming with me unless the mission is designated as too dangerous or I’m specifically ordered not to. It will be good to do some things here on Coruscant. The beating heart of the Republic, and close enough to the Temple for support if anything goes wrong.”

  “So I’ll be going on more missions like this in the future then?”

  “Yes. Instead of traditional training, I’ve selected a series of more difficult tasks that we’ll be doing together. It will test your investigation and personal skills more than combat hopefully.”

  “So, what’s our mission today?”

  “We’ll be going to one of the local markets. Several of the food stand vendors are accusing each other of using spoiled food and serving it to their customers. Most, probably even all of them are lying, but they’re all kicking up a fuss and scaring away all of their business because of the rumors they’re starting about each other. It’s our job to determine what if any truth there are to the rumors.”

  “Master? Should we do something like this? Isn’t this something for the police to handle?”

  “Theoretically. But it hasn’t been and won’t be. It’s all just rumors and hearsay from the stall owners. When all their food was checked it was found to be fine. Likely all of them knew that the inspection was coming ahead of time. I did say I’d start easy and work our way up, didn’t I? They might tell you things that they might not tell the police about the situation.”

  “Will you be coming with me, Master?” Ahsoka asked as she noticed Obi-wan falling back slightly as they approached what must be the market that he was talking about.

  “No,” he said, “I might scare them off. Weren’t you wondering why I’m wearing these clothes rather than Jedi robes? No, I’ll be a customer while you talk to the stall owners and complete your mission. I’ll be nearby if anything goes wrong. Perhaps I'll even find something that catches my eye.”

  “But I’ll have to talk to all of them by myself?”

  “Exactly. You’ll do fine. Even if you fail, the consequences are minimal at best. Now, let’s separate. We can’t be seen entering the markets together. Best of luck, my padawan.”

  “I won’t let you down, Master.”

  Ahsoka turned and hurried away in her Jedi robes with both lightsabers hanging on her hips as Obi-wan continued to walk at a slow pace, his own lightsaber concealed in his deep pockets in his street clothes.

  He entered the market and slowly wandered around through the milling crowds, buying a thing here and there as he watched Ahsoka at work going from stall to stall. She looked frustrated and confused as she talked with more and more of them. It was often difficult to determine fact from fiction. Obi-wan almost couldn’t believe it when he was offered this case when he went to the police station to check for any cases that he and his padawan could use for training.

  It was a perfect exercise to hone his padawan’s social skills. And get her out of the temple every once in a while. Maybe if he’d done so with Anakin then…

  Obi-wan cut off the train of thought abruptly and drifted through the crowd as he lost sight of Ahsoka for a moment before finding her again. No use of thinking of the past right now. He’d do right by his current padawan rather than worrying about his old one.

  Ahsoka had gone back to the first stall owner and was seemingly confronting him with all the other information she’d received from the others. The man looked irritated and was ranting at her, presumably on why all of his rivals were liars and cheats while he was the only honest one.

  Just as he was about to reach out to a piece of fruit from the stall in front of him, Obi-wan felt an intense pulse of danger in the Force and ducked down as he reached into his pocket.

  The stand in front of him exploded in a plume of spraying fruit as a sniper shot plowed into it.

  The market crowds screamed and started stampeding away even as Obi-wan activated his lightsaber and brought it around to block a second blaster bolt that nearly hit his chest before he could react.

  Even as most of the market crowds fled, more came streaming inwards. They threw back their cloaks to reveal that their bodies were covered in assorted body armor and their hands held old, if usable, military blaster rifles. Most of the civilians had fled, only the cowering stall vendors and a frozen Ahsoka left behind.

  “The Hutts send their regards!” A man in the front shouted before all of the mercenaries raised their blasters and opened fire on Obi-wan.

  Heart racing, Obi-wan used the Force to let him leap high in the air above their barrage of fire on the ground level. There was another burst of warning in the Force and Obi-wan shifted his lightsaber in mid-air to block the second sniper shot.

  “Master!” Ahsoka shouted from below and activated both of her lightsabers in her hands.

  Obi-wan landed among the mercenaries and raising his hand let out a burst of the Force that sent many of them flying away from the blast. Obi-wan dashed among them and with precise strikes with his lightsaber sheared through their blaster barrels and rendered them useless.

  “Aaaaaahhhhhh!”

  Obi-wan snapped his head around as he heard Ahsoka let out a high pitched scream. She stood with a look of shock and clutching the smoking hole in the right side of her chest. Her two lightsabers fell from her hands and she swayed on her feet even as the three mercenaries in front of her raised their weapons to fire again.

  Obi-wan’s focus refined itself into a sharp point and with a swell of the Force he dashed forward so fast that a burst of air blasted behind him and threw the remaining mercenaries around him to the floor again from where they had gone to stand.

  In another burst of Force, Obi-wan stopped just past the three mercenaries with his lightsaber held horizontally. The three men looked shocked for a moment before their upper halves slid off and fell to the ground from where Obi-wan’s lightsaber had easily passed through all of them as he dashed past.

  “Master,” Ahsoka muttered deliriously before her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she started to collapse to the floor.

  Obi-wan caught her with one arm and shifted his lightsaber to block as another sniper shot came blasting towards his injured apprentice.

  The mercenaries in the plaza were standing to their feet, unphased by the three men that Obi-wan had just killed. They reached to their sides and pulled out their side arms as the ones with their main weapons disabled by Obi-wan threw them to the side.

  Obi-wan felt the Force reinforcing his strength as used one arm to awkwardly pick up Ahsoka’s limp form and lift her with his arm looped underneath her armpits and her body clutched to his chest with her head lolling loosely on his shoulder.

  One of her head-tails rolled across his face and Obi-wan shook his head to clear his vision as he adjusted his grip on her with one arm as her legs dangled loosely near his knees.

  The mercenaries raised their weapons and prepared to fire on him again as another sniper shot came screaming in towards his center mass.

  His right hand out of position from adjusting his grip on Ahsoka, he didn’t have enough time to twist and block the blast. Using the Force, he shimmied to the side just enough that the heavy sniper shot came streaking by close enough that it singed the hair on the side of his head.

  Grip on Ahsoka secure, Obi-wan tensed his legs and then leapt upwards with the Force thrumming through him and letting him stay calm and focused despite the situation.

  The mercenaries fired up at Obi-wan, and most missed and struck the hovercars in the air lane above. The vehicles above started smoking and started swerving and descending towards the ground in a controlled crash as their autopilots did their job.

  Obi-wan twisted around in mid-air and blocked a single shot that managed to get close enough to hit them. Ahsoka’s legs went ragdolling at his sudden twist and her forehead slammed painfully against Obi-wan’s jaw even as he blocked the shot.

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  He started to descend downwards back towards the street, but used the Force to change his descent to the side towards a balcony on one of the buildings on the third floor on the side of the street.

  His feet touched down on the balcony as with a burst of the Force he came to a stop on its surface.

  He ducked and an instant later another sniper shot blasted past him and pierced through the door into the apartment behind. Obi-wan tensed his legs again and jumped again away from the mercenaries and down towards ground level.

  He blocked one final sniper shot and with a quick glance saw the mercenaries milling around confused in the abandoned market square behind him. As his feet touched the ground and he started running again one of them pointed in his direction and shouted. All of them turned and let out a barrage of blaster fire, heedless of the damage they did to all of the buildings on the seemingly abandoned street around Obi-wan.

  Obi-wan pushed his legs further as they thrummed with the Force and let him bound and shoot forward down the street with every step as if he were being propelled by engine thrusters.

  After only a few seconds and a few more blocked blaster shots, he turned a corner onto another street and lost sight of the chasing mercenaries. The sniper hadn’t fired at him again after that last attempt.

  Obi-wan dashed towards the shafts up to the surface. They were only on level fourteen deep from the surface of Coruscant; it was supposed to be relatively safe on these levels for his Padawan’s first mission…

  Obi-wan reached the central shaft to the surface with the glow of real sunlight a little circle far above.

  He glanced around and spotted a Republic police cruiser hovering there over a landing pad on his level. He dashed forward and used the Force to open the back door and jump inside while still holding his injured apprentice to his chest.

  “Wha- Sir, you can’t- Holy Kriff! Is that a- Jedi?!” The officer in the front spluttered as he looked back from the driver’s seat.

  “Get me to the surface now,” Obi-wan demanded, “My Padawan needs treatment immediately.”

  “Uh, sir Jedi. It’s…”

  “Shut up and listen to him! Here, I’ll call it in to the station…” the Republic Officer’s partner in the passenger seat said as he caught a glance at Ahsoka who Obi-wan was laying flat on the seats next to him even as he closed the door behind him even as he deactivated his lightsaber that he just noticed had carved a burning line across the ceiling as he entered the car.

  The first officer shut up and the vehicle’s sirens turned on as it started flying upwards at full speed so the walls of the shaft blurred by.

  Obi-wan focused on his padawan’s condition with concern as she lay splayed out on the back seat with one of her arms hanging over the edge with her fingers just barely dragging on the floor.

  Her breathing was hitched and shallow and it looked like her whole right lung had collapsed inwards from the blaster shot that had hit her a few centimeters below her collarbone and seared a hole deep into her body, luckily stopping just before it reached her spine from how it looked as Obi-wan carefully shifted her to inspect the hole of cauterized hole of burned flesh from the plasma from the blaster bolt that had hit her.

  She might be suffering from some internal bleeding too, Obi-wan mused as he inspected the wound closer. She needed to be checked out at a medical center or get some bacta soon if he didn’t want the injury to get any worse.

  Their hovercar shot out of the tunnel and reached the surface of Coruscant and open air even as the driver ignored all of the air lanes as their sirens blared.

  “Sir, where should we go? The best hospital’s a bit farther than the closest by a few minutes, she’s not looking good…” the officer in the passenger said as he looked back at them.

  He was right, Ahsoka’s orange face was paling slightly even as she continued to struggle to breath with one of her collapsed right lung with her eyes closed.

  “Go to the best one,” Obi-wan said firmly, “It’s more secure. We can’t go to a public hospital unless it’s our last option.”

  “Understood. Let’s–”

  Obi-wan’s eyes widened and he reached out his hand and with a burst of the Force dragged the control wheel to the side and sent their whole vehicle jerking to the side. The driver swore and tried to correct their course only for something to whizz by them before exploding above them.

  The hovercar shook and the thrusters cut out for an instant and they fell briefly before they activated again and all of them slammed into the floor again, Ahsoka sent tumbling into the footing space and off of the seat as Obi-wan struggled to keep his balance as orange flames filled the space just outside of the left window and peppered it lightly with shrapnel before burning itself out.

  Obi-wan looked right and saw that on top of a nearby building was a masked woman holding a giant metal cylinder over her shoulder. She pulled the trigger on the cylinder again.

  “Dodge!” Obi-wan shouted and used the Force again to swerve their vehicle as another rocket came streaking by and just barely missed them again.

  The hovercar gunned it and before the woman on the roof could fire another rocket they were blasting away.

  “How long before we reach the hospital?” Obi-wan asked as the woman faded from view.

  “About nine minutes, sir. I’m calling the station, it’s…”

  Obi-wan stopped paying attention as he noticed two reinforced vehicles in the air lanes on either side of them exit and start flying towards them.

  “Incoming! Prepare for impact!” Obi-wan shouted before the first craft rammed into them full speed and sent the whole hovercar spinning around rapidly as they fell towards the ground.

  Obi-wan leapt to the floor and grabbed Ahsoka’s head and shoulders and tried to prevent her from getting any more hurt as he fell on top of her from the force of their rapid spins.

  The officers up front were cursing up a storm as he tried to stabilize the hovercar as they plunged downwards.

  The spin slowed down and their fall came to a halt just in time for blaster fire to strike the top of their vehicle.

  Obi-wan looked out of the window and saw several figures leaning out of the windows of their reinforced vehicles and holding blaster rifles and firing down at them.

  Ignoring all of the safety protocols, the officer gunned it and pushed the vehicle to its maximum speed as the two following vehicles chased after them while still opening fire.

  Obi-wan crouched defensively over Ahsoka as the blaster fire shattered the side and back windows of the reinforced vehicle and went over his head and into the hovercar’s roof.

  “Where’s our support?” Obi-wan shouted over the sizzling plasma that were spraying the roof of the vehicle and boring holes through its already battered frame, “Where’s the rest of the Republic Security forces?”

  “I don’t know!” the officer on the passenger’s seat shouted over the chaos and loud wind rushing by them, “Everything’s in chaos over the channel! Something about an attack on the Senate building!”

  “How close to the hospital? Some other group we could contact?”

  “I- About two minutes to the hospital, sir Jedi! Security forces there should be able to fight them there. The hospital always has some troops.”

  More plasma fire came towards them and one of their thrusters sputtered for a moment before firing again.

  “We won’t make it two minutes,” Obi-wan realized, “Hand me your blaster, officer.”

  “Sir, I-”

  “Hand it over,” Obi-wan said firmly. The man hesitated again but reached to his side and slipped the blaster through the gap to the front compartment and back to Obi-wan.

  Obi-wan slipped his lightsaber into his pocket and leaned out the shattered window and stabilized his grip on the blaster by bracing his forearm with the blaster pistol with his free hand.

  He took careful aim at one of the men leaning out of the following hovercars that was aiming his weapon at them.

  Obi-wan fired his pistol and the man slumped and went tumbling out of the window, falling down through the open air to the ground far below.

  The remaining seven or so mercenaries poking their heads out of the cars were taken out in sequence and with cold efficiency by Obi-wan’s supernaturally good aim, guided by the Force with each shot. After a few moments no more of them emerged and the two chasing vehicles reluctantly peeled off and started flying away.

  “We’re by the hospital, sir,” the driver shouted over the roaring wind.

  Obi-wan returned inside of the hovercar and passed the blaster back to the officer who had handed it to him with a faint sense of distaste. He always hated how easy it was to kill people with blasters. It made him feel like a ruthless soldier rather than someone doing their best to embody the Jedi ideals of Peace and Justice.

  The officers sorted out the situation with the confused and alarmed hospital security forces over their communicators while Obi-wan checked Ahsoka’s pulse as she lay on the floor. She was bruised in several places from being thrown around in the car and her breathing was still erratic. But despite being weak, her pulse was steady and unchanging as she lay there on the floor.

  Using the Force, Obi-wan carefully lifted her in the air and placed her back onto the seat cushions rather than on the floor in the leg space.

  They touched down on the ground and Obi-wan followed after the hospital staff as they put Ahsoka on a hovering stretcher and started wheeling her away for treatment.

  He waited in the hospital lobby, and only let out a soft breath of relief when one of the nurses returned and informed him that Ahsoka was stable and that she would recover. Shouldn’t have to stay in the hospital for more than a few days with some liberal use of bacta.

  Bacta was expensive. The nurse cautiously questioned his budget, but Obi-wan waved her off and told her to bill the Jedi temple for it. He was still in his street clothes, and his lightsaber was still hidden in his pocket, so it seems that people didn’t recognize as a Jedi without him telling them first at the moment.

  Obi-wan looked down at his communicator in his hand that was buzzing. In the chaos of the frantic chase with the mercenaries, Obi-wan had forgotten to call the Jedi temple or the Republic security forces for assistance. His most recent messages had something about the situation at the Senate building no doubt. Some kind of explosion from the gossiping he’d heard from the other people sitting in the waiting room with him. If he answered then it would be his duty to go there and assist with the situation as a Jedi knight.

  But other Jedi could deal with that, and he wouldn’t be able to contribute much more with it already being over an hour and a half since it had happened.

  He had a padawan here that he had to wait for, he couldn’t leave until she was fully recovered. Not with people potentially being after him and her by extension. The Hutts even, although Obi-wan wasn’t sure what he had done that would provoke such a response in them.

  They were a crime syndicate that spanned the galaxy. They owned hundreds of worlds in Hutt space that were practically separate from Republic rule due to their overwhelming influence. What had he done that would make them send assassins after him specifically?

  No, whatever the reason, he couldn’t leave yet. Not when Ahsoka was still being treated. He’d sworn to himself after Anakin that he wouldn’t let outside influences convince him to neglect his padawan ever again, even if the Council ordered him to. So here he would stay until her recovery was not just likely but assured. And there was some real security for her beyond the standard security forces that were more used to chasing away drunks and opportunistic thieves than an organized galaxy spanning gang and the mercenaries that they could hire.

  He left the communicator buzzing and slipped it back into his pocket. If they truly needed him, then they could send someone over to collect him. But until then he would remain here in this hospital with his padawan.